Something for the Weekend (23rd – 25th July)

The long-term residents may have left Paris for their summer holidays, but there is still plenty to do for those visiting and those left behind. Here is my selection of the best and most interesting events this weekend.

Histoires de Paris
Sylvanie de Lutece runs a monthly history discussion in a Belleville bar for most of the year, but during the summer she gets everyone outside. This Sunday she will be leading a tour (in French) around a particular place and theme, but first you have to work out where to meet her from a clue she sends by e-mail. If you want more information, drop me a line.

The Tour de France arrives in Paris
This Sunday sees the traditional final stage of the world's most prestigious cycle race, a cruise around the streets of Paris. As everyone knows who the winner of the Tour will be before the start of the stage, the atmosphere is festive for the first of the ten laps of the city, but by the end it always turns into a mass sprint up the Champs Elysées. Expect big crowds, and lots of noise and colour.
The tour should arrive in Paris at around 3pm.

Cinema in the Buttes Chaumont
Each summer the La Villette park is home to an outdoor cinema festival, but many other locations around the city also hold screenings under the stars. This Saturday night, the wonderful Buttes Chaumont park will be showing 'Porte des Lilas', a French classic from 1956, to mark 150 years of the 19th arrondissement - the location for both the film and the park.
Saturday 24th, from 10.30pm
Parc des Buttes Chaumont, 75019

An Open Day at the Ecole Normale Supérieure
School may well be out for summer, but that also gives us the opportunity to go and have a look inside! As part of a science festival, doors to the École normale supérieure will be opened to the general public on Saturday afternoon. I previously wrote about the exterior of the school on Invisible Paris, and so will surely take this opportunity to see the interiors!
École normale supérieure,
45 rue d’Ulm, 75005
Saturday 24th, 2pm - 6pm

Museogames @ Arts et Metiers
The last thing you might think about doing on a hot summer’s day is stay inside and play computer games, and yet for some of you (myself included) it may remind you of your youth! Over the summer and autumn months in Paris, the Musée des Arts et Metiers (a museum of technology) is running a temporary exhibition detailing the history of video games, and – most importantly – they let you get your hands on the equipment! If it rains, or if you have pacman withdrawal symptoms, why not give it a go? The museum also does a very good brunch on a Sunday.
Musée des Arts et Metiers
Tues-Sun, 10am – 6pm, until November 7^th
€5.50

Lounge on the beach
See my previous posts on the Paris Plages and the other Paris beaches.