I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll update this blog daily or not (feeling like a yes), and I certainly haven’t settled on a theme or focus yet (sorry Dr. Smith). Regardless, I’ll try to be less summarize-y and more focused from here on out.
We went on a boat tour of the River Seine today. Historically, rivers are the beating hearts of cities. Or rather, nearly all human development depended on rivers. The cities of Mesopotamia thrived thanks to the Tigris and Euphrates, likewise for the Egyptians on the Nile. Rivers are everything. Water, travel, communication, food, waste disposal, defense, boundaries. Everything a city depended on.
Rivers were the conduit used by Wahunsenacawh to expand the control and influence of the Powhatan tribe, and the same conduit that allowed the ever-increasing amount of English colonists to undo it all. In colonial America, rural plantations’ formal façades faced the water, showing off for the direction visitors would actually come from. In the 18th and 19th centuries, rapid waters in Great Britain and New England turned the wheels of the industrial revolution. You get the point. Rivers are cool. So it interests me to see just how rivers have changed. Today in many cities (though not all), rivers have been park-ified from hotbeds of transport and industry to places of leisure and relaxation.
As we were brought up the Seine, along the banks I saw people reading, sunbathing, playing music, letting their feet dangle over the edge, enjoying themselves. I like to imagine how a medieval Parisian would react to this. Surely they would feel disgusted at the idea of ever taking a walk to the river for a nice day out. In their time, waste of all kinds was filtered back into the river on a daily basis (I can only imagine the smell). It was anything but sanitary—far from our idea of the riverbank today.
Parisian houseboats :0
Of course, nobody in their right mind would tell you to swim in the Seine today. The patches of garbage floating along the bank and the not-so-pleasant shade of brown water speak for themselves. But it’s not ugly. It’s the product of thousands of years of human life. Certainly, it’s a completely different river from the fresh waters inhabited by the Parisii tribe in the days of Caesar. Just like the rest of Paris, you can’t expect to see a magical, earthly paradise of pure beauty and grace when you visit the Seine. The walk to our boat tour smelled slightly of urine. Trash was left on the wall overlooking the river. A wine bottle was smashed on the sidewalk. I’m not endorsing litter, but that’s just life in a city.
Despite all this, people take time out of their days to come here. Some waved at us as we passed. How could you possibly be in anything but a good mood here? I saw all the usual suspects of French parks, and then some. The loungers, the picnickers, the musicians, the tourists, but also bikers, and cars parked by the walls, and houseboats covered with gardens. As we passed an old harbor—repurposed into a park—a toddler walked right up to the fence to watch the water.
It’s not so different in Richmond. The James River is home to nature trails, pedestrian bridges, canal walks, whitewater rafting, and rocks perfect for sunbathing. And while it has its own cleanliness problems, it works. People like it. The transformation of riverbanks into public parks is an amazing accomplishment of adaptive reuse—no less in the United States than in Paris. And as we floated past the people of the Seine I thought of the centuries upon centuries of brick, labor, and life that went into building that river.
I love how you took a more positive perspective on the things that people usually look down upon in a city. It’s impossible to have a city, especially one as old and as big as Paris, be as clean and presentable as tourists expect. I didn’t even consider how the Seine River brings people together in even little things like sunbathing, but I think it is an excellent point. Great job!