Cafe de la Paix, Paris

I don’t know how many bistros there are in this beautiful city but I do know the pulse of Paris can be felt in each of them. Those bistros are almost like a species unto themselves. I love painting them because they remind me of great moments of my life in Paris when we lived there in the late eighties.

But this one is especially special. As during our two years living in the “City of Lights”, Don and I would meet here to enjoy a gin and tonic and watch the world go by. As the saying goes… if you sit at the Cafe de la Paix longer enough you will indeed watch the whole world go by.

There is a book by Robert Service, a Yukon frontiersman who spent his evenings by the fire writing ballads of the frozen north. and, one in particular, I put to memory, as it is called “The Absinthe Drinkers”, that takes place at the Cafe de la Paix in Paris. It’s a doozy, with a surprise ending, and worth looking it up.