A Shortcut

I'm lucky to live very near Parc Montsouris, and when I come home on the train, sometimes I cut through the park. Today, when I got off the train, it had just stopped raining, and the roses looked really beautiful, so I wanted to share this photo I took,

Picnic Season

It seems to be picnic season in Paris, despite the heat wave. I've had four picnic meals since Saturday, with the opportunity to dine outside again this evening and tomorrow evening, and Sunday afternoon. The French Picnic seems to have several advantages over the American Barbecue. The French do without all the fuss of the charcoal grill, which is prohibited in Paris anyway. The French Picnic is incredibly portable -- in Paris, the smallest patch of greenspace can attract picnicking. Also, if you're French, a meal of cheese, liver paté, bread and wine suits you just fine and doesn't require everyone to have forks. Even better if someone brings some fruit or a homemade gâteau to top it off. The most important thing is to enjoy each others company, and no one is stuck at the grill flipping burgers or tending to the hot dogs. Here's a picture of some friends at Thursday's picnic dinner on the lawn of the Maison Internationale of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.

Etretat

Last weekend I finally escaped Paris by going to Etretat, a coastal town in Normandy famous for its white cliffs. When we (myself, a colleague Cécile, and her friend Florence) arrived it was raining and even chilly, a typical occurrence in Normandy, I'm told. It's difficult to capture the feeling of Etretat in a photo, but I tried. When Claude Monet went there, he tried too. In the photo, you might be able to see that there is a memorial, shaped kind of like a wing stuck into the ground, next to the church, marking the point from which a couple of early aviators could be seen in their failed attempt to cross the channel to England.The town is nestled between the cliffs, and the beach consists of pebbles rather than sand. There are trails all along the cliffs, and also a golf course. After had a dinner of mussels and fries accompanied by a sunset in Etretat, we went to a neighboring town, Yport (pronounced ee-pore), where we had a campsite. Yport was hosting some sort of Russian dancing and singing group, performing on a stage next to the beach, and they were actually pretty impressive. That was followed by fireworks set to the music of Mozart, similar to the Bastille Day fireworks in Paris.
We went hiking again the next day, which was completely sunny.