Paris at Six, From a Window on the Left Bank

Paris at six in the morning is a city you have never quite met. The cafés are shuttered. The boulevards are wet from the street-cleaning trucks that pass through before dawn. The only sounds are a delivery van, a pair of pigeons on a zinc roof, and somewhere below, the heavy wooden door of a building swinging shut behind someone setting off to work.

It is worth waking for. And it is best seen, at first, from a hotel window.

A room on the Left Bank

The hotel we have in mind is small, a former private mansion on a quiet street a few minutes’ walk from the river. It has a courtyard with a single chestnut tree, a library where tea is served in the afternoon, and fewer than thirty rooms, each one different.

Ask for a room on the upper floors, facing the street, with the tall French windows that open onto a narrow wrought-iron balcony. Ask for it to face east. And on your first morning, set an alarm for just before sunrise.

Open the windows. The air will be cool, faintly scented with bread from somewhere nearby and with the river. Across the street the grey slate and zinc rooftops are just catching the light, turning from blue to rose to a soft, burnished gold. Chimney pots stand in neat rows like an audience. A cat walks along a gutter with great purpose.

Breakfast in bed, properly

Room service in a good Parisian hotel is a quiet art, practised without fuss. A knock at seven. A tray placed on the bed with a starched linen napkin, a small pot of coffee and a jug of hot milk, a glass of freshly pressed orange juice, a basket of croissants and pain au chocolat from the bakery around the corner, butter from Normandy and a little dish of apricot jam.

Eat slowly, with the windows still open. Listen to the city begin. The first scooter. The metal shutter of a café rolling up. A man calling to a neighbour across the street. There is no better way to understand a place than to hear it waking up.

A walk while the city is still yours

By eight, dress and go out. The streets of the Left Bank are still nearly empty. Walk down to the river and along the quays, past the shuttered green boxes of the booksellers, toward the islands in the middle of the Seine.

On the Île Saint-Louis, the streets are narrow and quiet, the old mansions shuttered behind their great carved doors. Cross to the Île de la Cité and find the small, triangular square at its western tip, shaded by chestnut trees, where a bench faces the water. Sit for a while. The river moves slowly beneath the bridges. A barge passes. The light is still soft, and the stone of the buildings across the water glows like honey.

The café, opening

Walk back toward the hotel through the side streets of Saint-Germain. Stop at a café just as the waiters are setting out the wicker chairs on the pavement, arranging them facing the street, as Paris always does, so that you can watch the world go by.

Order a café crème. Take the chair nearest the window. The regulars arrive one by one: an elderly woman with a small dog, a man reading a newspaper that he folds into precise quarters, a student with a sketchbook. Nobody hurries you. In Paris, a coffee bought at the counter entitles you to a seat for as long as you care to keep it.

Why the early hour matters

Later, the city will fill. The museums will have queues, the famous squares will be crowded, and the boulevards will roar with traffic. You will enjoy all of it, in its way. But you will remember, too, that you saw Paris before it put on its face for the day, quiet and unguarded, the rooftops glowing in the dawn light outside your window.

It is one of those small, private experiences that the best travel is made of. Not a sight to tick off, but an hour that belongs only to you.

When to come

Late September and October bring golden light, mild mornings and a city returned from its summer holiday. Early May is lovely too, with the chestnut trees in flower and the evenings long. In both seasons, the sun rises late enough that you can see dawn from your window without sacrificing too much sleep.