Paris Plage

Imagine paying a visit to the Eiffel Tower, then a few minutes later stretching out on the sand to work on your tan. In times past, all of Paris went to the beach in August. Now the beach comes to Paris. In a grand experiment, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe last year launched "Paris Plage" (Paris Beach), a two-mile strand that stretched along the banks of the Seine River, co-opting quays and roadways for the pleasure of sunbathers, strollers and skaters.

WOULD Ernest Hemingway approve of Wi-Fi at the Cafe de Flore? If Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has his way, free wireless Internet will soon be on offer in public places throughout the city, including the cafe haunts on the Left Bank where the master of the chiseled phrase used to write longhand in small black notebooks.

Paris The cruelest month in this fair city has always been August, when the lucky flock to their summer houses in Brittany or the Dordogne, and broke, workaholic or otherwise stranded Parisians are left to wander the desolate streets with the tourists. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe had a conversation with one of those unlucky souls in 2001, an elderly woman who told him she didn't have the means to get away for the sacred French summer holiday.

Paris The cruelest month in this fair city has always been August, when the lucky flock to their summer houses in Brittany or the Dordogne, and broke, workaholic or otherwise stranded Parisians are left to wander the desolate streets with the tourists. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe had a conversation with one of those unlucky souls in 2001, an elderly woman who told him she didn't have the means to get away for the sacred French summer holiday.

WOULD Ernest Hemingway approve of Wi-Fi at the Cafe de Flore? If Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has his way, free wireless Internet will soon be on offer in public places throughout the city, including the cafe haunts on the Left Bank where the master of the chiseled phrase used to write longhand in small black notebooks.

Imagine paying a visit to the Eiffel Tower, then a few minutes later stretching out on the sand to work on your tan. In times past, all of Paris went to the beach in August. Now the beach comes to Paris. In a grand experiment, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe last year launched "Paris Plage" (Paris Beach), a two-mile strand that stretched along the banks of the Seine River, co-opting quays and roadways for the pleasure of sunbathers, strollers and skaters.