PARIS DIARY

Monday 13 July 2020

A few days ago we had a rehearsal for the Bastille Day flyover looping back to their airfields from the Place de la Concorde. I guess that means we’ll have good seats for the real thing tomorrow.

Life in Paris feels almost normal, absent the tourists. Yesterday the temperature was cool, but the sun was out, and we took a walk along the Right Bank Quai, from the Louvre almost to the Arsenal, and returned via the Iles St Louis and de la Cité, where there was an outdoor flea market on the bridge linking the two islands. The quai was busy with walkers, bikers, scooters, joggers etc. Lots of kids, music, outdoor cafés, sun bathers. We stopped for an ice cream at Berthillon on the Ile St Louis, managed to get a table inside (masks, gel, windows, doors open, half the tables blocked). The line to get in was short, so we waited.

If there are tourists they are mostly invisible and French-, or occasionally Italian-speaking. Café terraces are full, shops are probably emptier than usual, but there are people inside, especially since the sales are on. Most shops won’t let shoppers in without masks, at least around us, and people seem to know and comply without any trouble, unlike what we hear about the situation in the US, which is, frankly, difficult to believe.