Why Paris was Built Like a Snail | Arrondissements Explained

you might have heard that the neighborhoods of Paris look like a snail when you map them out this is the map you get when you Google where to stay in Paris but why does it look that [Music] way in this video I'm going to show you another map of Paris one that tells a story of War and Peace monarchies and revolutions and one that helps you Orient yourself with the history of the city no matter in which AR you find yourself [Music] so Paris began right here in this little island in the middle of the sin called the E deite that has been at the center of European trade and movement for centuries so 2,000 years ago the ilite was inhabited by a Gish tribe known as the paresi okay I know these guys were in parisians but they were GS the island served both as a natural Fortress and a great place to cross the same river this island was so well situated that it was eventually conquered by the Romans and they renamed it ltia they expanded the bounds of the city past the island and onto the Left Bank the Romans followed their playbook for City Planning and started by establishing a cardo Maximus a North South Boulevard to which all the other roads of the city are laid out at right angles to former grid today the r San jaac roughly follows this original route when you look at the map you can kind of use sjac as a y AIS for the city and the S as an xaxis the S divides the city into the right and the Left Bank the river flows West so when you're looking West it's right and left so that is the deepest foundation of the City of Paris as we know today eventually though the Roman Empire collapsed from then on the history gets really dense and complicated Paris gets invaded over and over again the Franks take over and establish a monarchy some guy walks around with a severed head and people start building churches and hospitals all over the city Kings get wealthy and build palaces plazas Gardens Wars are fought the Renaissance happens revolutions imperialism republics Nazis bed bugs and over two Millennia and all those things happening Paris has sprawled out into organic spider web of a city with its 20 arism ending up in the shape of a snail shell so while this map is helpful when you're trying to book a hotel there's another map that can help you Orient yourself in the history of Paris this is a map of the historical walls of Paris as time goes on the walls expand like the rings of a tree most of these walls have been demolished but their outlines form the foundation of paris's Arison and many of its streets so let's dive deeper into this map and to start I'm going to call upon our special guests and by special guests I mean our good friends at thatch thatch is kind of like the travel agency of the future but instead of an old school travel agency filled with people that don't necessarily travel like you it's an online travel marketplace where local experts from more than 80 countries are selling bespoke guides custom it enies and truly personalized planning services so like there really hasn't been anything like this before the app allows creators to create these interactive travel guides that connect straight into maps and booking sites this means you can have everything you need to plan an epic trip in one convenient location so I've even teamed up with a thatch creator for this video her name is Hillary she's in Paris right now and she's on her way to show us the First wall on our map hi everyone my name is Hillary and I'm a thatch Creator specializing in guides for Paris and France and the things that I'm going to find for you today are things I think I've walked past a million times before and never noticed my first stop today is on rud LA colom on E de there is so much to see on Ila like the Notre and Chappelle but today I want to show you some cobblestones and I'm not going to lie the first time I tried to find them I totally missed them that's how much they blend in these stones are where the first medieval wall of Paris used to run along the edge of the island the Gallow Romans of luticia built this wall to protect against Invaders there are two things this old wall shows us first the Roman city was reduced by these attacks the left and right Banks didn't matter anymore and second the original land mass of the island was much smaller than it is today later the Roman Empire collapsed a group of people known as the Franks invade and Paris becomes part of the Frankish Kingdom eventually a guy called Philip AUST becomes ruler and he is known as the first king of the Franks there were other kings before him but he's kind of a big deal in 12:15 Philipe started building a new wall around the city it had a mo on the right Bank he also built a small Fortress to protect the Western end of the city known known as the Lou Fortress there are actually many hidden remnants of the Philip AUST wall all around this part of the city you can find it inside Courtyards or underground parking lots or random pieces of sidewalk I'm here at the jardon Rosier Joseph Min and look what I've just found this is just a little bit more exciting than the cobblestones we just saw the garden is also nestled in the Jewish District so you'll find great Jewish bakeries and Falafel and lots of other restaurants nearby I'm on my way to try to find one more piece of this wall it's apparently inside a restaurant so I'm not sure I can go in to see it but maybe we can see it from outside through the window that was such a fun little scavenger hunt I think I deserve a coffee so I'm ending here at Le pellaton Cafe which is one of my favorite coffee shops in Paris located just near the sen on the right bank I have so many more personal recommendations to share with you so if you're ever planning on visiting Paris check out my fat shop I have created over 20 guides many of which are free including my favorite coffee shops laptop friendly cafes French restaurants best street food and Cheap Eats hidden gems on the right bank and Left Bank and more this wall provided safety to the city and the population of Paris started to Skyrocket by 1300 paris's population had grown to 230,000 which doesn't sound like a lot by today's terms but at the time it was the largest city in Europe the city had actually started breaking past the wall and during this time many great landmarks were constructed like the n kadam and Sun Chapelle one of the most turbulent times in