Summer in the City

Paris in August can be sunny and bright, the dome of Les Invalides glowing golden under clear blue skies, but the intense light that illuminates a thousand happy tourist snapshots comes at a high price. Heat - oppressive and accompanied by sticky, dense humidity - scorches the city's cobblestones. One might forgive such an atmosphere on the coast, where one has gone to flop and swim a bit, but when negotiating the crowds on the metro it just becomes a nuisance.

Realising the pains of summer by the Seine, the Paris authorities thoughtfully install beaches on the quaysides. Real sand, deckchairs and ice-cream sellers quickly become sites of jollity. There are even cooling showers where kids and adults alike run through curtains of water. I thought I was being summer-savvy, wearing a light white sundress to wander over the river to the Latin Quarter on Saturday. Sadly all it meant was that I was still hot but couldn't try out the showery deluge for fear of my attire becoming see-through and indecent. Let that be a cautionary tale for all!

It turned out that the weather had its own kind of self-righting mechanism in the end, though. The heat built and built, clear skies giving way to dark columns of cloud. The airbourne moisture droplets evidently felt the spirit of revolution echoing still in the city's foundations and decided to form a collective cloudbank as the atmospheric pressure rose. Yes, it turns out that alongside summer heat thunderstorms are a key seasonal Parisian feature.

Thunder, lightning and rain of tropical deluge proportions swept in, trying to wash the heat away. Showers, when the come here, come in earnest. Huge drops of warm rain bounce off the typically Parisian zinc rooftops with resounding metallic pinging. It is necessary to race for cover if outdoors or, if at home, to rapidly pull in the shutters and close the windows lest your parquet starts to resemble a veritable "piscine". The other night there was no rain, but we watched as the sky turned red over the Pompidou Centre and bright white forks of lightning shot out from the clouds. Being in a top floor apartment here can be like having a front row seat at the apocalypse.

My very first visit to Paris was in the summer heat, more than a decade ago, with the fresh-faced young graduate who is now my husband. Then, as now, the extremes of city life struck me - extreme heat, extreme hustle and bustle. I remember escaping for a day to the Army Museum, seeking soothing shade in its cool cloisters and galleries. I remember too getting up very early and walking in the Jardin de Luxembourg, before even the toddlers were out sailing their toy boats in the lake. That is still one of my favourite places, somewhere to find peace and tranquility while the weather continues its tumult, providing an ever-changing backdrop to all of the great buildings and monuments that loom over us here, just in case we forget where we are.