Paris in August - Some Like it Hot

Sometimes I can't find a whole lot to say about travel to Europe in August. It's hot, especially along the Med. Then again, I've had some delightful vacations in Rome and Paris in the hot months because the city dwellers have all buttered themselves up and escaped to the salty mists of the beaches. Like Courtney Traub suggests in a Paris for Visitors article you should read, "Laid-back, festive, and eerily stripped of its metropolitan stress levels, the city of light is a tourist's playground in August."

Besides being "eerily stripped"--adjectives which could be applied, one supposes, to Paris Hilton on a night out as much as they could to Paris the City of Light--there is free parking in August, according to the Paris Traveler. You can't beat that, unless you've come in by train and don't have to worry about slipping your rental car between an enormous SUV and a tottering Belle Epoch light post.

Anyway, now that everyone has left town except the tourists--and that means the chefs have skedaddled as well--I figure this might be a good time to take a cooking class. I've just spent 2 months testing the simple goodness of Tuscan cuisine and have developed a sudden urge to cook something for hours and hours with hundreds of difficult to find ingredients. Who fears the stove in August? Let him whimper. Or better yet, let him go gourmet fly fishing. Really, GourmetFly.com is ready to send you trout fishing in France to places where the streams are so full of of Veuve Clicquot bottles chilling that there's hardly room for the fish--and when you come up empty you can get yourself all dolled up and spend your meal times chowing down on some of the best food in France. Check it out.

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