In search of the lost pêche

This is another little thing I originally put on Facebook, but that I think deserves to be preserved a bit more. Adventures in a world of fruit beyond Paris.

Way out in eastern Paris, beyond the numbered arrondissements, beyond the Boulevard Périphérique, in the départment Seine-Saint-Denis, in a place where tourists rarely go, we ventured to find the stone-walled peach orchards of Montreuil, les murs de pêches, famous in a minor, nerdy kind of way.

In the 17th Century, closely-spaced stone walls, covered in plaster, were built to house orchards. The walls, oriented north-south, absorbed solar energy and slowly released it, creating a microclimate that enabled peach horticulture, in an area that would otherwise be too cold.

Some of the walls, with a vegetable garden in the foreground

More of les murs de pêches

Montreuil peaches became famous and highly sought, first with the nobility, and then more widely via the big market at Les Halles. At one time they were worth more than their weight in gold. The statue of agriculture outside the Mairie de Montreuil includes a peach tree, recognising the importance of the industry.

L'esprit de l'agriculture, Mairie de Montreuil, with her peach tree

Owing to limited operational intelligence and suboptimal navigational tools (I will not comment further about on-peach activities), we reached the orchards, but not the small segment that has been restored to production. Instead we ventured beyond the freeway that cuts "Les murs des pêches" in half. We saw very old, degraded parts of the wall system, very overgrown and in poor condition, the home of itinerants and tramps.

Wall detail, with scale

We found the unofficial site for illegal dumping of old mattresses, asbestos, and noisome garbage. We may also have stumbled on the car rebirthing centre of Paris. Groups of men idling on street corners watched us, silently. 

The Mean Streets of  Montreuil

Bogan, mullet-haired subteens on high-rise bicycles boisterously rode down the streets. It was all fascinating, and a far cry from the Paris of the 1er arrondissement and the Eiffel Tower. On our way back home to the 4eme and Garret Central by bus, we could watch the sudden change from the outer suburbs to the elegant, restaurant-lined streets of inner Paris that we all know.