If you have noticed that the Seine has flooded downtown Paris recently; that the major river attraction (the bateaux mouche sightseeing boats) are unavailable for tourism and there are a lot of b/w photos of fisherman hoping for a little something for dinner ...
as they cast a line out over the swollen Seine ...
Then you will not be surprised to learn that you are seeing views of the new Venice of France.
One of the great (and typical and peculiarly French) worries about flooding along the Seine and the gloriously old, wrought-ironed balcony mansions that line this enormous river is the fear of flooding in the wine cellar! Some of those preciously bottles were laid down for posterity - to celebrate the 21st birthday of a grandson here; the great beauty in the family there's in memory of her debut - and if flood waters have washed away the labels ... well, you see.
Thus when we, the average tourist, see pretty water, surging and ebbing across a picturesque sidewalk where the space that once held little chairs and a table barely big enough to set a cowboy hat on it ... the French are by no means pleased nor happy with or at the Seine.
Oh and the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay are closed, too. The museum guides are amusing themselves with a swim through the vaults.
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