Bastille is two walks stacked on top of each other: a monument at ground level and a railway turned into a garden ten metres up. Do both, in that order, in the morning before the viaduct fills.
Start at the Place de la Bastille. The prison is gone — it's paving now, not a ruin — so look instead at the July Column, which commemorates the 1830 revolution and not, as everyone assumes, 1789. Past the glass bulk of the Opéra Bastille, find the stairs onto the Coulée verte René-Dumont: the old Vincennes railway viaduct, replanted with roses and lavender and bamboo, running above the traffic. This is the line the High Line studied. Walk the elevated stretch slowly; it's the whole point.
Drop down to the Viaduc des Arts in the arches below — an ébéniste (cabinetmaker), restorers, a luthier, all behind glass. Then back up and on to the Jardin de Reuilly, where the viaduct opens into lawn and a slung footbridge. Daumesnil takes you home from here, or keep going; the green line runs nearly to the périphérique if you want the long version.
