Petite Ceinture du 12ème

The Petite Ceinture in the twelfth arrondissement is a sunken rail corridor lined with wild vegetation and rusted iron tracks. This thirty-two kilometer loop once circled Paris, carrying freight and passengers around the city from the eighteen fifties until passenger service halted in the nineteen thirties. Nature has reclaimed the ballast here, turning the former industrial artery into a quiet, overgrown escape. Trains once rumbled through these deep cuttings, but now walkers follow the path where the rails remain embedded in the gravel.