The Ile

We've become more interested in the ile st Louis since we arrived here. The west end, close to the ile de la cite, is one of the tourist hotspots of the city, with corresponding high prices and lack of steeze. However, there are always exceptions, such as the friendly cafe med whose 12 euro menu is still imbattable for rapport qualite-prix, and the Alsacien bistro on the corner where you can sit at the bar and drink demis out of earthenware mugs for what in Paris is considered a very decent price. The barman will ply you with salty olives to try to pursuade you to order more. Then there's the bar Louis IX on the corner of the rue des deux ponts, where you can buy a berthillon ice cream without queuing and listen to the barman make jokes about the passing tourists, and then, on the other side of the rue des deux ponts, on what used to be a separate island, there's a sort of mirror image or good self of the road on the west side: where the west side has a beautiful looking cheese shop with incredibly expensive cheese, the east side has an old-school cheese shop with a queue of loyal islanders and very reasonable prices. The west side has a very poor quality bakers full of angry tourists and lousy croissants, and the east side has a bakery with beautiful pain a l'ancienne and affordable and excellent tartes. Apparently the shopkeepers sometimes tell you that something is 'only available in Paris' if they don't have it in stock - they seriously consider themselves to be living somewhere else. People are so keen to live there they are prepared to live in tiny 'studettes' in the rooftops: we saw one with 6 square meters with unrestricted headroom, 18 square meters including the part restricted by the sloping roof, for 175 thousand euros.