26-29 September - Ceret

Yesterday's walk had clearly knocked the stuffing out of us. I was asleep by 9pm and we both slept nearly 10 hours. Our habit is to do a day-on/day-off mode of exploration/rest during the week, and then just take it as it comes on the weekend. We can't safely do any long forest walks on the weekend because of the hunting. The forecast for the next 10 days is for fine sunny weather and temperatures still up to between 30 and 33 degrees, so it's going to be warm. We thought the temperatures might have been dropping into the 20s by now, but not so. With the air-conditioning not working in the car, it curtails our plans a little.

However, it's an easy day today. We bought a new ironing board cover. That's a treat! Coffee and a read at Bar Pablo (so we could get their wifi password and later use it next door at Le Comptoir). We've embarked on washing the sofa and cushion covers, which were due for an overhaul. It will take maybe 5 loads in the washing machine, and quite a few days for them to dry but the weather looks perfect for it this week. 

As it turned out, everything dried really well, and the first sofa's covers were washed, dried, ironed and replaced all in a day. We met friends at Le Comptoir in the evening, and back for a late dinner.

Wednesday we headed into Perpignan to get some new wiper blades, some bits at Decathlon (a mega sports store like Rebel Sports) including pathetically small (40x25x20cm) Ryanair-sized cabin bags, booking the car into Hyundai to see if the aircon could be fixed, and back into the centre for a meal at our favourite La Suite. As always the combination of French cuisine and Moroccan flavours was lovely, and the proprietor as pleasant as ever. He remembers us, even though we only appear on a few occasions during September-November each year. 

The toilet in the Moroccan restaurant La Suite is very quirky

I'm a little worried we are getting old! In previous years, when the weather has been hot, we've always got up early (7am?) and gone for our run before breakfast, followed by a weights session after it. Now, we are so cosy snuggled or reading in bed that it's getting exceedingly hard to arise before breakfast. Hence, today we opted to delay our run until 10am, and it worked fine. It wasn't too hot, our tummies weren't too full and we actually surprised ourselves with how well our sprint rep sessions went. We haven't done any HIIT (high intensity interval training) for a number of weeks now, but know they pay big dividends in fitness if you can do them regularly. Unfortunately swimming isn't an option to us because the local pool closed here at the end of August, which is deemed to be the end of the summer season. The closure takes no notice of how hot the temperatures remain. 

We managed to squeak a coffee in before midday, this time at the new coffee roaster's tiny cafe. John had asked him last time we were there if he made Flat Whites, and he'd said yes. I was keen to take him at his word, and was very happy with his version made with beans from El Salvador. It made a nice change from a noisette (a little espresso with a touch of milk). The owner is a very nice guy and clearly his new enterprise is doing very well as the small number of tables and chairs are typically full.

It's now 1pm, a Spanish guitarist and saxophonist are serenading diners at the restaurants in the square below us, and all is well with the world. The temperature hasn't yet risen into the 30s, so it's very nice being tucked up in our little apartment looking out at the tall plane trees in part sun and shade, listening to the live music. 

For the first time in three months I think I can now say, with reasonable confidence, that the blockage/ringing in my left ear is starting to come right. Ever since I had the ear infection in July, my hearing has been (initially quite severely) impaired and it has continuously felt like I've had water in my ear. My doctor assured me it would come right, but could take a long time. He wasn't wrong there! It's still not as it should be, but I'm mightily pleased that it finally seems to be abating. 

We caught up with more friends at Le Comptoir tonight, some from Aussie and an English woman who now lives in Montpellier. The Aussies are trying to sell their property but a sale fell through very recently. However, it's now very likely extended family members will buy it, meaning the couple will still be able to come here for holidays. 

