Chatelet - Les Halles

No visit to Paris is complete without getting lost in the cavernous expanse which is known as "Les Halles". As virtually every Metro and RER line in Paris passes at some point though this crazy labyrinth. (I still haven't found David Bowie in there) You will not be suprised when I tell you that Les Halles is the worlds largest completely underground metro station. Allegedly 750,000 people pass through there everyday, and I can tell you, if you are there during peak hour, it seems as though you get a chance to meet each and every one of them. Either that or each and every one of them behaves like a typical Parisian and dawdles aimlessly in front of you, whilst you, in your strange foreign hurry are attempting to move through with purpose and direction. (A very odd quality, totally at odds with the ambling inhabitants of this town.)

I do hyperbolise a little, as there are only actually 9 train lines that actually stop at Les Halles, but those 9 lines do generate 750,000 passengers a day.

Sitting on top of the Station is an equally convoluted shopping centre known as Les Halles. Much like the station sitting below you quickly lose your sense of direction upon entry.

In fact the whole area is a little bit Alice in Wonderland. For such a beautiful old city as Paris is, Les Halles, is a throwback to some bizzare post modern experiment in urban design that was best left alone around the same time that the Leyland P76 was well and truly abandoned by the car buying masses. . This is best highlighted by the bizzare juxtaposition of the massive 500 year old church Eglise Saint-Eustache, that overshadows the strange glass curves and odd metal hanging gardens of Les Halles.

The area was originally the main markets of Paris, and had been so for many hundreds of years, (since 1183), however towards the middle of the 20th century, most of the markets had disappeared, and the area had become extremely rundown and dilapidated. It also attracted some of the more unsavory element of Paris society. (and in fact still continues to do so). Les Halles is the place in Paris where all of the youngsters from the suburbs come to hang out on a Friday and Saturday night. Late at night in summer it is not always the most attractive place in Paris to be and is perhaps best avoided if possible.

Shopping in Les Halles is a rather painful but ultimately rewarding experience. On the negative side, the shopping centre is a ridiculous entanglement of shops, which seem to be put together in some sort of bizarre arbitrary alignment. Also it is obscenely busy, all of the time. It is a fight to even make your way through the crush of people that descend upon Paris' urban shopping mecca. On the positive side, it does contain, virtually every shop you could ever want to buy something from. So you can't fault the place for its variety.

What is the rewarding part I hear you ask? Well if you can successfully navigate your way through the maze, and make your way out with your shopping and your sanity intact then you have succeeded my friend. You have succeeded where so many others have thrown up their hands and failed, and you can truly call yourself a master of the Les Halles experience.

More Paris transport. Trains

(Pic courtesy of Google Images)

By far the easiest way to get around Paris is the the Metro rail system. According to Wikipedia, Paris is exactly 86.928km2. If you look at it on Google Earth, Paris is roughly circular with an approximite radius of 5km (not a particularly large area when you consider that over 2 Million people live inside of it).

To put some comparison for you, as to just how small the actual city of Paris. I have transposed a circle of 5km radius against Sydney, (click on the pic to make it bigger)

For those of you out west, here is the size of Paris city, transposed on Penrith (I have used the council chambers as the centre of the circle.) As you can see it barely takes in all of

Glenmore Park, and certainly does not take in St Marys, and does not even get all of Cranebrook & Mt Pleasant in either.

Anyway I have digressed a little. Getting back to the Paris metro, it is a fantastic way to get around the city and there are stations everywhere. I have been told that no matter where you are in the city you are never more than 500m from a metro station. (Some Gallic hyperbole no doubt!) According to wikipedia "It has 16 lines, mostly underground, and a total length of 214 km (133 mi). There are 300 stations. Since some are served by several lines, there are 384 stops in total "

Apparently it carries 4.5 Million passengers every day, and Chatelet Les-Halles station (right in the centre of the city) is the worlds largest underground station. I would believe that, as the "correspondence" (as it is called in French, which means the trip to change from one train to the other) can take 10 mins at Chatelet and sometimes a walk of more than 1km. (There are even travelators just like at the airport to save you all of the walking)

Some of the trains on the metro lines actually run on tyres, as opposed to rails like

traditional trains. I have no idea why, but it looks kind of funny, when the train pulls up seeing normal car style pneumatic tyres on a train. They are not all like this, some of the other lines run regular type trains, on rails with bogies and steel wheels. (Here is a pic on the right of a train with pneumatic tyres) and a more traditional one below.

(Pic courtesy of Google Images)

As well as the metro, there is also the RER, which is the suburban mass transit train system that

services the whole of the Ile de France region.

This system helps to bring in and send home everyday the other 8 million people that live in the Greater Paris region. (On top of the 2 million people that live in Paris city itself) These are proper heavy type trains and go to all corners of Ile de France and run on through the city. (RER Pics courtesy of Google Images)

Finally I give you the TGV!