{"id":587319,"date":"2026-07-15T18:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/587319\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T18:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:10:10","slug":"greetings-from-paris-where-an-art-installation-transformed-the-pont-neuf-into-a-rocky-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/587319\/","title":{"rendered":"Greetings from Paris, where an art installation transformed the Pont Neuf into a rocky cave"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">If ever Paris needed a place to cocoon, it was the last week of June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">The week that the city turned into one giant sauna, when temperatures reached 106 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">The week that I got into a fight on a bus with a group of Parisians who didn&#8217;t understand that windows, in fact, need to be kept closed in order for the air conditioning to work. (I lost).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">The week that I took myself to the cinema \u2014 one of the few places offering any real reprieve \u2014 only to be told the air conditioning was broken because it &#8220;couldn&#8217;t handle such unprecedented temperatures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">And then, walking around in a state of heat-induced delirium, I saw it. Or was it some sort of mirage?<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">The Pont Neuf, one of the city&#8217;s most elegant bridges, perched above the Seine, had been transformed into a giant mountainous cave. Layers of fabric depicting rocky terrain were inflated over the bridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">People were invited to walk through, part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jr-art.net\/projects\/la-caverne-du-pont-neuf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">an installation imagined by the French artist JR<\/a>. Was this the respite I didn&#8217;t know I needed? <\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">Sadly, not even a cave could shield me from this heat. Rectangular fans deployed across its dark interior walls simply blew around hot air, evoking the feeling of a hammam steam room.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">But it was magical \u2014 the cavern of Paris. And for a moment, I forgot about all the sweat dripping down my face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-base line-height-3\">For more Far-Flung Postcards,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/series\/g-s1-62275\/international-postcards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><strong>click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If ever Paris needed a place to cocoon, it was the last week of June. The week that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,197515,1067,366,18,117,19,17,337,968,5,34330,1113,4119,5485,208836,208837],"class_list":["post-587319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-classical","tag-culture","tag-design","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-npr","tag-podcasts","tag-public","tag-radio","tag-wnyc","tag-wnyc-studios"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116925341745017096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}