In the next few days, following his example, I made Les Éditeurs my office-cum-pit stop, staking out a banquette table and observing the bookish types who frequented the nearby tables (the cafe hands out its own literary awards each year).
There's also a cafe on hand, in case the self-catering option becomes too much like hard work, but I've opted for self-catering for a reason: I want to go fishing.
I woke up an hour later to my boyfriend poking me, a cup of coffee from the cafe in hand.
When it's time for a coffee fix, there are plenty of cracking cafes at hand.
He brings a copy to our meeting in a cafe and hands it to me: a few hundred bound pages detailing his most heinous acts.
We perched in small cafes, holding hands while the waiter discreetly avoided us, knowing his tip would be large, as all possibility is at the onset of love.
Many of these new businesses are situated check-by-jowl alongside older, small businesses, such as neighbourhood corner cafes, second-hand furniture shops, cheap clothing outlets and traditional craftsmen.
Its commitment to the "green agenda" and the serendipity of being able to find independent cafes, second-hand vinyl record stores and vintage clothes stores right next to the big brands gives the city an ambience British cities have lost to the land value greed exerted by pension-fund landlords and short-sighted councils.
These days, the authorities require Tibetans who want to make photocopies of documents — from religious texts to farming manuals — to get permission from the local police, and Internet cafe customers must hand over their state-issued identification cards.
It gives me a moment packed with a long walk across the Seine, the afternoon light beaming through the rose window at Notre-Dame, the waitress at the cafe resting a hand on her waist as she waits for me to decide what I want.
