Apéro evenings

  Small private at-home gatherings have become the default setting for many a Paris apéritif.

 

Above: apéro set out on upstairs deck; on ground floor, living room of beautiful home opens onto a spacious garden

The pause

 A cigarette phone break on a warm afternoon.

Fines of 135 euros for not wearing a mask outside went into effect last week.

Green is for garbage

In Paris, trash pickup is impressively coordinated and just another part of life en ville. It's also color coordinated: from the trucks, poubelles and an assortment of street-cleaning vehicles to the outfits worn by the workers and even broom bristles, everything is green. Trash is collected seven days a week, usually in the evening and often, annoyingly, at rush hour. For a city that's grève-prone Paris seems to have remarkably few trash strikes, and the familiar banging of bins being emptied into the jaws of whirring trucks is taken in stride. Even when a truck is blocking a street, stopping at almost every door, otherwise quick-to-honk Parisians stuck in their cars behind will patiently wait in deference. Most apartment buildings are equipped with separate receptacles for recycling bottles and plastic provided by La Ville de Paris, and depositories for discarded clothing can be found in every neighborhood. Trash pickup is so efficient that within an hour after the last cabbage has been cleared off the last stall, closing a street market, it's difficult to tell that a market had ever been there at all. - BPJ

Above: a green trash pickup truck lumbers down a narrow street near the Eiffel Tower

Below: here comes the masked brigade

Street oasis

Not only are tables and chairs spilling onto streets but imagine turning a corner and coming across this idyllic miniature living room set up on a sidewalk, where enticing hot chocolate, tea, coffee and cakes are served along with wi-fi and wit. And when you return the next day, just like that, it's gone.

 

Paris Is My Living Room Dept.

Kidswall

 

Into the weekend with this wonderful "kidswall" on a Montmartre side street.

Monday: the street-as-living-room

Last suppers

Despite a threat of rain dinner terraces were packed yesterday in anticipation of today's mandatory Facemasks Everywhere rule - and not far behind, early closure of restaurants. 

Update: joggers / cyclists won't be required to wear masks

Below: graph Covid-19 France [source: LeMonde.fr / Santé Publique France]

yellow curve = confirmed cases

red curve = hospitalizations

black curve = deaths

green curve = recoveries

(click to enlarge)

Vacated

 

 

With the recent canicule, coronavirus precautions and August vacances, usually crowded streets near the Basilica are eerily empty.