Here we are at 59 rue Froidevaux, wondering when M Happi will turn up with the keys to let us in. He was only 45 mins late, allegedly because he was trying to get the lift fixed.
And this is the view from our seventh floor apartment when we finally get to it. The window is open to try to compensate for the unmanageable central heating
Left hand end of the view, showing the monstrous erection which is la tour de Montpartnasse
Middle part of the view, showing a distant prospect of la basilique du sacre coeur
... and the right hand end of the view, showing a distant prospect of Le Pantheon
Conservatoire de la ville de paris, rue Mouton Duvernet, has some rather strange street art
Rear end of a statue in the jardin de luxembourg
Splendidly restored and maintained 19th c. theatre
We visited Margherita but didn't meet her mysterious friend, whose clock (and indeed flat) this is
Lilette and Margherita plot a course for lunch
Another architectural delight : 40 ave Felix Faure
Le celebre Cafe du Commerce, where Margarita lunched us rather extravagantly.
Another wonderful Parisian facade, somewhere in the 6eme (near rue de Sevres, I think ... it was a very good lunch)
Curious Norman keep looking quite jolly in the Cimitiere de Montparnasse in the early morning sunshine
Jean-Philippe, Richard, and Jean-Daniel look at me skeptically thinking "he cannot seriously be immortalizing us eating lunch at the canteen of the ENS can he?" But yes, indeed I have. Half way through a meeting about millefeuille.
Serge and I celebrate having missed the train to Lyon with a much deserved beer in Le Train Bleu
The menu at Jools features hareng lacque... much nicer than it looks.
and here I am retiring to bed after a long day, having been briefly reunited with the hat I left in Serge's office two years ago
This is M Pecaut and he looks like that at every visitor to the ENS-SHS at Lyon, not just me.
Rue d'Enfer. An intriguing little alley off Bd Raspail.
This fine statue commemorates the prototypical French military hero... he led the retreat from Moscow, was beaten by Wellington at Waterloo, and was executed by firing squad. But by golly he was brave.
L'equipe Adonis, or most of it, at lunch.
I got to know this wall quite well, passing it twice a day for a week on my walk to work
In the mornings, you can peek into the cemetery, and even walk through it, passing hundreds of little houses of the dead like this, each one with its nom de famille attached. In the evening they lock the gates, to make sure no-one gets out.
This is a wall on Bd de Port Royal which I really like...
This man makes the best flan in Paris, Wim van der Mierlo told me, and I can confirm that he's not wrong.
Beautiful copper octopus over the entrance to the Institut Oceanographique
One of two memorials to the author of the Roman de La Rose stuck to this building on rue St Jacques
Every working morning, the proprietress of this rather superiour traiteur on rue St Jacques writes a new menu on the window. When the sun comes out, she has to cover it up with plastic bags to protect the food on display inside. I can vouch for the quality of the pommes de terre lyonnaises though.
View of the place de l'Estrapade from the front door of the TGE ADONIS offices at 4 rue Lhomonde
Gare Denfert Rochereau, now just one of many on RER B, but once a major Paris terminus on the ligne de sceaux. The time shows that we are going to have to hurry if we want to catch the Eurostar home...
And here we are again at Gare du Nord, after a really horrible journey squashed into an overdue and therefore overcrowded airless RER train. Never mind, we are heading for...
... the Eurostar lounge! which is also in a standing-room-only situation, dammit. Clearly this is not the right time of day to make this journey.
salut gare du nord... a bientot... we are boarding
and here we are at St Pancras, just in time for the London rush hour.
... Paddington, Hammersmith and City line, rush hour, nuff said. At least on the RER they have lifts, and where there are stairs, the passengers going up don't have to fight with the passengers going down.
Arriving at Oxford station in time for some refreshing light rain in the twilight.