Friday has been deemed 'group walk' day, when a number of our friends get together to go for perhaps a 4km walk. It's not fast, the pace being determined by the slowest walker, which can be VERY slow. Because we are walkers, the others are always keen for us to join them. It's always a chance to chat, if not get the heartrate up above resting. We had a nice stroll around the back of Ceret and were back at Le Comptoir for a nourishing coffee by noon. This was followed up with lunch at one of the restaurants in our square with three others. The immediate appeal on the menu was moules frites (mussels and chips), something John always angles towards. It was simple and tasty. 

Rest was required in the afternoon in anticipation of watching the All Blacks vs Italy game in the Rugby World Cup. Sebastian, at Le Comptoir, promised to put his big screen up, so a number of us congregated there at 9pm. In the end the match was a walkover, with the ABs playing very well, but I think we would all have enjoyed a closer and more evenly contested match, as was predicted. However, the evening ended on a high note and we're looking forward to watching the Quarter Finals onwards. 

24-25 September - Ceret and Hiking on the Spanish Border

Sunday 24th was a quiet day. Apart from the random gunshots echoing around the valley, care of Ceret's enthusiastic boar hunters, the town was very quiet. In fact, it often amazes us how quiet town can be, even though we live in the absolute centre and between pedestrian squares. 

However, one of the pleasures of waking up earlyish is to enjoy the smell of freshly baked bread wafting in the window from one of the nearby bakers. At 4:30am or 6am, we know the day has already started for some. We made a slow start to the day, however, eventually getting ourselves on a walk on the back loop (Le Ventous) on the edge of town. Given it is a hunting day (Sundays, Saturdays and Wednesdays) we didn't venture into the hinterland, and put on bright caps and T-shirts just to be extra cautious. We don't trust French men bearing arms at all. 

Part of this walk takes us past the Couvent de Capucins (Capuchin Nuns Convent). We looked at buying this when it was up for sale sometime before Covid. The property included a chapel, residential building, large grounds, statues, buried water source, overgrown gardens and even a large cross. It was a divine property, no pun intended, and would have been a fabulous DIY project. However, outweighing its wonderful character and location (just above town), the cost of the renovation would have been huge, plus there would likely have been constraints on what we could do given its historical listing. We even went into Perpignan to discuss it with the national organisation responsible for heritage protection. Alas, it was not to be.

In the end the property was bought by an English couple and they have spent the last four or so years working on it, including installing a new roof on both the house and chapel. On our walk today we spied they have managed to open up a few walls and put in large new windows. It really is a wonderful complex but we knew that the venture was just too costly for us.

Looking down on the convent, with the chapel to the left. 

Monday was a much more energetic day, and it was a whole heap of fun. September is generally the time that wild blackberries are ripe for the harvesting. During this month we typically take a plastic bag with us on our walks close to town, or failing that use a cap, so we can crop any berries not yet discovered by locals. However, on 2-3 occasions we have driven up to a refuge close to the French/Spanish border, from where a number of decent walks explore the Pyrenees. One of these tracks is bordered by rampant blackberry vines. Given we arrived here in Ceret late in September this year, we figured that there might still be some ripe berries up at altitude.

Hence, we set off in our trusty little car to scale the hairpin bends up to the refuge, high above Le Perthus on the border. The initial walk is through forest, until you get up onto the ridgeline. It's a steep walk up, and hence a steep one back down again. 

Forest track

Fairly much as soon as we started to get out of the forest we came across some decent crops of berries, and indeed spent over an hour cropping away as we slowly trekked uphill. It was hot work, and the berries were unusually small but still ready for picking. When we reached the plateau at the top we hid our bags of berries behind a bush and kept walking. It was pretty cool to be walking along the ridge of the Pyrenees, on the very border of Spain and France. The border here is basically a ragged fence of post and wire. The view from the top was brilliant, with not a cloud in the sky.

View looking towards France over the plains of Rousillon. The coast is on the RHS.

