Every design for Villepinte

Until the nineteen-sixties, the northern half of Villepinte was cereal and beet country, rich silt laid over the sands of the Plaine de France, while the south was forest, the last of the old Forest of Bondy. That split still shapes the town today, eighteen kilometres north-east of central Paris and close to Charles de Gaulle Airport.

There is a particular pleasure in remembering how green it can feel. The Bois de la Tussion and the Poudrerie forest park survive in the south, the shallow Canal de l'Ourcq carries cyclists and walkers along its banks, and the Parc départemental du Sausset follows the little stream of the same name. For many, Villepinte means the Parc des Expositions and its trade fairs; for the people who live here it is just as much the Parc de la Ferme de Montceleux, La roseraie and the Monument à Victor Schoelcher. Three RER B stations, Villepinte, Parc des Expositions and Vert-Galant, tie it all together.

Get off at whichever of those three is yours, cross the bridge or the park, and you are back where you belong.