Parks

Today I took a long walk. There is an island in the Seine as you cross into Pont de Nueilly from Le Defense. Usually it is closed off in the evening, but today it was open. I found various sport complexes on the island - crew (see the top picture), rugby, track and field, football (soccer - of course), swimming and more. I followed the island to the next available bridge and crossed over to a huge park on the west side of Paris - Parc de Bagatelle. Rolland Garros tennis center is at the south end of the park. I foolishly thought I might walk to it. I turned back after only getting perhaps half way there. I found equestrian facilities, cricket players, some rugby, lots of soccer, and even a couple softball games going on. The big field above probably had about 15 games going. You can see it was a nice day - well it was hot also. I returned to the hotel to switch to t-shirt and shorts and went down to the park by the hotel to read in the shade.

Paris is quite progressive in providing lots of parks and green areas. However, once you get to the parks, there is a noticeable lack of toilette facilities ("WC"). In this huge park, I noticed only one toilette identified on the park map as I entered. I think there must be more, but in my hour walk around, I didn't see any! Also, I didn't expect to see many runners in Paris, but there were plenty out today (even if I wasn't one of them).