in paris, in summertime, the mayor dumps a lot of sand along the banks of the seine and calls it "
Paris Plage" ("paris beach").
People go there to sunbathe, listen to concerts, swim in the swimming pools they build on the river (because almost no-one is crazy enough to swim *in* the river...), and pretend they are on holiday.
also in summer, there is a
free outdoor cinema festival in a park called La Villette, with an inflatable screen. people go early and have a picnic dinner, and when it gets dark you watch the film. the shows are cancelled if it rains.
there are a lot of concerts in that same park, every sunday. also many
concerts and shows in a festival called "
paris quartier d'été".
basically, there is a lot of stuff going on to help us forget that most of the city has shut down and all of our friends have left for holidays somewhere else, and there's almost no-one left here but tourists.
