Petite Ceinture du 13e arrondissement

The Petite Ceinture in the thirteenth arrondissement is marked by steel tracks that remain set into the earth, tracing a wide, gentle curve through the city. This stretch is a fragment of a thirty-two-kilometer circular railway built between eighteen fifty-two and eighteen sixty-nine to connect Paris’s major train stations and carry freight around the city’s perimeter. While the line once bustled with steam locomotives, it fell into disuse as the Métro became the primary way to move across Paris, leading to the end of passenger service in nineteen thirty-four.