As a young boy, I longed to live in the fantastic worlds of Jules Verne, to explore the depths of the ocean in the Nautilus with Captain Nemo. I had not told Philippa this, but as we set off to visit the Musée des Arts et Métiers (Museum of Arts and Trades) in the 3rd arrondissement, she suggested an intriguing possibility. “You’ll love the Jules Verne Métro station.” She was dead on – but don’t look for it by that name on a map.

As the train slowed to a stop at the Arts et Métiers station on line 11, we entered a magical world. My youthful Jules Verne world was that of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: heavy machinery and gears, smooth glistening metal and tiny round portholes looking out on new worlds. Everything was neat and orderly, unlike the messy work area where I built model planes that crashed and boats that listed.

Aside from the glistening copper and rivet heads, the first impression is simply vastness and a curious sense of disconnection from being on the Métro line. The long-wished-for Métro was part of the Paris created for visitors to the International Exposition of 1900. Not everyone liked the idea. The first line from Porte Maillot to Porte Vincennes opened officially on 19 July 1900 to monumental press indifference. Le Figaro gave it a paragraph, stuffed between an apoplectic fit of the Czar and a local charity sale.
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