Green fields on Les Champs-Elysées

29 May 2010

Published by Gareth

Something that the French do really well and quite often is random mass-scale demonstrations regarding some sort of industry or part of their heritage. That’s why there is basically une fête for every possible thing - la fête de la musique, la fête du pain (bread festival)…. So it was no surprise that last weekend, a brilliantly sunny day (and not before time), l’Avenue des Champs-Elysées, the most famous street in the world, would be transferred into a living, breathing forest and farm.

arc
de triomphe, paris, champs elysees

It was all part of the Nature Capitale festival that aimed to sensitize Paris’s population to both the importance of France’s forestry and farming industries as well as the environmental issues that exist today.

paris, champs elysees, nature capitale

It was really quite surreal to see that familiar street transformed virtually overnight into a 2km long botanic garden. Lay down some bark chips, ship in 8000 plants and 4.2 million euros later you’ve got an impressive green space.

paris, champs elysees, nature capitale

Apparently 2 million visitors passed over the avenue in its 3 days. True, it may seem like a bit of a waste of money in these Euro-crisis days. Then again you get the feeling that people are just so happy that spring has finally arrived that they’ll find any excuse to get out in the sun. In any case, definitely a sight to behold!

paris, champs elysees, nature capitale

See Also: adventure may10 paris france champs-elysees

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