In which we go to the beach, Paris style

The French spend the month of August on vacation. Shops and restaurants close. The trains and busses run less frequently. Even the city halls reduce hours or close completely. And people leave for the beaches or the mountains or family homes in the country, or pretty much anywhere else that isn't Paris.

Of course, not everyone can afford to travel in August, or to travel for the entire month. And some people are stuck here because some things (hospitals, police departments, supermarkets, etc) can't shut down entirely. The city of Paris, in its infinite wisdom, has provided a way for these unfortunates to enjoy the seaside as well. Every summer they turn stretches of the River Seine into the Paris Plage, or Paris beach for a month at the end of July and beginning of August. They truck in sand and set up sprinkler systems, ice cream stands, paddle boats, etc.

Last Friday we had an early dinner, and headed into town to go to the Plage. (There are 3 stretches of beach, we went to the one near the Place de la Concorde.) We spent about 2 hours there. The Plage is a long, narrow strip set up along the walkway that goes along the river. We passed a couple of mist/sprayer set ups that the kids played in, fully clothed. Since it was only a mist, they didn't get particularly wet, but it was fun. We passed a number of ice cream stands (alas, the one euro ice creams that we had read about proved to be a figment of the past) and several activity stands. We finally found the sand beach after we reached the end of the Plage and headed back the other direction. It was basically a huge sandbox, which the kids played in happily for almost an hour while Blaise and I people watched.

(Paris is a very multi-ethnic city, so it's amazing to me to see how much variation there is between the crowds at different venues. The crowd watching the Tour de France was universally white. The crowd at the Cite des Enfants was white and Muslim. I think 25% of the women there were in headscarves. The crowd at the Paris Plage was very mixed. It was a bit odd to see little girls in bikinis walking with women in headscarves and long pants and sleeves. Around 8:00 they started picking up the lounge chairs and so we headed, slowly back to the train station.