paris's history is known as the 100 Years War this is not one war that lasted 100 years but rather a series of conflicts between the kingdom of France and the kingdom of England these conflicts took place over many years and many sets of rulers and mainly the fighting was about who was to be the rightful ruler of France French and English royalty had lots of crossed Bloodlines and the situation got quite complicated and messy and unfortunately for everyone else in Europe deadly so this is when the ruler Charles I built this wall he only Built it on the right bank because the Left Bank had stayed pretty much the same the Left Bank was kind of a University District which is now known as the Latin quarter but the right bank is where most of paris's residents lived the wall itself had six City Gates four of them are still around today the port San Antoine was a gate that was situated next to the basti famously with the revolution the basti was demolished and today this is the plasa PTI the port to to or Temple is today a square called the pl DEA Republic so if you can still see this little label the Charles I wall actually put the L inside of the new city walls so it was no longer necessary for defense Charles turned this into a palace and he made it his primary residence and this was the start of the loues evolution into the world's largest Art Museum so talking about fancy residences I don't have a label for this one but let's move on to this fancy house called the con now it's a government building but it used to be one guy's home Cardinal risher risher was the chief minister to King Louis the 13th and besides being a formidable Statesman he was also a shrewd property developer so much so that when he wanted to build his palace here he convinced Louis the 13th to demolish an entire section of the Charles I fth wall and then he had the wall extended and then he bought up all the properties in between subsequently he had a huge Garden to match his huge house the grand ballet Cardinal the demolished Charles ith wall was filled in and turned into the rudai and the ru Dair so after Louis the 13th came Louie the 14th also known as Lou LR this is him at age 16 this pretty boy was about to leave a massive mark on the City of Paris Louis the 14th reigned at the height of absolutism a time when people thought that kings were given their Authority by God and maybe Kings might even be Gods Louie was known as the Sun King and was famous for his lavish Court life his fancy parties and his excessive amount of Mistresses all of which he built dramatic flamboyant infrastructure for including the palace of a sign he fought and won his fair share of wars and to defend all the territory that he claimed he built over 300 fortresses around France this new extended line of defense made him confident to demilitarize France hey guys editing D here I'm about to show you a map very nonchalantly in this video but this map is actually wild this map is called the turgo map it's from 1730 you can literally zoom in and see the doors and trees of every building so the guy who made this map actually had free reain to enter every residence in Paris at the time and he took account of every tree door and window so when you see a tree on this map it actually existed in Paris in 1730 I knew I was going to use this map to talk about the next section of the video but once I actually started using it I was blown away anyways back back to the video he demolished these City walls and replaced them with Gran boua wide treelined avenues that people could ride their horses through L also had the West End of the Lou the tuler palace and its Garden enlarged and extended Beyond this Garden he had an Avenue extend westwards towards the outskirts of Paris so that the Tillery Garden would have a Vista and this became known as the gr cou this Avenue is what would eventually become the shiz and the historic aess of Paris but at the time there wasn't really much here except for a trail that ran up a hill now that the walls were gone Louie had triumphant archers constructed in his honor Louis the 14th had by this time fought and won Wars against the Spanish and the Dutch and these two arches are full of symbolism and inscriptions that describe his victories another one of Louis the 14th's landmarks lies further out of the city so Louis the 14th married his double cousin Marie theres on the border between France and Spain when he came back to Paris there was a huge celebration A procession walked to the spot that was prepared for the occasion and he went and sat down on a huge throne and the square became known as the plaston but today it's the plaston so that's Lou lant and he's kind of a big deal and he ended up reigning for 72 years a record that he holds up until this day so moving further out a new wall and this time it's not for defense in 1784 5 years before the Revolution this is where they built a brick wall called the farmers General wall the purpose of this wall was to control the flow of goods in and out of the city and to enforce tolls now if people wanted to get into the city they had to do so through one of the walls 62 Gates right over here is where the gru met a bunch of hunting Trails when this wall was built it initially became a toall gate but in 1806 after winning the Battle of ulates Napoleon commissioned a Grand Arch to be built here the arced to Del this was only completed in 1836 under Louis Philip's Reign back then it was just a simple intersection but today it's a giant roundabout where 12 Avenues meet to form the star shape and after the death of President Charles deal they renamed it in his memory so plast 12 and plast Nason actually have Metro stations that act as nodes for lines 1 2 and six which followed the farmers General wall and the sen respectively you can learn more about that in our video about the Paris Metro the tollgates that they built for the farmers General wall were actually quite Grand and you can still go see a bunch of them today moving outwards even more the next and final wall we're going to talk about is the tier fortification this was a huge thick 33 KET long combination of walls and ditches that was completed in 1846 the idea for this war actually came 30 years earlier at the end of the Napoleonic Wars Napoleon had botched his invasion of Russia he lost the battle of liptick and he was on the run from the sixth Coalition which was a large collection of European nations