Picnics in Paris are a nighttime affair (my photography)

I've written before about picnics in Paris.  They tend to happen at night, preferably along the Seine, sitting on the concrete quai or picnic tables set up for the annual Paris Plage event, where the city turns a couple of miles of frontage road along the main river into one big month-long beach party.

One of the nicest things about going anywhere in Paris in the summer is the journey getting there.  The city is just so damn pretty it hurts.  It truly makes you reassess your life, even a bit, knowing that this is the route these people walk every day to work, to meet friends, to go the doctor, etc.  Their mundane daily existence is our number one tourist destination.

I decided to shoot some pics today only with my iPhone and its Hipstamatic program.  A number of them didn't turn out, but I like how these did.  It's a neat program, and under the right circumstances can add an interesting effect to your photos.  I took all of these on my way to, and then back home from, tonight's picnic near the Pont Marie.

My all time favorite picnic spot, familiar to
anyone who's ever lived in Paris: the Quai de Bourbon.
(It's on the Ile St.-Louis, to the left as you cross the
bridge from Notre Dame.)

Parisians take full advantage of the Seine, and
the rare, of late, sunny day. Women will often
sun in this same location topless.

Nice view on my way to the picnic.

People playing pétanque "baci ball" on Paris Plage.

A lone guy enjoying a near full moon right next to our picnic spot.
The tourist boat, Bateau Mouche, has just passed.

Paris Plage (r) as I cross the Pont Louis-Philippe
 on my way home to the metro.

Notre Dame (l) from behind.

The required shot.

The Cité metro station.

And back home again at Vavin.

As for what I'm doing here, I come every August and house sit for my co-blogger and friend Chris and his wife Joelle, while they go on vacation. Someone needs to take care of the plants, and the cats who have grown to treat me as family, though there's always the chance they simply think they now own me.  I did my study abroad here, a scary long time ago, and still have no idea how my parents let a 19 year old kid with one semester of French under his belt go live in a place this far away, and this beautiful, for a year - but God bless them.