Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

Park · Buttes-Chaumont (19th)Paris,France

A Paris park blasted out of a hollowed gypsum quarry, its lake ringed by bare cliffs and a rock island carrying a Roman-style temple.

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is the only Paris park cut and moulded out of a quarry, and the cliffs are still bare rock with paths running across their faces. A lake fills the bottom. A rock island rises thirty metres out of the water with a small round temple on top, copied from one at Tivoli near Rome. Two bridges lead across, but the island and both bridges are fenced off. The park is a hill, so every path climbs, and the western slopes give long views toward Montmartre. The hill here had been mined for gypsum until it was hollow, and the surface was left as a rubbish tip and a yard where dead horses were cut up. In 1864 the state handed the ground to Jean-Charles Alphand, the engineer running Napoleon III's park programme, and told him to have it open in time for the world's fair. His crews blasted the quarry face into cliffs, moved two hundred thousand cubic metres of earth, dammed a lake and planted the whole thing. It opened in 1867. A cave under the cliff is the mouth of the old quarry, left open on purpose.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The paths are steep and loose in places — This is a quarry with a garden on top of it, so expect gravel slopes, drops without railings and long flights of steps.
The lawns fill on the first warm weekend — This is the local park for a dense quarter, so a Sunday afternoon in May puts several thousand people on the grass at once.
Late afternoon is when the cliffs look best — The rock faces west, so the sun reaches it at the end of the day and the whole quarry wall turns warm instead of grey.
Early morning belongs to the runners — The park opens at first light and the hill circuit is a training loop, so before eight it is joggers, dogs and almost nobody else.
There is a lot of climbing for short legs — The paths rise from every entrance, and a pushchair means taking the long way round on the lower circuit.

Things to do

1
Walk into the grotto behind the waterfall
Take the lower path round the lake to the cave in the cliff. Inside, the walls are moulded cement laid over the old quarry face. A huge fake stalactite of cast cement hangs from the roof. Water from the lake above comes down past the entrance, so you can stand at the back and look out through the falling water.
2
Climb the western slopes until the city appears
The park is a hill, so every path climbs. Take the ones that keep going up on the western side. From the highest open ground you look out over the rooftops below the trees, with the white dome of Sacré-Cœur standing out on the far hill. It is a real climb, and the surface underfoot is gravel and steps.
3
Stand under the fenced island and look up
The island itself cannot be reached, but the lakeside path passes close under its cliff. Stop below the rock and look thirty metres up at the cliff face and the temple on top of it. From down here you can see how the park was made: a bare quarry face with a garden planted over it.