Paris had a surprise for me...

I first spent time in Paris 25 years ago, as a student, paying, I think
£5 a night for a room near Chatelet.

The hotel was a survivor from the 19th Century. Our room on the 4th
floor, had a bare wood floor, brass bedstead with a bolster, a rug, a
wash basin, and long windows that looked out not to the street but to
the light well. The lavatory was 3 doors further down the corridor, a
bath cost extra and involved a slightly longer walk. Breakfast was
bread and bowls of chocolat. I loved it.

Are there any hotels like this left? I doubt it; I looked at that same
hotel on-line a few weeks ago. It is now furnished throughout with twin
beds, in red and gray, all rooms are en suite, and the room where we ate
breakfast is now orange Formica and vending machines.

I'm used to traveling through Paris now, en route to Cannes, or to visit
colleagues. I started to believe that the city I remembered (Imagined)
had slipped away.

First surprise - on the metro, as I opened the door, there he was, the
little white cartoon bunny in blue overalls. After 25 years he still
has his poor paw trapped in the closing doors, which pinch "tres fort".
I thought he had been rescued and consigned to history long ago. Where
has he been hiding?

Then I discover Gare Austerlitz - from which my train is just pulling
away. It is a ridiculously quiet station, particularly after the bustle
of the Eurostar. In the hour I waited there only two trains left - to
Barcelona and Orleans.

It is a wonderful decayed building of sandstone, iron and wood, paint
blistered, plaster sprung, iron rusted as if the air of the
Mediterranean escaped from the arriving carriages with a sigh, and
seeped into the building over the decades.

And the best surprise. As I ate a large and not very exciting sandwich,
a fragment of bread fell to the floor.

Instantly I was surrounded by sparrows, wheeling over head, landing to
dispute crumbs.

There are no sparrows left in London. How has Paris managed to keep hers?

Then I realised that the whole great glass shed of a station was full of
the sound of sparrows singing.

I'm lying in the couchette, jammed between my bag, top and tail. It's
9.30, and in 10 hours time I wake up in Cannes.