View south over Spain

Forested plateau

French/Spanish border is a post and wire fence along the middle of the grassed ridge

After climbing over the border into Spain the track soon weaves past an ancient snow-well. The cave was made centuries ago by local men who dug a huge hole, then lined it with rocks. It is 10m in depth and 5m wide. with what initially looks like a small stone hut is the entrance to a tunnel linking with a circular chamber below the dome. It functioned by snow being shovelled in at the top in winter and extracted from the bottom in summer. It was a refrigerator, and still worked perfectly 400 years after it was constructed.

The dome at the top of the snow chamber

Snow was extracted at the base via a tunnel chute

Carefully crafted rock walls lining the inside of the snow chamber

We could crawl inside the chute to look into the chamber. We'd be in there before so knew what to expect, but it's still a little scary to crawl along a narrow tunnel using just light by the mobile phone. There is no barrier at the end, and a sudden drop-off down to the bottom of the chamber would be very jarring. We didn't see any bones though, thankfully!

On other occasions we've walked further along the track, doing the entire loop up the cell-tower and then back down to the plateau. This time we were feeling rather weary, time had marched on with all our berry picking and we were also looking forward to rewarding ourselves by having a lunch in Spain. We therefore opted to take a shortcut back, collected our hidden bags of berries and head back to the car. It was a very hot day, over 30 degrees, and we were at an altitude of 1200m.

A quick trip downhill, through the French border town of Le Perthus and we were into the Spanish town of La Jonquera. This is a favourite place for us, for getting haircuts, stocking up on groceries and also having a meal - all at significantly less cost than in France. At 2pm we arrived at the local restaurant we hoped to try out to find it pretty full. Many Spanish don't eat lunch until 3pm, but, talking with the proprietor a little later, he told us that 90% of his customers are French. We found a table inside, and it was nice to be out of the heat. 

The meal was superb. We both opted for fish entrees and mains, and it didn't disappoint in any way. In fact, we are very keen to return there when the opportunity arises. We ended up chatting a little to the couple who we presumed were husband and wife and the owners. It was fun, and when John said 'please' in Catalan, when ordering his dessert, the guy beamed hugely and roared with laughter (we don't think it was at the pronunciation?). He was really thrilled and was very chatty They were a lovely couple and we got along well in a mixture of French and Spanish and a hint of Catalan and English. 

Entrees - fresh anchovies for me and chipirones (squid/small cuttlefish) for John

Mains - cabillaud (cod) for me and seiches (cuttlefish) for John

It all made for a splendid and filling lunch. Well restored from our morning's endeavours, we made a quick stop at one of the ginormous supermarkets that line the main road at the frontier here, and bought a few necessities before heading back over the border.

Spanish essentials - liqueur, Spanish sauvignon/verdejo, Perelada Cava,
0% beer,broad corn nibbles, Spanish cheese and allioli

20-23 September - Meal out at La Muga, Collected the Car

On Wednesday we woke yet again to dry weather. We really would like a good dose of rain so the water systems in the area can start operating better - the 9-jet fountain below us in the square (Place des Neuf Jets) is bone-dry, and we miss hearing its splash. First call was a read and a coffee at Le Comptoir. Friends arrived so we had a good catch-up.

We are working our way through unpacking the clothes we tucked away in the spare room. It's something we do each year so that anyone who rents has space for their belongings.

Heading out for a walk it began to drizzle so we contented ourselves with a visit to La Capella, a little exhibition space, which had a photographic collection. Not as good as some we've seen there.

Thursday was back to fine again, and we did our first run-walk around Le Ventous behind Ceret. We surprised ourselves with how well we went! It was our first attempt at running for quite some time. Having done that we deserved a coffee at the new cafe, Un Cafe Ceret. Rather good. The people there take coffee seriously, and it appears to pay off as they had most of their tables occupied. Nice to have another option.  Karen's coffee at La France yesterday was dreadful.

