Time warp

Le Carrefour

 

If you believe the memoirs of inter-bellum Paris, at least half the literature was written in bars and cafés. How it could have been done while all that witty conversation was going on is a mystery, but I found one bar just off the Odeon Carrefour on Monsieur le Prince where I could have scribbled away all day without interruption. It was a mom and pop operation that time had forgotten. Their clientele seemed to have forgotten it as well—I paid it two long visits in an afternoon, lingering over the Herald Trib and an espresso, with one other table silently occupied.

 

In the WC at the back of the room was an anachronistic stand-and-deliver toilet, spotlessly clean and looking as new as the day it was installed. I came out expecting to hear the clatter of hooves and the grating of iron wheels on cobblestones. If you can't find it, don't tell me; I do not wish to know.

 

Le Carrefour  Monsieur le Prince, 6th, Mº Odeon