The City of Water

Following in Krista’s Winnipeggian — not sure about the adjective — footsteps, only under slightly milder climes, here is the exact oppositre of the empty streets of the Capital of Manitoba in the midst of Winter, even though I managed to find an angle in the following picture, which would give you the wrong impression that the City is empty save two lovers.

A wrong impression because on that day — two weeks ago (Jan 28, 2018) — the City was as much flooded with tourists as it was with water.

The City of Light had become the City of Water.

This isn’t a shot from Brittany, Gulls often fly upstream here as in London. This time they were feeling as if in the middle of the Sea.

“Me zo ganet e Kreiz ar mor!” — Yann Ber Kalloc’h

(And I was born in the midst of the Sea)

Le Pont Neuf was covered with people and fighting for space I was able to take this 360° view of the City West of the bridge. What you see below is what is — on normal days —  a public garden. Click to enlarge.

The former train station named “Gare d’Orsay” (now a museum), is the right place from which to embark on a cruise.

Last but not least, the celebrated Zouave

Parisians have their eyes riveted on the statue in fear of seeing the dreaded 1910 flood come back but the statue was moved (from one side of the bridge to the other) and the bridge entirely rebuilt in the 1970s and no-one remembers where the statue was in the first place so that there is no hope in hell you would be able to measure anything with that thing. in 1910, the Zouave was said to have had water up to his neck. For those who are interested in measuring floods, Austerlitz (East of the City) is where you have to be. For those interested too in knowing why it happened — and it’s not finished … — we had heavy and unusual rainfalls for close to 100 days unabated (i.e. almost as much as it rains in a whole year!) and the Marne, upstream starting overflowing, which caused the Seine to flood its banks. It happened slowly because the Marne flows slower than other rivers for some reasons. Having said that, even 100 days of rain here amount to nothing compared to what a City like Seattle receives every Winter.

This map shows deficits or surplus of rain area by area in percentages. One word of caution: January is usually the coldest — and driest — of months here. Watch out for March/May/June and July/September … unless we have had our quota already. I think we are far from having seen the end of this.