An old friend from Ceret had died during the year and had left a sum of money to be spent on a meal for those who knew her in Ceret, so 10 of us headed over the border with Spain to Vilanova de la Muga for lunch. As we hadn't yet retrieved our car from storage we went with friends. The lunch was very good. A good range of very non-French food. I did my normal thing and chose something I had not had before - an entree of cocks' combs. Yes, it really was those red wobbly bits on a rooster's head. I don't think I'd have them again. Crunchy at the tips, and tender at the base, but not particularly tasty.

As our main course, Karen and I shared a Campo Special which was a giant seafood platter of lobster, prawns, shrimps, razor clams, ordinary clams, baby octopus and cuttlefish, with a couple of lettuce leaves on the side as a nod to vegetables. Spectacular to look at, and very good to eat. We look forward to Spain and its seafood each year, and this couldn't have been a better start.

Wow, does that platter look amazing!

On Friday we finally headed off on the 1E bus to Le Boulou to collect our little car from its garage. On went the battery terminals, away went the engine without the slightest hesitation. The tyres were pretty soft at the front as expected so first stop was the gas station to pump them up and fill up with diesel. Not all was perfect as the aircon was not working. We had hoped last year's sort-of fix would hold but it wasn't to be. We are now left in a bit of a pickle as the gas it uses is very hard to get, and the source of the leak isn't clear. A compressor replacement would be as much as the car is worth, and a refill of gas, if available, would only be temporary and environmentally bad. We may just ignore it and run without aircon given we don't intend to be here in mid-summer again.

There's now a Lidl at Le Boulou so we took advantage of its better prices and did a full shop to restock our very empty pantry and fridge-freezer. We're now ready for a famine. 

Back from Le Boulou we needed to park. As residents in the inner part of Ceret we are able to use Parking des Tins for a very reasonable 10E per month. So I tried to collect a ticket from the machine. No go. OK, I could get the advertised 2 hours free while I sorted it at the mairie. No go. So off to the mairie to renew our entitlement. I was armed with an electricity letter to prove our address, and our recent car insurance receipt to prove the number of our car. No go. The electricity letter was older than the required 3 months, and they wanted to sight the actual car rego papers. You might have assumed that one-month-old car insurance papers would sufficiently prove both the car rego and our address, but you'd be wrong! As often happens in France, the council person was a stickler for the rules, but was also very helpful and found a way to avoid them. She let us send copies of the required documents by email.

In the evening I bumped into a friend who lives here now. He'd just recently bought a house in the centre, and had not the slightest difficulty putting in both good-sized skylights and a roof terrace! Ten years ago this was impossible as the planning staff then were adamant that nothing close to the church could have either. Apparently the new mayor has sacked those staff that were holding up redevelopment of the inner town. 

We have again noticed that Ceret is in good health. A few new shops have opened, and existing shops seem to be a little more upmarket. In our square the three restaurants are doing a good trade, but the 4th which closed following the death of the proprietor 18 months ago remains closed and the building is for sale. It has a couple of sitting tenants who are rather obnoxious, and it is extremely difficult to remove a tenant.

A saxophonist serenading evening diners in the square below us

Saturday 23rd was our first market since getting back. Lying in bed in the morning we had a delicious waft of fresh bakery-scented air wash over us. Strangely the town was very quiet. Normally on a Saturday morning we hear the racket of the market setting up from early and the fountain starting at 9am but for whatever reason all was quieter than normal.

The market was as busy as normal, and we picked up our normal pottles of olives, some fresh veges, and fruit, plus a few geraniums for our window boxes, currently very dry and empty. Sitting at Le Comptoir watching the market going on around us is a particular pleasure. We topped it all off with a tartelette myrtille from the grumpy baker under the arch. It is very nice being back. 

Spoilt for choice at the olive man

The market is as good as ever

19 September - Ceret

I awoke to the sound of firstly the street cleaner and secondly the church bells ringing in 7.45am. They chime over 100 times at this time, presumably for early mass, then chime on the hour all day. It was a great way to start the day, and I don't even mind the street cleaner. It means we are in France.

