Paris sur la Pluie

The bells at Notre Dame ringing out late into the night to herald the Feast of the Assumption should have alerted me to today’s jour ferier, but no. I was blissfully unaware of the importance of the midnight seranade until I tried to buy breakfast, only to find that all the boulangeries were closed. Quelle horreur!

The unexpected public holiday and the relentless rain all day long made for a quiet day, not venturing very far from the Cité.

Stopping to window-shop in the glorious stationery boutiques in nearby Rue du Pont Louis Phillipe, lead to us discovering a fantastic little creperie - L'Ebouillanté - round the corner in Rue des Barres. Talk about the perfect comfort food for a cold and wintery day - the homemade Tarte Tatin (with crème fraiche, of course) was worth coming to Paris for, all by itself.

Looking for under-cover entertainment options and with most of the smaller museums closed for the holiday, we caught a movie at Bastille (version originale, of course) – “The Tree” (L’Arbre), which turns out to be an Australian-French co-production, featuring Charlotte Gainsburg not coping very well with life in a sunny and beautiful North Queensland. (But honestly, who can blame her really, given that no she’s doubt spent far too much time in cosmopolitan Paris?)

Emerged from cinema back into the rain. But luckily, there are worse cities to find yourself in than Paris, when you are looking for a cosy café in which to while away the evening, with some dear friends, a glass of red wine and some yummy cheese...