The Art of Traveling . . . Without Preconceptions
Goussainville Vieux Pays: the surprising ghost town just outside of Paris
© Meredith Mullins
I expected broken windows, graffiti, boarded up doors, wall-engulfing vines, dilapidation, decay, and, yes, even the occasional tumbleweed.
After all, Goussainville Vieux Pays had been described by many writers as a ghost town. A flurry of recent articles told the dramatic story of the exodus that had happened forty years earlier.
The images and words painted a bleak picture. A once-thriving farming village had died—an innocent victim of the invasive noise of a new airport.
No longer a paradise (the 19th century manor house)
© Meredith Mullins
The quiet rural town just north of Paris landed in the flight path of Charles de Gaulle airport in 1974. Jets came and went every few minutes, shaking the walls of the village...
