Talk about great timing! We landed in Paris on June 24, smack during the record heat wave when the high temperature was over 100°. Did we pack enough lightweight clothes? No. Were we physically prepared for the heat? Hell, no. We did have two tubes of sunscreen in our luggage to deal with the relentless sunshine.
It was in the high 80’s when we landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The thought of getting into a Métro with hundreds of other hot and sweaty travelers and then schlepping the luggage several blocks wasn’t appealing, so we took a cab to our hotel. We couldn’t check in for a couple of hours. We lounged around the lobby and ducked out briefly for lunch. Finally we got into our room, which was weakly air conditioned. The hotel staff fixed the problem and brought up a fan to circulate air better. We stayed comfortable thereafter.
We spent the next day going between the various buildings of Galeries Lafayette, the department store near the old Paris Opera. We both bought a few things to get through the heat. On the way to the Métro station, we went through a public art installation on the Pont Neuf – La Caverne. The last thing that appealed to me in the heat was going through an oversized circus tent “cavern” and dodging umpteen tourists taking selfies. In addition, the traffic through La Caverne was one-way, and pedestrians had to detour onto another bridge to get back to the Left Bank. This did not make my knees happy.
The last full day of the heat wave we took the Métro and walked to Montparnasse to have lunch at La Coupole, a classic French bistro. Thereafter, we hit up Librairie Gourmande and got a couple of cookbooks (in English) to add to the collection.
The heat wave began to break late on the 27th, when it began to rain. This was a big relief for all. France reported over 1000 extra deaths due to the heat, as a result of heat stroke or drowning. One hopes that this is not a regular summer occurrence in Europe.
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