The bicentennial park
If you want to feel like being on an U2 video.
Have you ever watched the video for U2’s song : It’s a beautiful day?
In this video, the band walks around inside Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. You can also see some other scenes in which the band plays on one of the landing strips. To shoot this, all the traffic was closed for several hours, with the help of lots of security guards and assistants.
If you want to feel a little bit like Bono on the landing strip, you can always try going to the “bicentennial park” in Quito.
This park can be considered one of the fastest “built” parks in all urban history.
When Quito’s old airport was permanently closed up, the city had already finished growing around it. This was one of the reasons why this old airport was closed.
Quito’s city administration decided that the best and quickest way to reuse it was to transform it into a park. To do so, new entries were built, bicycle and pedestrian ways were painted on the landing strips and some services were installed.
And one week before the “opening” several children playgrounds from parks around the old airport were dismounted and installed quickly into the “new park”. Since that day they have been strangely deserted.
I assure you, the walk in this park is completely surrealistic.
Website
http://www.quito.com.ec/que-hacer/deporte-y-parques/parque-bicentenario
Open all days from 4:30 to 18:00
Access:
Intersection of Amazonas avenue and La Prensa.
The old airport in google maps
https://goo.gl/maps/6EZDZ
Access by Rafael Ramos street
https://goo.gl/maps/WMAUB
The simplest way to get there is take a cab and go to the old airport.