A good way to help the time pass, when you’re doing slow laps in the little park at the east end of Ile de la Cite … is to indulge in people-watching.

Almost impossible not to, because you find yourself dodging tourists streaming through, on their way to the Maris from the Left Bank or perhaps angling though on their way to the Berthillon ice cream shop on the Ile Saint-Louis.

Let’s go on a lap and see whom we see.

We start at the northeast corner, just past the little gates with the “no dogs” sign on them.

To the right are three bits of playground equipment atop a rubberized surface, and we notice scads of kids on the stuff, particularly the tilted saucer, which spins, and a bratty 13-year-old is making it spin fast in hopes, no doubt, of seeing little kids fly off. At the moment, however, they are shrieking with delight.

Next comes four sets of benches facing each other, well-shaded by trees, and tourists are resting, consulting their maps, eating ice cream. Two guys on my left get up and cross the 15 feet of dirt to the other side, and one says to two girls: “You’re Americans, right?” (Which is something most Americans don’t like, because like all tourists they harbor the notion that they just blend in.)

At the next corner is a small booth that leads to an underground public bathroom with a woman who tends to it, and a steady stream of people are coming and going, toting their sweaters and guide books. And through here darting between the crowds feels something like trying to carry a football through the middle of a defense. Peripheral vision is key to avoid collisions.

Halfway down the next part of the square, you find yourself getting into the shots of people standing and looking at the back side of the Notre Dame cathedral. Even if you try not to get in someone’s photo, or to block their view, it’s almost impossible to prevent, especially when photogs are staring into their view finders for long stretches, and you never know when they will finally trigger the shutter.

Inevitably, someone (always a guy) is “explaining”, via hand gestures to someone (always a woman) why the flying buttresses on the cathedral work. The women always pretend to listen.

On the right, a woman who may be Japanese, is taking a very close-up photo of a blooming pink roses in the row of large rose bushes.

On the right, on the last bench, are two young lovers. The boy, perhaps 21, is sitting on the bench, and his beloved, perhaps 19, is lying face up on the bench with her head in his lap. He is tilting a bottle of water above her mouth. She has her lips parted, expectantly, like a hatchling in a nest. The next time around, he is dropping little bits of food into her mouth. A bit later, she is sound asleep. He is dark-haired, with a pointed nose. She is blonde and small. They are very mush in their Schmoopie phase. Will it last? Maybe. Maybe not. But they will always have Paris 2012.

Just before the second left is the gate to the groundskeepers qaurters. One of them often is outside the gate, watching the park, keeping people off the narrow strips of grass on the south and west ends.

Left around one of the white-bark plane trees, fully clothed with leaves (as opposed to me visit late last year) and down a dusty stretch with benches on the left and views across the Seine and to the Left Bank.

The locals continue to dress as if it is winter, all in black, with scarves. A man, at least 60, has a black coat and black scarf and is sitting close to what must be his wife. She looks healthier than he does, and both look very French.

Down towards the little booth on the west side, the one that is always locked and empty. Once upon a time, a guardienne must have stood in there.

A final left turn, and more benches on the right. Five tourists dead ahead, a husband and wife and three children, two of whom are under 4, one of whom is screaming. Why bring young children to Paris? They won’t remember it, but they may well cause their parents a lot of stress.

Across the final 50-60 steps. A tour group of older people on the left, admiring the buttresses (nowhere are buttresses as revered), and on the right another gantlet to run of photographers, who feel compelled to take pictures of each other, with buttresses in the background.

Guide books, ice cream cones, water bottles, cameras of all shapes and sizes, everyone smiling aside from the occasional toddler, an outdoors location so unlike anything in Abu Dhabi or theUAE, in May … and drifting in the air, accordion music from the guy sitting on the edge of the bridge over to Ile St.-Louis, and another lap begins.

So much to see. Been at this 40 minutes already? Time flew, Even if I didn’t.