that Napoleon had managed to make his enemies the sixth Coalition chased Napoleon out of Russia and pressed on to invade Paris they ended up taking control of the city France surrendered Napoleon was forced into Exile and the Coalition reinstated a monarch like the revolution had never even happened the fact that the Coalition forces could March into Paris willly nilly made the new monarchy question if being an open city was such a good idea after all so in 1830 King Louis phip commissioned a new war that could be manned by France's national guard this commission was to be implemented by prime minister adol etier and it encircled not only the City of Paris but some of the neighboring towns around it the project also involved building 16 Bastion forts lying about 2 to 5 km outside of the city the wall was about 6 M off the ground and it had a 25 M ditch on the outside so the guards could fire it at attackers trying to approach there was also this demarcated building free zone that extended for 250 M outside of the walls this soon became kind of like an informal Park where parisians would go for walks and have picnics so this new wall created kind of like an interesting social Dynamic legally Paris ended at the farmers General wall so any restaurant or business that opened up between these two walls was not subject to the same import tax as the inside of the city so these towns became super popular places for dance halls and restaurants to open up because food and drink could be sold tax-free on the flip side the no build Zone outside of the wall quickly became a place for people who could not afford to live inside the city to build informal settlements the dites outside of the wall became Islam known as The Zone since the construction of the wall there have been many unsuccessful attempts to get rid of these slums by 1921 The Zone was home to 42,000 people in 1849 Louis phip was overthrown in a Revolution and the original Napoleon's nephew Lou Napoleon was elected president Lou Napoleon had lived in London which at the time to him seemed like a picture of modernity and after he was elected he made it his mission to modernize Paris Paris had at this point seen Decades of unrest the tight neighborhoods were also overcrowded and riddled with disease so Lou Napoleon said that he wanted to open up paris's streets and to bring light and air into every corner of the city but by the time his term ended in 1851 he hadn't really gotten much done he was also blocked for running a second term by the Constitution so as one does he stages the coup and declared himself the emperor of France being Emperor is awesome because it means that if you want to redecorate you can do as you like Lou Napoleon now known by his Royal name of Napoleon III employed this guy Baron hman to completely redesigned the city on a scale that Paris had never seen before he completely demolished several neighborhoods built long Grand boulevards commissioned massive green spaces laid new sewers and aqueducts built monuments and plazas it's hard to overstate how much work he actually did 70 of the streets that he built are known as per which means breakthrough these are streets that cut through the existing neighborhoods and to build them he demolished everything that was in the way he ended up demolishing 20,000 buildings and displacing 350,000 people hman started as the Romans did by building a new access for the city just before the exposition Universal In 1855 Asen was tasked with laying a a grand East West Boulevard that would lead up to the center of the exposition to do so asman cut through this area here to extend the Ruda Riv it took 3,000 workers working non-stop for 2 years to demolish and rebuild the area around the street also the asman could make a straight line to the padal industry which doesn't even exist anymore for the North South Boulevard there were already two candidates that hman could have chose to just widen and extend the rud de s and rud de sand instead husband chose to bulldoze right between these two to create this new North South Avenue now the port sand and Port Su are simply decorations for his Grand Boulevard in 1816 Napoleon theii annexed all the neighborhoods that were between the tier fortification and the farmers General wall bringing the number of of Aron up from 12 to 20 this is when the map of the neighborhoods was redrawn and got the snail shape it has today after this annexation housman's work entered a new phase he had to figure out how to connect all of these new neighborhoods with the center of the city he decided to demolish the farmer's General wall 26 of the 54 original tool Gates were turned into plazas or plus and they were connected to a big Boulevard that became a new ring road for the city and then in between World Wars 1 and 2 the tier fortification was demolished it opened up a 33 km long 390 M wide Corridor for the city to develop in 1958 George pompo commissioned the boulevard peripher to be built here which was basically a collection of large highways and was great for people who like cars in 2016 the government came up with the concept of the Metropole D grandi the total area of this Metropole is 814 Square km and it houses 7 million people as Paris has grown more ring roads and train lines have sprung up to connect these neighborhoods into one coherent City and that's where we're going to end our map Shenanigans for today these original walls tell a story of a city that has grown and adapted through Millennia of War War and Peace if this video made you Keen to travel to Paris don't let the Labyrinth of wishy-washy information on the internet get you down if you hop over to thatch you'll be able to find guards on the City of Paris or you can even book a local expert to help you plan a personalized and epic travel itinerary also one of my main sources for this video was the making of Paris by Russell Kelly it's an amazing resource that goes into detail about the history of paris's Urban Development there's so much more than I can ever put a YouTube video as always thanks for watching stay [Music] curious

Channel: Bright Trip

Views: 310,158

Keywords: bright trip, iz harris, johnny harris, travel courses, learn to travel smarter, travel tutorials, how to travel 2020, how to travel 2021, travel youtube channel new, travel education channel youtube

Id: -q7Fs0-KI0g

Length: 21min 12sec (1272 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024