We had a lovely lazy morning, breakfast in bed and read a book. Bliss! We struggled up to have a shower and get ourselves to the cafe by 10am. Life is going to be so good here. On the way, the sounds of a chainsaw drew us to a nearby square where one of the 200+ year old plane trees was being taken down. It must have been rotten and in danger of falling but it was a shame to see it go. It will take quite some time for a replacement to make its presence felt. 

One of the lovely plane trees being removed

More of our friends arrived and shared coffee time with us. It's great to catch up with them, though some of our English friends will be departing for home within a few weeks because they will have used up their quota of time allowed in Europe. They all hate Brexit, and two couples had since moved to live here permanently.

Coffee was followed by a trip to one bakery for our daily bread, and then a patisserie for our favourite pastries. I think we need to get back into some regular exercise sooner rather than later! Lunch was pretty darn good.

These cream-filled pastries speak for themselves

Lunch

John is currently having a post-afternoon nap. I wonder why?

I did my first weights workout for a month, and really enjoyed it. We went out for a bit of a walk later on, but it started to rain lightly. The locals are very happy that we're having a little rain because it has been such a hot and dry summer. 

18 September - Paris to Ceret

It was with a little sadness that we departed Paris today. We very much enjoyed our four days here, particularly having the time and opportunity to wander around a number of the different neighbourhoods. This was our preference to seeing some of the big sights again. We could have gone to the Louvre for example, and indeed this weekend is Journées du Patrimoine (Heritage Days), so some museums and the like are free. However, there were crowds lining up and we quite readily flagged it. We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the older arrondissements (districts), like the Marais (3rd Arrondissement), in particular.

Some Observations:

Upon arrival in Paris and emerging from the depths of the Paris underground metro system, some cultural differences with San Francisco and also NZ were clear:

• The standard of dress is much higher than NZ or San Francisco. There's a lot more care taken in choosing shoes, trousers and top, and further in make-up. Even if somebody is casually dressed, it is often very carefully casual!
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• Seats in the cafes are mostly turned to face outwards towards the street. Often every row of seating is aligned to face outwards rather than in groups towards the tables. The result aids social interaction between those seated and those passing by on the footpath or the street. It's very convivial.
• 
  
• The number of people who smoke cigarettes is at first a little overwhelming. While we often smelt marijuana while walking in San Francisco and Berkeley, we less often saw anyone actually smoking. By contrast, in France, it seems like more than half the people seated at a cafe are smoking, or while chatting to someone on the footpath. The smell of smoke is pervasive and the roadside gutters are riddled with cigarette butts. It's very in-your-face!

Our departure from Paris on Monday morning was an early one. We left the apartment soon after 7am, picked up a baguette at the bakery nearby and jumped onto the Metro, arriving at Gare de Lyon station by 7.45am. The train we had booked was fairly full but we'd booked early enough to reserve two seats on the upper level. We settled in for the five hour trip to Perpignan and planned to enjoy a good rest from our four days of enthused walking around Paris. It didn't take long to realise that our seats were in the section facing the wrong way, i.e. we'd be spending the next five hours going backwards! Hah. It didn't really matter because I ended up sleeping for perhaps half the journey and reading most of the rest of it. John was listening to a comic cricket podcast while taking the odd photo out the window. Hence the trip went remarkably quickly. We made up our standard baguette sandwiches along the way.

Landscape on the way to Valence

We left behind temperatures of around 27-28 degrees and medium humidity in Paris, arriving in Perpignan in the early afternoon to a very hot sun, about 30 degrees and lower humidity. It felt a lot hotter than Paris. It was only a 40-minute wait until the next scheduled 1 Euro bus to Ceret. It was very exciting to be on the last leg of our trip.

