After our Eiffel Tower once in a lifetime experience, we met up with our host Michelle at the base of the tower. She's from Cumnock, I met her in December during the Christmas holidays, but has been living and working in Paris for the past 6months.
The best thing about having someone who lives in an area your visiting is that they can take you to the non-touristy places and do non-touristy things.
That night, Michelle told us there was gonna be a picnic at a bridge, a farewell do for one of her colleagues. I automatically assumed it would be on a grassy area at the end of the bridge, but no- it was ON the bridge itself!
Apparently its a local hang out spot. The Pont des Arts is a pedestrian bridge over the Seine and people gather with all their picnic stuff.
I was so amused by it, and a little skeptical. However once we were on the bridge, there were already several groups sitting in circles and had a picnic spread. Tablecloth, baguettes, cheese, ham,wine, beer, juice, fruit, snacks....
Also, because this part of the world gets longer days now, we picnic-ed while the sun set behind us and with boats passing underneath the bridge.
How cool is that?
The thing I loved the most was the atmosphere the whole bridge had, there was a sense of friendliness that flowed from group to group with people going between groups borrowing or asking for things.
For example, one happy looking dude came up to us and asked for salt and pepper! We had none so he just shrugged, smiled and moved on.
Some guy wheeled a big speaker around and was a mini-mobile DJ; stopping beside different groups and DJ-ing for a bit before moving on.
Suzanne and I felt very welcome, thought we 'crashed' the picnic, those we met were great fun. Two Russians, a French couple and 3 Ukranians, all Physicists. It was a blast.
So much so that we made plans to meet up the following night. =)
If we did that back home in Malaysia, the police would come and chase us all away.
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