Cobbled up

Friday at last! Woke full of ambition and energy: I had a Mission to the Marais. I've known for ages that the next tale in the Sirenaiad (as I've taken to calling the Ben stories: the Mermaid saga) will have a crucial scene or two set there. I wanted some local color; I wanted a good look at two paintings in the Musée Carnavalet.

Getting there was a piece of cake. (Did I say that I love this hotel?) Round the corner, cross the footbridge, and there you are: bus stop. Took me straight past the Louvre to the Hotel de Ville. Ten minutes.

I'd found a lovely little book of walks in Paris, the sort that tells you to peep through the gates at no. 37 for a glimpse of a beautiful courtyard, built by so-and-so for his mistress the précieuse. The problem, as I discovered, is that all the tours begin at the nearest Métro stop, and all the maps, artistically, are islets, and how does this bit of jigsaw fit into where I am? No cellular, no wifi, and my paper map was blotched with locations of the Galeries Lafayette at all the crucial junctures.

Once I'd found Rue François Miron, I thought I deserved a little breakfast, as described above ("Marchons! Marchons!"). The next thing I found after that was an exquisite boulangerie, Au Petit Versailles du Marais, painted with gleaners. Their sign boasted a 2nd prize for traditional baguettes, Paris-wide, which evidences a serious passion for things floury. Inside was paradise, with a ceiling pretty as a tea cup, and O my! such things! Besides, as the bell rang, the guy behind the counter looked up and exclaimed that my new hat was beautiful. (It is blue, of course, and Cecil-Beaton broad.) After much contemplation, I chose their tarte tatin, which goes on my short list of wow: no cassia, just pure alchemy of apple, of a dark dark perfect amber, cyrstallized yet soft.

More anon.

Nine