…But in the Summer it’s infuriating.There are a few benefits to everyone deserting the place for most of July and August – the Metro’s half-empty and parking’s free, plus there’s Paris Plage – a ‘beach that stretches along the side of the Seine complete with sand, beach huts, and French girls not wearing much.
Apart from that though, it’s a nightmare getting things done – Want your shoes repaired? Sorry, if you can’t pick them up Thursday, they’ll be stuck in the shop for a month. Want to buy a loaf of bread? take pot luck – at least 2 out of 3 bakeries will be shut on any given day. And just when you thought you knew which was open when, they change!
Restaurants shut for months on end, despite the fact that there’s plenty of tourists around, the post seems to be on half-service, and the television gets worse than ever as all the major shows finish their season at the end of June, leaving me to watch dubbed episodes of numb3rs (which I suspect is pretty awful even in English) and re-runs of Inspecteur Moulin – a kind of Parisian Jim Bergerac.
This also causes massive resource issues at work as no-one seems capable of planning around the holiday season. 60% of our web designers are on holiday for most of August, meaning it’ll be a mad panic to produce anything for key promotional activity in Early September!
