Goussainville

The week before I left Paris, Fintan, Kristiana and I took ourselves away from the city one afternoon to discover something new and different. Tucked away between Charles De Gaulle Aéroport and the northern border of the city is the little town of Goussainville. It's just your regular semi-run down town of thevnorthern Paris collective towns, but it has an interesting history. 

Essentially, it was originally located somewhere else, and had to be moved further to the west to deal with the noise of the aircraft that flew above - Goussainville was under the direct fight path of the main airport for the most visited city in the world. A couple of air crashes and around 40 years later, it is essentially a ghost town - well, the old village anyway. The homes are rundown, graffitied and plants grow uninhibited by any human existence. Few people live there any more, mostly in newer homes around the outskirts of the village, but it feels frozen in time.

We wandered and got lost down little roads, and eventually came across an old grand house on the hill  that had been left to decay. It was missing a roof, the walls turned into canvases for passing artists, and most probably housed a few drug parties in its more recent days. As we left the house, we took a look back and noticed a dark figure standing in the doorway who immediately scurried back inside. Creeeeeeepy.