If you’re hesitating about coming to Paris, this might help.

Paris, Paris, Paris….

From July 20th to August 20th, there’ll be this sort of thing in the centre of town.

Ok, this….sunbathing, sand and palm trees are mixing it up with museums, mopeds, concerts and smog.

Why not stay outdoors all day? Without venturing into a museum or Metro or ‘magazin’, you can squeeze in quite a bit into a sunny Parisian day. Or very little, if that is your inclination.

Here are a few suggestions for staying above ground and in the sun.

Take your free breakfast in our glass-roofed verandah to begin the day.

Then grab a Velib (see links on this blog) and cycle downhill to the river.

Grab your spot on the beach, a deck-chair and a book, and pretend to read while observing the strollers pass by. Leave your spot to the next beacher, amble along the riverside to  Paris’s most charming footbridge. (This happens to be a wonderful sundown spot, where you can catch the Eiffel tower sparkling at night, and listen to the bridge buskers and picknickers.)

Fancy a fallafel?

Cross to the rive gauche and, at St.Michel, hold your breath, dive into the kebab alleys and emerge at Maoz, a fine, minuscule and welcoming fallafel bar .

Walking past the Ionesco’s longest running play in Paris, you’ll get to this literary beacon, Sheakespeare & Co. If you’re sticking faithfullyto the outdoors, then just browse on a bench outside, admiring Notre Dame through the birch trees.

A free concert in a park? Find one in here, or somewhere in here in a park in our neighbourhood. Or in our little bronx festival around the corner.

This is all too exhausting. How about watching France’s finest advert broadcast throughout the bike-loving world, somewhere on a café terrace.

To finish off the day in splendour, with a coriander and fried tofu sandwich or why not a melon and cherry salad, join the Parisians who haven’t made the escape out of Paris in August for a communal pic-nic and free outdoor film after nightfall.

Watch out though, this summer is going to be canicular…..

Yes, from the 1st to the 4th of July, there will be a Velorution in Paris, with agitators and activists joining in from all over Europe.

Come and join in, it’ll be fun!

Here’s the programme of the activities

Music all over

In the middle of the football,  in the middle of the year, in the middles of  the day and the night, and in the middle of Paris and everywhere else in town, is the capital’s favourite party…la Fête de la Musique.

So extend your weekend, it’s on Monday 21st of June!

It's Inter-Planetary

We now have a mini-monster screen to watch the Greatest Festival on Earth.

(does the human being’s passion for football connect in some extra-conscious way to our existence on a round planet in a system with other round planets?…)

Anyway, come and watch Argentina, France, Greece or Korea here with a baguette sandwich and good cheer.

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Otherwise, if you’re you’re not one to Plug In to sports, then how about some of the other festivals happening around Paris this summer?

Our neighbouring quarter, La Goutte d’Or, has this from 19-27th June

Just a bit further around the corner, the 11th district in Paris has this, from the 05-14th of June

Have fun in, with and on water, here, on the weekend of 12+13th June, outside Paris

A  jazz festival at the world-renowned flea market a few stops away.

(watch this space for more to come)

A word festival comes to town

Sandwiched between the tennis and the football, another festival takes place throughout Paris between the 9th and 13th of June ;  ‘Paris en Toutes Lettres’ is the capital’s yearly literary festival.

Recitals on buses, readings in libraries, slams in cafés, word workshops in bookstores, walks through parks, get it all on

www.parisentouteslettres.fr

Check out the anglophone spots (shakespeare and co, Brentano’s, Irish Cultural Centre, and some other web-sites, this, and that)

Paris in her glass dome will get a four day shake, and the words will fly and float all over town…..

Envie d’une partie de tennis?    Anyone for tennis?

Quien quiere jugar un poco de tennis?    Wer will Tennis zu spielen?

Cand facem un tenis?    Quiem quer jogar tênis?

Of course, you may be lucky enough to get a ticket for this year’s French Open, or you may decide to watch it on our big-screen, with a cold Orangina and a few friends, in our covered patio….

It all starts this weekend!

Starting in Paris in 2002, this is now a European-wide adventure.

Paris stays awake well into the night, with free entrance to many museums and cultural centres, plus musical happenings, live readings and concerts…

Saturday the 15th of May, 2010

And the Petit Palais is an overlooked gem in the city’s collection of museums;

cupcakes New York style

green ones, red ones, yellow ones...

and that means chocolate, of course.

These two shops are just a few of the gourmet delights you’ll find up and down rue Lepic. Along with red-fruit tarts, home-made ice-cream, runny country cheeses, roast peppers & potatoes…you can’t get to the metro at the bottom of the street without putting on weight.

And now, from just up the street, this has happpened.

The best baguette in Paris is 25 seconds away!

(You’ll need sound to enjoy the jury’s earnest words of passion and the cccrooumttppf of the baguette.)