The History
So this isn’t a space that you can visit but it is a space that you can see. And it’s definitely dark.
In 1913 the Champ de Mars metro station was opened on the line 8, in between la Motte Piquet and Ecole Militaire stations. Its public entrance is at the south-west corner of the gardens in front of the Eiffel Tower. Sadly it was closed down, along with a number of other stations (including Arsenal and St Martin) because of its proximity to other stops on the line.
However, the space was pretty much just bricked up. Beyond the boarded up entrance, still visible on the pavements of Boulevard de la Motte Picquet, sit ghost-like platforms, covered in graffiti. The station now acts as a large extraction vent, sucking musty air out of the tunnels to keep the system fresh.
If you’re travelling through this section of line 8, be sure to look carefully out of the windows. It’s a don’t blink or you’ll miss it visit but you might just catch a glimpse of the abandoned platforms.
The Explore
Did this one as part of a whistle stop tour of France as part of a long weekend of fun.
Getting into the station was a matter of waiting, watching and timing trains. Along with a spot of eating and drinking lol.
When the time was right we hit the ground running and entered the amazing station that is Champ de Mars.
We hung out here for a few hours after the trains stopped running and managed to grab some decent snaps down the tracks, that was until I saw a train approaching….
Well it turned out to be a service train and we hid from it, albeit not very successfully as a track walker spotted us and then escorted us out in the service train. He was jabbering away in French to us and kept mentioning the police. Although at the last minute he seemed to have a change of heart and just dropped us off at the next station and left us to find our own way out
Enjoy the pics
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