Fourth to Seventh

On these long (late) summer evenings it’s lovely to hear some of the musicians playing, here at the Cité. In fact, music can be heard for most of the day - there’s a sitar player who usually takes the morning slot, followed by a soprano who seems to be practicing pretty intensively for hours each afternoon, an occasional lone saxophonist who likes to play at dusk and then the evening serenade by a doleful clarinet and an accompanying piano.

I couldn’t tell you who these people are or what countries they come from, but I feel like their music is an old friend as it floats in and out of our studio windows and echoes around the courtyard.

On Saturday mornings I go to a class at the American church on the Quai D’Orsay, which provides the perfect opportunity to wander past some of the grand city monuments, many of the most famous of which are conveniently situated between the 7th and the 4th Arrondisements.

This morning I walked further along the Seine to the Tour Eiffel to drink my coffee and peruse my Pariscope in the park underneath the tower in the blazing sunshine. The intricacy of the ironwork is breathtaking – from such close proximity one is really aware that it is a marvel of engineering (though its image is so ubiquitous here that it's easy to get a bit blasé about it!).

On my way home, I also passed admiringly by the façade of the extraordinary Musée du Quai Branly, which is always worth a photo too.