Playing Petanque at the Bassin de la Villette

Why is it when Irish people go anywhere on holiday it rains? 

This stereotype has never been more clearly demonstrated than by my friends recent visit to Paris. one month earlier we had been basking in glorious sunshine and 30 degree heat and next thing you know Irish people arrive and we get rain, clouds and a temperature maximum of 18 degrees.

Anyway after the lamented departure of my Irish compatriots a mandatory heatwave ensued. what to do during the hot weather in Paris is always a difficult question, considering Paris has a complete lack of coast line (a la Dublin) or complete lack of swimmable rivers and lakes (a la Zurich).

Of course the city's way of compensating for this is with the “Paris Plage” this phenomenon is when they shut down some of the streets around the Seine and turn them into “beaches”. A lot of people are quick to criticise these spaces and while they are far from the real thing they do allow people such as myself to don a bikini and douse myself with ice cold water every 20 minutes right in the centre of Paris. 

Nothing seems stranger than sunbathing in said bikini while 200 tourist walk past on the bridge above you on the way to Notre Dame, but having frequented Paris Plage previously in 2008, trust me the break from the heat is a welcome relief.

the grass and deck beaches mean no sand in your swimsuit

However seeing as this year Paris Plage only starts on the 20th of July an alternative has to found, and considering the only thing your likly to enjoy along the seine at the moment is a mouth full of car and tour boat exhaust fumes, the Bassin de la Villette in the 19th seemed like a suitable waterside solution. Cycling along one of my favourite routes by the Canal I once again enjoyed seeing people out enjoying the hot weather, even if it was a little quieter seeing as it was an ordinary working day and the extreme heat was forcing people to stay out of the direct heat.

Having so few people about though was a bonus and upon arriving to the canal I managed to find a perfect spot by the waterside, but with lovely tree casting a shadow onto the ground nearby.

After spreading out my picnic blanket and pillow people slowly started arriving. While the aim of the day had been to play petanque (see my version of rules below), chilling out and chatting seemed higher on the agenda. While we did have one or two games we only ever played to first to 5 instead of the traditional 13. We even managed to get our photo taken for the local website (bottom right), in an article about the heat wave.

our picture from the article

With the sun still beating down and shadows on the south side of the canal becoming more and more scarce we switched sides before hunger finally drove us home. Seeing as it was now quite late in the evening, the canal had completely changed from a meagre scattering of sunbathers earlier in the day, to crowded and busy, with brasseries and cafés in full swing.

Over all a good day and some nice cycling. Also I was very grateful to have my saddlebag with me so I could put the game of boules on my bike, because an 8 ball set is quite heavy.

For those of you not familiar with petanque here is a quick summary the rules I know.

1.    Each person gets 2 balls or “boules”
2.    Someone throws the small ball called the “le cochonnet” or jack
3.    Everyone takes turns to throw 1 of their balls closest to the jack
4.    The furthest person away goes first in the second round of ball throwing , followed by the next furthest ect.
5.    The person with their ball closest gets one point
6.    If the same person owns the 2 closest balls they get 2 points
7.    This traditionally continues until someone reaches 13, or what ever number everyone agrees on, as people get bored easily
 

Apparently you can play in teams ect, but not too sure about that. I do know that if you are only 2 people you can split the balls evenly getting 3-4 balls each, which means the points go up faster and the game is shorter.

Rock and stroll - Cité de la Musique

With only 2 days left before my 26th birthday I finally managed to get out to the visit the Cité de la Musique. This Museum is not as central as the rest and is located in the 19th Arrondisment in the Park de la Villette, this however is a bonus as it allows me to take my favourite route along the canal to get to the museum.

Arriving to the the museum the entrance is clearly posted and is actually incorporated into one of Bernard Tschumi's  red “folly's”. When you enter the space you are instantly impressed by the size of the space. 

After getting my free ticket I proceeded through the music shop to the start of the exhibition. Clearly a question that had come to my mind before attending the museum was how do they exhibit something visually, that can really only really be experienced by listening, without having a series of clashing speakers blaring out random sounds in an effort to compete with each other. Well the solution was actually easier than I imagined. This museum provides every one with a audio guide, this guide has headphones and allows you to key in a number beside displays, screens and instruments. This allows you to synchronise up to the relevant TV screen and listen to the opera being performed, the historical background of the instrument, interviews and you can even listen to individual instruments being played.

The museum itself has a large collection of very ornate and old instruments and as you slowly wind your way up to though the different ages it becomes very interesting to learn when and how new instruments that we now take for granted were invented and introduced to the public, as well as seeing instruments that are now nearly obsolete.

triple guitars?

