Towering Achievement

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Towering Achievement ~

Towering Achievement, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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Nice decor in this restaurant, you might be thinking. Almost like some sort of mediaeval tower or something they've got going on there. And that's because... they've got a mediaeval tower going on in there.

We're looking at one of the original defensive towers which were distributed along the length of the Philippe Auguste wall which protectively surrounded Paris a few centuries ago whilst the King was crusading around the Middle East.

This is one of several remnants you can find scattered throughout the city and you can actually more or less follow the route and discover the original size of Paris 900 odd years in the past or so. A little town which quickly and continually broke through its own boundaries, requiring successive walls to be built, culminating in a huge construction around what is now the péripherique, the scary Paris ringroad.

The inclining chap in the picture isn't practising his obsequious bow but is actually peering through a transparent trapdoor in the floor trying to work out what the hell I'm so interested in photographing. And although you can't see it here, the tower actually continues down into the basement.

The once-attached wall has heavily influenced the lay of the surrounding land and propety 'parcels', causing some nearby boutiques to have excedingly odd sharply angled walls not at all in keeping with the passing road outside. A nearby underground carpark also gives splendid views of the old foundations of the wall. What would Philippe Auguste have thought?

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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