Meudon: municipalité magnifique!

Eastwards across the Val-Fleury.

I am grateful, particularly given the casse-tête of finding accommodation in Paris, that I have settled in an area as pleasant as Meudon.  In fact, had I not had to cast my net into the département of Hauts-de-Seine and halfway to Versailles, I would probably not otherwise have encountered the town.  I am renting a bedroom in the Val-Fleury, built in the steep valley running northwards to the Seine's first right-hand swerve after Paris. Piled upon the western side is much of the main town - detached houses, modest blocks of flats, much greenery, a street of well-patronised shops and the proud mairie.  The lower (northern) part of town descends to the river at Bas-Meudon or Meudon-sur-Seine, and the western end of the hill has the apt name of Bellevue.  To the south and higher still there is an enormous forêt domaniale (state-owned forest - yes, five kilometres from the great metropolis!), which accounts for the 100 square metres of green space per resident, and beyond which is Meudon-la-Forêt, a new town constructed in the 1960s.

Topographical map of central Ile-de-France.

The altitude of parts of Meudon is remarkable, particularly in comparison to the land which surrounds it and with respect to its proximity to Paris.  Much of the town is about a hundred metres above sea level (point culminant 175m) and this height conspires with the sharp descent towards the Seine to give an almost vertiginous prospect of the city.  From the grande terrasse of the Observatoire, which occupies the site of an old château destroyed in the Franco-Prussian war, the panorama is particularly breathtaking.  Foreign students who have lately been a little indulgent in their consumption of croissants may find the ascent breathtaking in a different way.

A view north and east from the Grande Terrasse - Val-Fleury is in the foreground, and beyond the head of the valley the great swathe of Paris: the Seine, Tour Eiffel, the Tour Montparnasse, les Invalides and the Sacré-Coeur.  Click to enlarge!

le Viaduc de Meudon.

The viaduct which strides across the mouth of the valley was constructed between 1838 and 1840 to carry the railway between Paris Montparnasse and Versailles.  The construction of railways had not hitherto been permitted and this was the first railway in France, authorised when hundreds of miles of track had already been laid in Great Britain.  Geographically, the railway has already reached an altitude of eighty-five metres and the viaduct is thirty-six metres high and 143m long.  Trains pass along this line to Chartres, Le Mans, Rennes and Brest, and the station has a service every fifteen minutes which can convey your correspondent to Paris Montparnasse (at the foot of the tall grey Tour Montparnasse in the distance, in the photograph to the right) in ten minutes.  

A view north over Bas-Meudon towards Paris.

There are certain disadvantages to living in the Parisian suburbs, such as the time and expense of the daily journey to Paris III, but the advantages are more important to me.  For instance, Meudon provides, as many suburbs do, a poumon vert and a refuge from Paris's perpetual energy, and, far from the tread of tourists and the spectacles maintained partly for them, I can observe a different and more ordinary France, along with its people and their wonderful culture - and certainly without the sound of English!  In fact, Meudon is so different from Paris that I wonder if I will actually gain the experience of two years abroad in the space of one - one year rummaging through glorious literature in the 5e arrondissement, and one year puffing up twisting hills with glorious baguettes or partaking of glorious steak in the Brasserie de la Mairie.  

rue de Paris.

And a final gem of information (you will be relieved to hear!) - which links the widow of Molière and Johnny Depp: I have found out to my astonishment that both have lived here!  Indeed Monsieur Depp might still dwell within a mile's radius of where I type this.  I will look out for red bandanas.


More pictures will follow.