The day we were there was very quiet but there was still a live demonstration by a very talented man on the trombone. He explained the instrument how it worked and how he created the different sounds, as well as playing some very good music.

Arriving into the final space is the most impressive as this is housed in the topmost roof space.

This space also starts to chronicle the development of modern recording and mixing techniques, and has a good selection of early mixing desks which now seem so large and cumbersome that its funny. However the museum does only have a limited amount of stuff about the development of modern music, as it seems to concentrate mainly on the classical side, which is a shame as it hardly acknowledges the development of rock punk techno. But then I suppose you would need an entire other museum to properly chronicle the development of music in the last 100 years. 

The final displays deal with instruments from different cultures such as India Africa and China, these sections are quite small though but still impressive.

Only after exiting the museum  did I see the sectional model and realise that there is actually a entire theatre music space located just beside the museum, and that is why the entire building is called the Cité de la Musique. Next time I visit I plan on seeing a performance.

the museum is the small narrow part on the left of the auditorium

Otherwise the museum was very enjoyable even for someone who has no grounding in music and does not play any instruments it was very basically and easily explained. The museum is also much larger than I thought and as a result my audio guide ran out of battery in the last portion of the museum. With lots of bicycle parking located in the park de la Villette right outside I would recommend going for a picnic with some friends before heading in.

Park Life - La Villette

One of cycling in Paris's most hidden gems is definitely the canal, this Thursday being a public holiday and also one of the most beautiful days so far this year, I had the luck to be invited up to Parc de la Villette in the 19th for a general hang out in the sun.

So in order to benefit of this fantastic day I had completely off work I headed off. 

The trip to the park was nearly as nice as the park itself. The canal is one of Paris's most underrated public spaces and feels like an authentic slice of parisian life as there are hundreds of people sitting by the canal chatting or playing games and not a tourist to be seen. There are also lots of great little bars and bistros that line the canal and these were full of people, the most popular with a queue to buy drinks a snacks for the all the people sitting out along the canal.

Another great thing about cycling along the canal is the dedicated bicycle lanes, so apart from a few large junctions you wont have to even think about where you going or watch the traffic, you just simply go with the flow. Here is the route I followed.

One thing most new people to Paris don’t realise is the value and importance of these public parks and spaces in Paris. While for example everyone in Ireland strives to have a semi-detached house with a front and back garden, parking place and 2 hour commute to work, the approach here in Paris is different. Space is at a premium and living within the Peripherique is seen as a lucky privilege that you will sacrifice a lot for including

• A significant percentage of your wage,
• the option of not having more than 3 people(including yourself) visiting in your 10sqm “chambre de bonne”
• standing room in your sleeping area
• cooking facilities
• a toilet in your apartment,
• a washing machine
• your own room
• sleeping in the living room
• any options of having pets larger than a gerbil,

while to a lot of my Irish friends might seem horrified at the thought of the circumstances mentioned above, most of my Parisian friends will sympathise that these are some or all the things that you will compromise on in order to benefit of the glory of living in a city where real-estate is counted in meters squared and not how many bedrooms.

So while people do sacrifice allot in terms of their living standards this is compensated for by the fact that we live in Paris, one of the greatest city's in the world, and since the option of comfortably accommodating friends in your living quarters is often not an option this is why things like, meeting a friend for a coffee during the day, going for a quiet demi in the evening and meeting friends far a picnic in a park is so popular in Paris.

Essentially

• The restaurant is your kitchen and dining room
• The café's and bars are your living room
• The public park is your back garden
• Your apartment is your bedroom

Parks in Paris act like everyone's shared back gardens, on a sunny day you will see literally hundreds of people of all different ages, races, social classes and  occupations appearing in their droves to benefit or some sunshine and open space. Where as parks and playgrounds in Ireland can be a realm left to mainly bums and drunken teenagers, in Paris they become very much a family affair with lots of children actually playing in them, teenagers and adults practising their dancing, fitness enthusiasts doing yoga and capoera, people juggling,  musicians strumming guitars, people reading and sunbathing  and friends picnicking. 

photo was taken when leaving around 9 so many people had left

Parc de la Villette was very busy when I arrived but still had acres of space compared to the nearly shoulder to shoulder experience you can get in some other parks. It is a great park mainly due it its large size and variety of spaces, also it seemed to be lacking many of the unsavoury characters which are usually present in more central parks and spaces that are more frequented by RER lines and tourists.

If you are living or even just visiting Paris I would recommend taking some time out and check out the canal for a walk and lunch and then go for a relax in the park de la Villette or one of Paris's many other parks. With the weather only set to improve it is definitely time to get your picnic blanket washed, buy a set of plastic dish ware and “en profitez”.