Bercy Village

At the beginning of the month I had a friend recommend another blog with Paris sights from an American.  Her sight is Pardon My French... and it has given me some great places to explore.  One place that has been on my list for quite a while has been Bercy Village.  So one random Tuesday I decided to go explore.  I was pleasantly surprised when I walked up those metro stairs to find this adorable little shopping and eating village.  Here was my first view:

According to Rico, anything that is small, doesn't have parking, has dangling twinkle lights, you can sit outside (and I will add - made of old bricks) equals CUTE...and this place was CUTE!

They only had about 20 stores, and only a few that were actually chains.  My favorite places were a few cooking stores and an actual craft store.  Here is the new spice rack that I would like to slowly acquire...soooooo cute!

Next to Bercy Village is a great park called Bercy Park.  It is truly a neighborhood park.  The day I was there I saw a fashion photo shoot going on and tons of people picnicking, playing soccer, sipping coffee by the carousel, exercising and relaxing.  Bercy Park is made up of 3 different parks: 1) a water park where you walk along wooden bridges and look at the ducks 2) a flower garden with arbors and roses and 3) an open space area with playgrounds and large trees.  The parks spread out over a large road and there is a very steep stepped bridge that goes over the road.

Grape vines, of course

The rose garden

I believe this is a community garden, probably for some of the people that live in these apartment buildings overlooking the park.

The far end of the park has a very large sports stadium.  The second time I went here I brought my friend Claire and her three cute girls.  We were lucky enough to watch a man mowing the grass walls by standing at the top and lowering down a grass cutter by a rope and then pulling it back up to the top.

c

Colette, Kathryn and Camille