Au pied du sacré coeur

Sunday was wettish so we took our visitors Bridget and Alan to a cosy little restaurant on the north slope of the butte montmartre, safely hidden from the tourist hoardes. It's a true restaurant in style, with white tablecloths and proper wineglasses, but cafe prices for a menu of modern french food. we (the carnivores) had magret de canard, roast lamb and filet mignon between us, while the vegetarian had a warm goats cheese salad, which was a large version of a first course (Paris has still to get to grips with the idea of an enjoyable vegetarian main course - the only one on offer here, the assiette vegaterienne, is just a plate of steamed vegetables).

After dessert we climbed the staircase to the top of the hill in penance. I only recently discovered that the sacre coeur was built as recently as 1914. Work started just after the suppression of the Paris commune - the idea was to « expier les crimes des communards », i.e. make the working classes build a huge church to atone for them daring to rise up against their employers. For that reason perhaps, Parisians are pretty ambivalent about it, though the tourists still seem as enamoured as ever with it.

L'escale

It's been an interesting week at l'escale, the cafe on the ile st louis where I take coffee in the morning. I've obviously crossed some kind of boundary. Instead of just making me a coffee without asking for my order, which is obviously the first phase of becoming a 'regular', the barman now shakes me by the hand and asks comment allez-vous, before making jokes about the british olympic performance (the usual 'all medals won sitting down' jibes. France are doing terribly, by the way). This must be the second phase. The third phase, which I have observed in other regular customers, is when he calls you by your name. Your first name. I guess that probably takes about two years. The fourth phase is when you get a tab. This happens when you've been coming for about 37.5 years, i.e. the time it takes in France for a civil servant to get a full pension.

The barman speaks with a kind of staccato rhythm, showered with little quips and witticisms, which is apparently very typically Parisian.

The next day there was a film being shot in the cafe. I thought it looked a bit full for 8:15am - usually there's nobody sitting down at all at that time - and the barman waved at me from inside while an earnest young frenchman in a high-vis vest turned me away from the door.

Edited to add Thanks to a last-day rally, the French olympic team finished 10th in the medal table with more medals than they have won for many years. Reading the national press the mood seems to be one of perfect contentment with this result, despite the fact they were 7th last time (with fewer medals, but more golds). "Team GB", with a comparable population and GDP to back it up, finished 10th in Athens in 2004 causing something like a national outcry. I'm not sure either of these positions are laudable, but it's interesting to observe nonetheless.

champagne de Paris

Paris in the middle of August turns out not to be so bad - it's not too hot and the roads are very quiet so cycling is a lot of fun. Many of the best restaurants are closed, but lots of smaller places that cater for tourists and die-hard Parisians are still open, including chez Stella, close to the jardins du Palais Royal where we had lunch yesterday. The proprietress is really called Stella, the three course menu is 13 euros, a half litre of quite acceptable vin rouge du table costs 3,80 EUR, and when you ask for a carafe of tap water Stella shouts to her husband in the back for 'champagne de Paris'. The tiny 28-seat restaurant is decorated as if it were Stella's own front room, there is a fridge in the room with the special chalked on it and desserts are sliced and served from a sideboard by the door. There's no till and no card machine, all the cash goes in a draw in the writing desk in the corner. We had a salmon terrine, bavette (undercut) with onion sauce, chips and green beans, and for dessert, I had a chocolate cake and sam had a banana clafoutis. Both came with plenty of creme anglaise, which Stella was whipping up when we arrived. It was a lot of fun and an excellent rapport qualite prix for the quartier.

August

Paris in now dead. My lab is officially closed, so I've moved to Oldenburg in north west germany to work for a week at the University here.

On saturday we went to the Clown Bar for dinner on their last night before they close for three weeks. The menu was limited, but we were given a free second bottle of the wine we were drinking to finish up (it had already been opened to serve a glass). The staff told us they would much rather take their holidays at a different time, since all the nice places are so crowded in August, but for a non-tourist restaurant it doens't make financial sense to stay open in August.

Last monday we also got free drinks - aperitifs this time - in a little restaurant in the 2nd after we came in from a heavy rain shower looking drenched. It must be the holiday feeling. This kind of thing doesn't normally happen in Paris.