It's 22 years since we've been in France, 24 since we took the Eurostar to Paris.

Heavens -- they were still using French francs back then, and the train left from Waterloo...

Nowadays it goes from St Pancras, which is an impressive station (but don't buy anything there...)




The procedure is quite straightforward. You go through security (a bit hassly as you have to manhandle ALL your stuff, as opposed to just your hand baggage), and then you go through passport control (easy with these still magic British passports -- but of course this might change in the future, depending on Britain's decisions on the EU, and I don't know how much of a hassle it is for other nationalities). And then you wait until your train is called.

There's a reasonable amount of luggage space in the carriages, and the seats are comfortable. Unfortunately, we copped one of the positions that only has half a window (this happens to us more often than is statistically predictable, I think). But we still got a fairly good view of that wide, flat, green, church-speckled northern French countryside.

The ride is very smooth, and we hit the 300 kph mark, just as we did in 1995.


It's worth knowing that you can buy Metro tickets on the train. There's a slight surcharge, but it's nice not to have to wrestle with the machines as soon as you arrive.

For some bizarre reason, Nigel's ticket wouldn't let him through the barrier, but once he was armed with a new one, we were very rapidly on our way to Gambetta, the Metro station closest to our Airbnb accommodation.

Within seconds of leaving the station, we were passing bakeries and cheese shops and delicatessen and chocolate shops and quintessentially French cafes. And we started to wonder why -- WHY? -- it's 22 years since we spent time in this quixotic but wonderful country.

We're staying in an archetypal French apartment building, the kind of place where you expect one of Audrey Tautou's characters to appear around any corner.

We're right at the top, up under the roof, where the maids used to live. You can slog up the six flights of stairs (I did -- with my pack), or you can take the dinky little lift. The apartment is nothing if not bijou (the bed lifts up to give you sofa space in the daytime), but it's absolutely charming. And the owner is friendly and helpful.




We rounded off the day with a quick expedition to the nearby Carrefour, and loaded our basket with all the things that were stalwarts when we used to camp or stay in gites here. Baguette, cheese, sausage, cassoulet, choucroute...

It's dark outside now, and there are no curtains or blinds. There must be some kind of honour code whereby you don't peek into each other's places...

But who cares? We're back in Paris.

POSTSCRIPT 28 May

We found the button that operates the exterior blind... But it's still true to say that other occupants of the courtyard are nonchalant about lookers-in.