Parc de Bercy

You are walking toward a landscape that once held the title of the largest wine market in the world. Before it became this fourteen hectare park, the site was the legendary Entrepots de Bercy, a vast city of warehouses that thrived for centuries because it sat just outside the old Paris city limits. Merchants stored their barrels here to avoid paying local taxes, effectively turning this riverfront district into a massive, duty-free cellar for the entire capital. During the devastating Great Flood of nineteen ten, the wine barrels stored in these warehouses proved so sturdy and well-sealed that the thousands of gallons of wine inside remained completely undamaged by the rising waters.