Petite Ceinture du 17e arrondissement

The Petite Ceinture in the seventeenth arrondissement consists of rusted tracks reclaimed by thickets of wild buddleia and climbing ivy. This sunken railway once circled Paris, carrying freight and passengers along an inner ring for nearly a century. When the line fell into disuse in the nineteen thirties, the city abandoned these corridors to the elements. Today, the steel rails disappear into soil and wildflowers, marking a quiet, overgrown seam that cuts through the dense urban grid of northern Paris.