Today, I headed to the far-flung 15th arrondissement, the leftest on the Left Bank, with the 80-degree heat turning my freckles from threesome to orgy. The 15th is essentially the only arrondissement in Paris that you couldn't film a 19th-century costume drama in without a shit ton of CGI. There are skyscrapers, quirky ones and hip ones that look like they were designed by Ray-Ban. And they're close together, rather than padded out apologetically with lots of Belle Époque white space as happens in other arrondissements. The architectural swooshes, reflective glass, and chicly visible elevators all add to the entrepreneurial feel of the riverside Quarters. The streets further inland are among the most populous of the city but also among the leafiest and widest, making it eminently explorable.

Some words here on the next two images, taken in the Jardin Mémorial des Enfants du Vel’ d’Hiv’. Located in the Grenelle quarter, this is a memorial park for the victims of the largest arrest of Jews in France during the Second World War. On July 16th and 17th in 1942, 13,512 Jews in Paris (over 4,000 of them children) were rounded up by the French police and confined—little better than cattle—in the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a stadium and indoor cycling track once located near this park. They were then sent to their deaths at Auschwitz. The memorial park was inaugurated on July 17th, the 75th anniversary of the "Vel d'Hiv" roundup, as those two days have come to be known.