Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
London is more green for sure
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It depends of your scope. In the central areas yes, but if you enlarge the scope Paris actually has more greenery. I made this gif with satellite views of Paris and London, exactly at the same scale.
London lacks the large forests that surround Paris. In England they felled their forests in Medieval times, there remain very few of them. In France the kings and the high lords were more interested in preserving the forests, to use as game hunting grounds (and also because the forests in the Middle Ages were big sources of income, back when their was no coal, just wood and branches to heat houses in winter, and also timber to build the houses, and acorns to feed the pigs). In England, despite the fact their monarchy was centered on London, I don't know why their kings did not keep large forests like the royal forests surrounding Paris. One hypothesis could be that the English kings had less power than French kings (due to parliament, etc), so they could resist less the forces pushing for cutting down the forests to make a quick buck (or squid). In France before the French Revolution the laws regarding the forests were extremely stringent and harsh. Cutting trees in royal and manorial forests was a high crime. The forests suffered a lot after the French Revolution, part of them were felled, but thanks God about 60%-70% of them were preserved in the Paris Region.
It's one thing that annoyed me when I lived in London. Yes you have many smaller green areas everywhere, squares, smaller parks, etc, but you cannot just ride a bike or drive 30 minutes and escape it all in a super large forest like you can in Paris. The closest to my place was Richmond Park (which is more a forest than a park), but I was a bit disappointed when I went there. First of all it was a real hassle to get there by bicycle, endless streets with lots of traffic everywhere, red lights, etc. And when you finally get there, yes it's nice, but it's not like the huge forests surrounding Paris. I only went there once and did not return.
So I ended up going only to Hyde Park, which is nice, but after a while you're longing for something bigger, more removed from the city. When I get tired of Bois de Boulogne here, I just take the Métro/bus and I can have access to some very large royal forests, within 45 minutes by public transportation where you can really relieve the tension. Very hilly forests that you could not imagine in a flat country like northern France. And with enormous 200 year-old oak trees, some of them probably older than the French Revolution. Frankly it's a nature lover's paradise. I could never find similar places in London.
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