Bercy is where Paris kept its wine. For a century the barrels came in by river and rail to a walled quarter of stone cellars; then the trade moved out and the city turned the ground into a park without quite erasing what was there. That double layer — gardens over warehouses — is the walk.
Start at Cour Saint-Émilion, cobbles and old rails underfoot, and walk the surviving chais (wine cellars) of Bercy Village, now shops and cafés under generous awnings. North to the Cinémathèque française in Frank Gehry's tumbling building — go in, even briefly. Then the Parc de Bercy itself: three linked gardens, formal beds giving way to a canal and to orchards planted where the vines once stood. Look for the old rails surfacing in the grass.
The finish is the river. Cross the Passerelle Simone-de-Beauvoir, the 2006 footbridge that spans the Seine in one curve with nothing in the water, to the four glass book-towers of the Bibliothèque nationale. The esplanade is the landing, and the M14 is directly below it.
