I can’t quite believe that’s a week done, mon dieu, where did that go? It was Monday last week when I thought, “you know what, I’m taking the ferry from Plymouth and I’m going to go somewhere…for at least a week until I have to come back.” Très decisive. That’s exactly what I did. The…

Well, that just about sums it up… Flâneur for the day. Paris was clearly in a good mood this morning, glorious sunshine, not too hot, not too cold, the sort of weather that makes you feel like you should be lounging outside a café pretending to read Proust instead of just people‑watching with a coffee.…

You can tell you’ve arrived in the capital city of a great democracy when your room boasts a fan, a lift, and a television that actually works-honestly, I felt like I’d booked into Versailles rather than a ‘mid-range’ (Parisian mid range that is…) hotel. I half expected a man in a waistcoat to appear and ask if…

Thank heavens for the eminently sensible, Tintin-loving proprietor who clearly understands that an attic room in France can quickly turn into a slow-roasting poulet oven by midnight. In a stroke of genius worthy of a Voltaire script, they provided a portable air-con unit. I spent a good hour sprawled beneath its cool breeze last night…

Clop, clop, clop went the footsteps overhead…less “peaceful morning in Rennes” and more “early practice session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans?,” except instead of a sleek prototype car, it sounded like a particularly determined medieval warhorse doing laps. Such is the charm of a “trendy period apartment” in the boho quarter, “period” here…