The Pleasure That Is Paris In August

 (Image courtesy of Joe Farrington – all rights reserved)

If there were a social equivalent of a fiscal year in the life of Paris, it would end on July 30th. In a country where five weeks of vacation annually are the birthright of every person, the talk begins in early July.

When are you leaving? Where are you going? For how long? And this exchange is followed with expressions of admiration for the choices made and fervent well-wishing on both sides.

Like many socio-economic phenomena in France, vacation-time is by consensus orchestrated nation-wide. Come the end of July or early August, most small businesses, including butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, and a good number of restaurants simply close down for 3 to 4 weeks. For instance, all of my favorite merchants have battened down the hatches for the duration of August. If I were to stay in Paris for the rest of the summer, I would have to–God forbid–purchase most of my nourishment at the supermarket. Come to think of it, that thought alone is enough to make me want to leave!

Beginning with the third week in July, the number of cars choking the streets of Paris begins–almost imperceptibly at first–to diminish in number. By the beginning of August, there are noticeably more parking places available. Or let’s just say, you can drive around and actually see empty on-street parking spots without someone already in place, jockeying his car into the slot.

At about this time of year, it’s best to verify that your destination is, in fact, still open, before setting out in your car. Of course, just as in New York, there are plenty of people in Paris who either can’t afford to leave the city in August, or whose work may be tourist-oriented and require them to stay. And for those folks, and for all you innocent tourists, the mayor’s office has this year transformed the Right Bank quais of the Seine, from the Tuileries west of the Louvre all the way down to the Quai Henri IV, beyond Ile St Louis, into a “beach.”

Why is “beach” in quotation marks? Well, to me, a beach is a place where you not only lie around in sand and get too hot, but where afterward you have the contrasting pleasure of plunging into cooling water of some sort. Not only is swimming in the Seine strictement interdit (strictly forbidden), but the Seine is so polluted that no one in his or her right mind would want to stick even a toe into the water. And should you be so crazy and foolhardy as to jump into its turbid waters anyway, you’d either drown or have to get fished out by a passing boat, as there are 6-foot-high, steeply sloping concrete embankments on both sides.

Although the billboards around town advertise fishing as one of the activities, the closest thing I saw to a fish was a poster of the barbeau, a sort of catfish apparently, touted as one of the 23 species of fish living in the Seine. “Let’s protect it!” extols the poster. There were other nautical-theme activities such as a wall where you could practice tying nautical knots. Elderly gentlemen who tired of this could proceed on down to the petanque court, that excruciatingly slow game of bowling with steel balls that–incomprehensibly to foreigners– impassions men of a certain age throughout France. But to be fair, I even saw some young guys playing petanque on the beach.

More than anything, the Paris Plage is a public relations coup for the mayor’s office. As usual, the city publicists did a superb job of promoting the 3 kilometers of “beach,” which opened the weekend of July 21st to 600,000 visitors (!) and will remain open until August 18. The mayor’s office closed the quais to traffic, hauled in a moderate amount of sand (which will, of course, all have to be hauled out again), and installed what looks like hundreds of enormous Washingtonia palms in white planters mulched with sand, which is fingered appreciatively by passers-by. Bright blue beach umbrellas and matching blue chaises longues complete the picture.

Of course, no French event is complete without lots and lots of animations, a term weakly translated by “entertaining events.” There will be “fanfares à gogo,” gushes the Nouvel Observateur. Unfortunately I didn’t make it to any of these, but I must say they sound interesting, from a culturally voyeuristic point of view. Besides the usual clowns, jugglers, and other street artists, from the 29th through the 31st of July there was an “interactive dance” where the spectators “should exchange their clothes” (again, I’m quoting the Nouvel Observateur.

Now I ask you fellow appreciators of goofy Frenchness, what more could you want?? If exchanging your clothes with other spectators doesn’t appeal to you, you could chase a band of clowns and a large ball across town instead. Or plus fun, check out the scene techno every evening from the 5th through the 11th of August where there’ll be dancing to the latest techno-trendy instrumentals. So much for the animations. But you can show up at the Paris Beach any old time and enjoy a rock-climbing wall, water sprays, guinguettes (old-fashioned French outdoor cafés with dancing to traditional fiddle and accordian music, refreshment stalls, beach games for children, bicycle rentals, and the so-called grassy beaches and sandy beaches. The strips of sand were pretty limited, and the “grassy beaches” nothing more than the roadside verge.

If by now you’re guessing that I went…you know, to the “beach,” you’re right. In order to be able to accurately convey this quintessentially Parisian event to you, I actually braved the 90-degree heat last weekend, got off the Metro at the Tuileries, and started plodding upstream. At first, there wasn’t much to see, but after 10 minutes’ walking I began to discern a huge crowd shimmering like a mirage on the horizon ahead.

In the basin of the Seine, where the microclimate always exaggerates the prevailing weather, the atmosphere was stifling. Although many visitors were bravely stretched out in the sun, including not a few Americans, many were huddled disconsolately in the faintly urine-scented shade of the underpasses. As one passer-by said courageously to his companion, “Well, you know, it’s okay (ça va…), at least we’re out in the air and there’s a little wind.” But Parisians are always appreciative of any creative effort, and they’ve turned out in good spirits and huge numbers for their Mayor’s beach. After all, not just any city could pull this off!

It takes a town with class, with panache…the kind of town that brought you the most fabulous fireworks of the millennium; that–most romantically–last year transformed the Place des Vosges into a field of lavender, complete with harvest and distillery of essential lavender oil and a Lavender Queen dressed in fresh lavender flowers. It’s a phantaisie, it’s féerique, it’s Paris!