Off the bus and a five minute walk saw us stop outside the door to our building. Great stuff, but not before John had spied something momentous on the way - a coffee roaster has opened up in town!

A new coffee roaster

It was wonderful, after lugging our bags up the three flights of stairs, to open the door to our apartment and immediately feel its ambience. We truly do enjoy it. After throwing open the shutters, turning on the air conditioning and quickly unpacking our bags, the next few months were certainly looking very appealing. 

We began with a stock up on a few fresh goods from the local supermarket, but soon afterwards made our way to Le Comptoir, our local cafe. Ordering a pastis and a glass of rose seemed the perfect fit for the occasion. It wasn't long before a number of our friends wandered along, some on a stroll and others for their regular pre-dinner tipple. It was really lovely catching up with them, and an enjoyable few hours rushed by until we needed to retreat home and piece together some bits for a late meal. 

We have had home-exchange guests using our apartment for the past week - they departed just a few days before we arrived. Unfortunately we couldn't overlap for a day, as initially planned, but they left a generous note, clearly loved the place and are very keen to return again next year. It's likely we will catch up with them well before then, because we often use their exchange bach in Hanmer Springs and they live not far away in Christchurch.

We slept like logs.

17 September - Paris Walks, and a Bouillon Restaurant

After yesterday's effort of scouting architectural highlights within the city, we were keen for more exploring today. John had found two more self-guided tours, one for Parisian highlights in general, and another of historical alleyways.

We've become quite used to negotiating the Paris metro network. The stations are all extremely well labelled once you are enveloped in the underground labyrinth, and it's just a matter of following the appropriate sign (colour and number) to get to your connection. When we emerged from the Metro station this morning we were immediately confronted by the extravagant Hotel de Ville of Paris (town hall). From there, past some very attractive corner cafes, we were close up and personal with the reconstructions underway on Notre Dame.

Hotel de Ville

Reconstruction of Notre Dame

It seems amazing that the blaze in Notre Dame was four years ago. It doesn't seem anywhere near that long. Its reconstruction is clearly a massive undertaking. 200 tons of scaffolding are in place to allow for it. 2000 oak trees are being felled in mainly northern and central France to provide replacement beams, 3000 sqm of stained glass windows have to be restored and 41,000 sqm (4ha) of stonework has to be cleaned. It's incredible.

Just around the corner we came across a very quaint and very old little restaurant. It was originally a 16th century townhouse but has been functioning as a restaurant for centuries, often catering for clergy associated with the cathedral. We were invited to peep inside it.

Au Vieux Paris Arcole - 15th century

Inside dining echoing earlier eras

Still serving the clergy

Our wandering continued and we enjoyed coming across a range of interesting sights. 

Galeries Lafayette had some amazing kitchen displays for its 'fooding' promotion

Fantastically coloured shirts elsewhere, though unfortunately John wasn't tempted

Pompidou Centre - Le Beaubourg

Roman-style arch

The famous Folies Bergere

Today, for the first time, with no more on the agenda for today, we had time to sit down and enjoy a relaxed lunch. I know, we are a little excessive with the amount of walking and exploring we insist on doing, but it's been immensely rewarding.

Right now our tummies needed a reward other than a baguette sandwich. We were generally in neighbourhoods where there were a lot of restaurants, however many were closed because it's Sunday, and many were ethnic whereas we wanted something French. We came across a board offering a proper French lunch for a very reasonable price. We peeped down the alleyway and were immediately grabbed by the establishment and its ambiance. 

It turned out to be a bouillon restaurant, the early 19th century equivalent of fast food. . They seat hundreds, in this case perhaps 300, have very reasonable prices, and a very fast service. Chartier has been running in the same fashion since 1896. You are sent to a free table - there were none when we arrived, it remained full the entire time, and as we left the queue was 20 or 30 deep. The waiter was soon on hand to drop off bread and water, then take the order which he wrote on the paper table cover. Another couple were sat down at our table for 4, and we chatted a little. Food came out rapidly, the waiter referring to the written-down orders as required. The whole place was noisy, busy and vastly fun. The food (I had pig's nose and beef tongue, Karen a duck confit!) was very tasty and generous. A great experience that we stumbled into quite by chance and would totally recommend to other Paris travellers. It's definitely been another highlight.

