Paris is Closed for Business

It's well known that most of France goes on holiday in August and even though Paris is France's biggest city, it is no exception. A lot of businesses and shops close for the month or at least have reduced hours, especially smaller businesses. This doesn't bother me as much as when I first lived in Europe. It is to be expected and I can easily work around it. If my local boulangerie is closed then I'll just walk the 50 metres to the next one. There are a LOT of boulangeries in France so that won't be a problem. My local supermarket is keeping regular hours so that's not a problem either. In fact, the only reason I have noticed that there are less people around is that the metro is pretty much empty, except for the tourists of course.

It seems that 90% of French people go to the beach for their holidays. They spend a month lying in the sun and not much else. I can't think of anything worse. I like to visit cities, walking around their old centres, exploring the little streets and different shops. That is what I would like to do when I go on holiday next week. Ferbent has a few days off work so including the weekends we have 10 days to play with. Ferbent wants to head west and drive down the coast to Spain. I'd rather head to Bordeaux, visiting all the little towns and villages along the way. We'll have to compromise and maybe visit towns by the beach. At least we'll be moving around and not staying put for a month. That would bore me to death.