Back in Paris

Inspired by Martin Dawe I went to look for the Temple de la Sybille on a crag 50m above a lake in Buttes-Chaumont Park. I knew 'Buttes-Chaumont' only as a metro station quite a lot of metres lower.

What a bonkers place.

In 1850, when Paris was being redesigned and rebuilt on a massive scale by Haussmann, this site was a quarry producing gypsum for all the rebuilding. What to do when it was no longer needed? Well turn it into a Roman-style park, of course, complete with lake and rocky crags. The city architect, Gabriel Davioud, designed a temple (inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, revered by 17th and 18th-century Italian painters) and the city roads and bridges engineer, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, was put in charge of building the lake and a rocky island for the temple to sit on.

The crag was built out of gypsum and faced with concrete sculpted to look like the cliffs in Normandy. From the park's opening in 1867 (1 April, possibly appropriately) until January this year, impressed visitors have been able to stroll round the park, admire the small and the large waterfalls and walk across either of the two bridges (one designed by Eiffel of Tower fame) to the island and the temple.

Over the years, sadly and inevitably, rain has seeped behind the concrete into the gypsum and the concrete has started to crumble and fall (extra 1). Now the waterfalls, bridges, island and temple are out of bounds while repairs are going on and visitors can admire the graffiti-covered temple only from afar.

An impressive bit of ambition and engineering nonetheless.

This evening I went to a very different bit of ambition and engineering - for the elite rather than the masses but such is this century - where Nephew is part of a team covering the fountains in Champ de Mars and erecting a scaffold-based, marble-covered confection (extra 2) for a forthcoming Yves St Laurent show.

He clocked off, removed his hi-vis jacket and we had some fabulous tapas together (he knows his onions and quite a lot else) at Pantobaguette in rue Eugène Sue.