The Lost River of Paris: Searching for the Bièvre
The Earful Tower: Paris
Oliver Gee
4.8 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This podcast episode features host Oliver Gee and his co-host Lina exploring the history and physical traces of the Bièvre, a lost river in Paris. Once a vital waterway that flowed into the Seine, the river was entirely buried and built over by 1912 due to industrial pollution.
In this updated re-release, we lead a "scavenger hunt" with a group of enthusiasts to find medallions, plaques, and architectural clues that reveal the river's hidden path through the 13th and 5th arrondissements. A highlight of the journey includes visiting a perfectly preserved medieval arch located deep beneath a modern post office. Oliver also ventures outside city limits with a colorful character named the "Comte de Saint-Germain" to wade through a restored section of the water. Finally, the discussion touches on future urban projects that aim to uncover parts of the Bièvre to help the city combat climate change.
The music is from Pres Maxson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody, Oliver G here on a beautiful day in Paris. |
| 0:04.5 | If you're not in this city right now, I bet you wish you were because it's perfect. |
| 0:08.8 | Today, blue skies and everything feels like summer is here. |
| 0:11.7 | I'm going to take you today on a sort of a deep dive into the little sister of the Sen, the Biev River. |
| 0:19.8 | So really quick facts here. It ran through the city and emptied into the |
| 0:23.7 | Sen for thousands of years, but over the last hundred years it's been hidden away. I am attempting |
| 0:30.1 | to uncover it. So you'll hear me waiting through a section of the river with a very colorful |
| 0:34.3 | character. You'll hear me take a bunch of members on a scavenger hunt looking for parts of the river or sort of vestiges of it, even going underground, actually, for a really cool little surprise there. And talking a bit about the future. So this is a re-release of an old episode, but it's kind of evergreen, so I wanted to push it out there again so that you can hear it. And I'm releasing it now because this is the week of B. Earlier on we did Bs for Brocontz like flea market antiquing. It's also for B-Ev. You hear me talk about Patreon members. If this episode was coming out today, that could be Sub-Stack members too. And I'm going to share the video we talk about with substack members and Patro members again. |
| 1:11.3 | So that'll be in your inbox this week. |
| 1:13.4 | Otherwise, I've kind of edited down the old episode. |
| 1:16.4 | I'm going to take you right into the heart of it now where Lena and I were in a park in the 13th Arandesmont, |
| 1:22.5 | looking for any members who maybe showed up for this scavenger hunt turning a corner and being surprised |
| 1:28.2 | to find 15 or 20 of them waiting for us so after the music from press maxim you hear me talking to |
| 1:35.3 | them here we go b is for biv i'm oliver g let's do it The |
| 1:47.0 | The So the idea today is we're going to walk from where the Biev River entered Paris. |
| 2:14.6 | It still does, it enters underground, it's kind of forgotten. It's lost. |
| 2:18.2 | And we're going to walk all the way not to where it empties into the sand, because that bit's, |
| 2:22.5 | I think, it's kind of boring. We're going to follow towards where it ran through the Philip |
| 2:27.4 | August wall. We're going to go underground, hopefully, if everything works out. And along the way, |
| 2:32.1 | we're going to find traces and hints of where this |
| 2:35.4 | river sort of went through Paris. And what I mean by that, what I mean by that is, |
| 2:41.1 | firstly, the medallions on the ground, the plaques, the signs, there's shops that might be named |
... |
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