Postcard from the boulevards: Finding a sunny spot for a drink in the city of light

Hopes of a warm and luxurious Indian summer have not exactly evaporated so much as been doused in a pluvial flurry of stormy weather.

It’s always a shame when summer comes to a rather abrupt end. There’s nothing quite like the languid slouch into a golden autumn.

That last chance to drink cold beers in the sun, maybe flash the tan in short sleeves in those ebbing long evenings of dwindling light before blanching once more, swaddled beneath wooly jumpers, coats and scarves.

Instead we have stormy squalls, a French government on the brink of collapse and – my current paranoid conspiracy – the suspicion that my favourite bakery has reduced the size of its baguettes while I was away.

Troubling.

Paris sera toujours Paris

But Paris is sloughing off its August torpor. The bars are opening again and there remains a brief window to use the terrasses éphémères before they’re packed away for the winter – and I have a newborn to deal with.

Paris life is street life. You’ve all seen the classic Parisian bistro terrace with their chairs and tables, sometimes neatly serried, other times all higgle-piggle and pell-mell.

Throw in an awning and an outdoor heater and, come rain or shine, there’ll be Parisians there at all hours. After all, it’s where you can smoke.

It’s rather nicer in the sun though and the forecast still promises the odd ray of sunshine this month – temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s.

Ideal.

Light and shade

However – while Paris may be the city of light, it’s not always that easy finding a sunny spot in which to enjoy a glass or three.

I was warned of this soon after arriving by a French friend who had previously lived in London himself.

‘I feel like I’m always walking in the shade,’ he announced, with a somewhat haunted look in his eyes.

It’s not quite that bad – it was March at the time, when the weak sun rises low in the sky and mostly bathes the rooftop flats – the old chambres de bonnes – with its insipid glow.

Yet he had a point. London’s wider streets, its mix of high and low-rise housing and wealth of open green spaces creates lovely, light-filled areas in which to wallow at your leisure.

Meanwhile, Paris’s distinctive architecture creates shifting pools of light along the branching medley of narrow streets at different times of the day and year.

Those rows of Haussmann or Belle Époque-era apartment buildings might be picturesque but they also conspire to cast shadows in just the spot you’d like to be at any one moment.

The only seeming solution is to table-hop from sunny seat to sunny seat like you’re the US Marine Corps in the Pacific.

However, despite moans from the French that their work hours lead to them all staying in the office until 7pm or 8pm every evening, if you knock off sharpish at 6pm on a sunny weekday there’s nary an empty seat to be found.

Funny that.

Night and day

I’m not the only one stumped for how to find a regular seat at the golden hour. At least one other was so stuck that they made an app.

‘Jveuxdusoleil’ was originally developed as a photography aid for those looking to capture light rather than drink it in (or in it).

What’s great about it is that it shows, in real time, which areas are in the shade and which in the sun.

It doesn’t show where the bars are (cough-cough, hint-hint developers) but with a little local knowledge and on-the-fly orienteering I’ve no doubt it can be put to good use.

Thus armed, I will find my seat in what few, dwindling autumn glades I can find, safe in the knowledge, of course, that the nights are closing in and that you don’t have to worry about such things beneath a starlit sky, which is when Paris really shines.