In June 2025 my friend Julia and I spent a delightful 8 days in Paris. We stayed at a flat in the fifth arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, at 12 Rue des Fosses Saint Jacques.
Thursday, June 5: A late-afternoon flight to Orly airport, then the RER B train into the city. We walked in light rain to the flat where our host Catherine showed us around. That evening we had an excellent meal at Le Perraudin restaurant, in nearby rue Saint Jacques. Two courses cost €31 and three courses €38. Wine was €30 for a bottle. A single after-dinner cognac cost €10. Contentment!
Friday, June 6: An early-morning walk next day revealed the area’s links with the TV series Emily in Paris. The restaurant and bread shop that feature in the series are next door to the flat.
Every day I watched hundreds of people taking selfies or photographs of the bread shop and restaurant. The latter is so well known that Uber drivers use it as a rendezvous point.
On the subject of Uber, it was cheaper and faster to take an Uber to the airport for the return journey than use public transport. This only applies if more than one person makes the journey. The fixed public transport fee to the airport is €13 per person, which is €26 for two people against €23 for an Uber. The driver drops you right at the airport entrance. An Uber is much nicer than schlepping a heavy bag to the railroad station and then carrying it between rail connections and then from the arrival station to checkin. Beware with some Vueling flights that you checkin at one Orly terminal but depart from another.
Later that day we went to the nearby Pantheon. Over the years I have visited Paris a dozen times yet had never been to this magnificent building. The great writer Victor Hugo (1802-85) whose bust is shown at left is buried there. Later we walked to two houses where Hemingway lived when he first arrived in Paris from 1921. That was slightly more than a century ago yet seems so recent. The nearby streets are filled with restaurants and bars. In my mind’s eye I saw Hemingway eating and drinking at most of them. Along the way we went inside the Church of Saint Étienne du Mont, which must be one of the prettiest in Paris. That night we returned to the same restaurant from the previous night because it was so good.
Saturday, June 7: Took train RER B to Les Halles to wonder around the flea market. Visited church of Saint Eustace. This church has the largest organ in France (see below). While there we watched an expensive wedding. Many of the guests were from Haiti. Prior to its independence in 1804, Haiti was a French colony known as St. Domingue.
Back at the flat we had a quiet dinner after buying good produce from a local market. A discovered delight was an excellent orange wine, vin de France category, called Adele Muska which cost €24 at a nearby wine shop which specialises in organic wines. Such are the joys of wandering in the Latin Quartier.
Sunday, June 8: We took the 84 bus to Musee D’Orsay where we spent a fascinating four hours, then a train back to Saint Eustace church to hear a 5pm organ recital. Before the performance we had some happy-hour wine for €8 a glass sitting in the afternoon sun opposite the church. Dinner that night was cassoulet from the supermarket washed down with an excellent red, a 2020 Château Labadie from the Medoc for only €9. It is easy to eat well in Paris. The key issue is price. You can get quality food and wine from supermarkets, provided you have somewhere to cook it. That’s the advantage of staying in a home-swap flat.
Monday, June 9: Food continued to be superb. Looked lovingly at countless varieties of cheeses before choosing a goat’s-milk cheese infused with truffles for lunch plus local fish soup. Dessert was an exceptionally ripe peach with local cherries. Fruit in June is wondrous. Cherries were €9 a kilo.
That afternoon we went by bus 24 to rue Bercy to a museum devoted to the life of film-maker Georges Méliès (1861-1938). He was a cinema pioneer known for innovative use of special effects. Méliès began as a magician and theatre director but transitioned to filmmaking after being inspired by the films of the Lumière brothers in 1895.
See one of their famous posters below.
Méliès began making short films in 1896 and made more than 500 until WW1 intervened. His movies had fantasy narratives and often included illusions and stage tricks. His most famous film is A Trip to the Moon (1902). It remains a classic example of storytelling and his skills with special effects.
Martin Scorcese made the film Hugo (2011) in homage to Méliès. We watched it that night on Prime.
This museum was the highlight of my time in Paris and inspired me to try more special effects in my movies.
Tuesday, June 10: That morning we had a Thai massage because our legs were sore after so much walking: 10,000 to 12,000 a day. Lunch consisted of gazpacho, goats cheese, olives, beetroot hummus and bread, all from a local supermarket. Simple fare but delightful.
That afternoon we took a lovely walk in the sun to Luxembourg Gardens then past the Senate building (a former palace) along Avenue Sulpice to the church of Saint-Sulpice which has some marvellous Delacroix paintings. Along the way I bought some exquisite chocolates from one of the many specialist stores in the area (6th arrondissement). They were superb.
From there we walked to the oldest church in Paris, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, built in 990. The philosopher René Descartes is buried here. The church is filled with Biblical images like those above, designed for a time when most of the population were illiterate. We had happy hour drinks in the sixth arrondissement and then took a bus back to the flat where I cooked French smoked sausages for dinner. Washed down, naturally, with a good supermarket red that cost €8.
Wednesday, June 11: For our last full day in Paris we acknowledged our tired legs and took a bus to Gare du Nord for lunch at a café opposite the station: €51 in total for 2 courses each plus a half litre of white wine and coffee. I adored the waiter because he wore the traditional classic uniform. Then the number 45 bus to Place de la Concorde, both the largest public square in Paris and the site of hundreds of executions during the French revolution. We sat in the shade in a park opposite the US embassy and listened to bird song. From there the 42 bus took us along the Champs-Élysées to the Eiffel Tower.
Thursday, June 12: We had a third meal at Le Perraudin restaurant, rue Saint jacques — a marvellous lunch to finish a marvellous week. Then an Uber to Orly airport. The only horror in eight days was French officialdom at Orly airport. Hundreds of passengers queued at passport control but only one border person was working out of 15 booths. Most of the perhaps fifty automatic devices for processing passports were not functioning, and those that worked were only for French and EU citizens. Meanwhile, men in two other passport booths sat reading their mobile phones behind drawn blinds, presumably because it was not time for them to start work. Finally the mass of humanity waiting in the queue forced them to lift their blinds. They obviously did not want to work. This kind of anti-civility might explain why productivity in France must be some of the lowest in Europe.
Enough of that small misery. We got to our very crowded Vueling flight just as tjhe gates were closing. I saw scores of fun sights while walking in Paris. I will leave you with one of them, as an antidote to the memory of those lazy French border staff.
Stephen Quinn, PhD 