Chocolate profiterole, prunes with ice cream. It was as good as it looks!

The hidden passages walk turned out to be a bit of a fizzer. What we hadn't realised was that many of the passages were private shopping arcades, and being Sunday were closed. It was a fun walk anyway, but not what it might have been.

We gave it away as we got near to Gare St Lazare, which was the setting for a painting we'd bought last year. We were keen to see exactly where the original historic photo had been taken that became the inspiration for our painting. On arriving, the spot we'd thought it was taken from was obviously not correct, but after a bit of walking around we found the location within a metre or two. We took another as close as we could, but realised later that the photographer had been low to the ground and closer to the subjects.

Our best effort, suitably tweaked to an evening in 1937

And the 1937 original

At this point we'd done most of the walk, so went back along the Tuileries Gardens, then on the metro and back home. The temperature was still in the high 20s, and we were flagging. I can't imagine being here with the temperature 5 or 10 degrees higher. 

The Louvre

On our return we found that just outside our apartment block there was a big crowd of youths who had set up a ramp on the street and were doing jumps to loud cheers and applause when they stuck the landings. Every now and again they had to quickly pull the ramp away to let a bus and even a police car through.

Street skateboarding

We'd thought of going up the Eiffel Tower in the evening, but the website told us that it was currently very busy, and the online tickets were sold out, so we gave it away for this year. I'm sure it will still be much the same as in 1982!

We've had a lovely time in Paris. Our home area of Belleville is very pleasant and proved an excellent base for our explorations. We enjoyed seeing some new areas and new sights, and particularly the Le Corbusier studio-apartment and the bouillon restaurant.

16 September - Le Corbusier, and Wine and Cheese

Another red-letter day in our travel history. There are some things we've seen which have been astounding, such as Ronchamp Chapel, FLW's Tokyo Imperial Hotel, Plensa's and Mueck's sculptures, natural wonders such as the Dolomites, the Japanese gardens and teahouses, and a number of our walks. Todays brush with the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier would be right up there.

We had quite a full day planned today starting with an architectural walk, then a possible visit to the Musee d'Orsay, and finally a wine and cheese tasting in the old centre of Paris. We set off on metro to the start of our walk, paused for a coffee before it really got underway, then started following the route in earnest. After a few interesting streets and some lovely old buildings, we wandered past the Paris St-Germain football stadium and headquarters, interesting for the buildings as well as the club's status.

Art Nouveau metro station stairway entrance

There are a number of gated residential alleyways like this

Training arena (right) and stadium (left) of the professional Paris Saint-Germain rugby club

Just past them was Le Corbusier's studio-apartment. The building was designed by Le Corbusier and built by a developer between 1931 and 1934, with Le Corbusier taking over floors 7 and 8 and setting them up to his own design as his working studio and the home for himself, his new wife, a servant and occasionally his mother in a guestroom. He lived there until 1965.

I knew about it from some fishing on the internet for Le Corbusier-based walks, and it was paired with a visit to a dual-occupancy house Le Corbusier had designed for his brother and a long-term friend, M. La Roche. 

We initially walked straight past it, such is the quality of French signage. Having rechecked the address, we realised the facade was under scaffold. There was a planning department sign on the scaffold describing works to the Corbusier building, and our hearts sank. Everything looked so closed up. However I noticed a set of occupant intercom pushbuttons, and one of them said Le Corbusier. On pressing it, I asked the intercom if the place was still open, and lo and behold it was. So upstairs we went, all 7 narrow spiral flights, as the lift was posted as being erratic and to be avoided. We could so easily have been discouraged and missed out. Strange that a World Heritage site can be so difficult to find and visit.

At the top we arrived into a lobby and then Le Corbusier's studio, complete with some original fittings and fixtures and photos showing how it had been set up. Only a dozen or so people were there, half of them in a French-speaking tour group. 

Main architectural studio

His office desk

From there it was into the other rooms. Such very eclectic design, so very personal to his requirements, and brought to life by having original built-in furniture, chairs, rugs and contents, plus photos from his occupancy. 

Living room, dining room beyond. All furniture by Le Corbusier.

His wife's part of the bedroom. Bed on stilts just about hidden on the right.

The bedroom as it was

Kitchen - being built-in was a first.

It was fascinating seeing the unusual details, such as the bed propped a good metre in the air to allow views over the balcony, and the wardrobe being on hinges and wheels so it formed the door to the bedroom, and became a wall when closed. The architecture was light, bright, simple, modest, quirky, and hugely advanced for the time. For its time it was very progressive, in fact likely to be the first fully-glazed facade on an apartment building.

We totally enjoyed our visit, and came out thinking what a privilege it had been to be able to see something so important to the world of architecture.

The rest of the walk, while interesting, wasn't up to the studio-apartment. The second Le Corbusier building, a dual dwelling designed for his brother and a close friend, was also interesting, but didn't quite have the charisma and immediacy of the first. 

Gallery room, Maison La Roche

Maison La Roche

We'd intended to have a good French menu du jour, but found ourselves running out of time to complete the walk and get ourselves to the 4pm wine and cheese tour start, so bought a sandwich, a filled baguette.

The tour took us through some lovely areas, and ended up at the Trocadero which gives a fantastic view back over Paris and the Eiffel Tower which we had been very close to earlier in the walk as well. From there it was couple of metro legs to get us to our tasting only 15 minutes early after a day we'd thought would leave us an hour or two to read our books under a tree somewhere! The Musee d'Orsay never had a chance, and probably won't be seen by us on this visit. We did manage to make it to the vicinity of the Eiffel Tower though.

Market stall with masses of silverware for sale

From the Trocadero

We arrived at the designated contact point for the guided wine and cheese tour. Others gradually turned up and in the end there were 19 people in all. A local restaurant owner turned out to be the guide. It soon became clear that he was passionate about the history of the neighbourhood, which started off as a small market town 1km outside the city of Paris. Over the centuries it was absorbed into the city, but it remains distinctive for its smaller scale and less grandiose buildings than the Haussman-designed architecture of the core of Paris. After recounting the history of the area, and collecting a bag of fresh baguettes, we were soon seated in his restaurant where he proceeded to regale us with the differences between young and old cheeses, how to drink wine correctly to understand its characteristics, what accompaniments you can add to cheese to alter its taste and so on. In all we sampled a variety of wines and cheeses and learned some really interesting things. It was a most enjoyable few hours. Being one of the very few guided tours we have ever booked, we're thinking we should really try more when the opportunity arises. 

The restauranter who took our tour is in the red checked shirt

18th century mural depicting produce available in the market onsite.

Wine and cheeses ready for tasting

We didn't emerge from the restaurant until 6pm, which was quite late in the day since we'd kicked off at 9am and had walked about 18km. However, one of our aims when in Paris was to track down the Gare Saint Lazare, which is the scene of a painting we bought in Ceret last year. We love the painting, which depicts the year 1937. We wanted to see what the same scene looked like today. We managed to hop on one Metro train toward it, but the second Metro connection was not available - the line was being renovated. Instead of trying to negotiate a different combination of Metro trains we decided, at 7pm, that we were just too stuffed. A quick train-stop home and we settled for just an ice-cream for dinner. The cheese, bread and wine a little earlier had been substantial enough. In all, it was a very full day, with the overwhelming highlight being seeing through Le Corbusier's studio and apartment.