August 2025, and back in Paris with Ian – fifty-four years after we first met as teens in Harrogate – and still managing to enjoy ourselves without needing an afternoon nap. Mostly.

Bacha Coffee: Breakfast With an Ego Problem

One morning began at Bacha Coffee on the Champs Élysées, a café so polished you feel underdressed the moment you step inside. Chandeliers, lacquered wood, immaculate black-and-white floors… the sort of place where asking for a straightforward coffee feels like using the wrong cutlery.

The menu resembles a geography exam. Brazil, Yemen, Colombia, Burundi on just one of a dozen pages. All reasonably priced at a mere €9.50 – until you reach the Café Paraíso Gold at €324.

And for those who read to the middle of the menu, the legendary Café Camocim Jacu Bird sits there at €104 a cup – beans (“cherries”, to coffee geeks) having taken a brief detour through the digestive system of a Brazilian bird before ending up in your porcelain. Apparently some people will pay a small fortune for coffee that has already been swallowed once. Call it recycling for the obscenely rich.

We settled for the sensible Brazilian brew, pastries, fresh orange juice and the satisfaction of not needing to re-mortgage anything to pay the bill.

Evenings: Bistrot Tables and the Illusion of Youth

We came perilously close to visiting the famed Caveau de la Huchette in the 5th arrondissement, but the queue stretching down the street looked worryingly young and suspiciously immobile. We appeared to be at least a generation and a half older than the next oldest person in line.

Leaving Ian to hold our place, I approached the doorman to ask what the odds were. He gave me a full top-to-toe assessment and told me to “go in and have a look” – clearly having concluded that I was unlikely to vanish into the depths of the club without returning to pay. I am still not sure whether that was a compliment, an insult, or simply accurate risk assessment on his part.

Inside, every seat in the live-music basement was taken, and with bodies already packed tightly enough to qualify as a health warning, we made the sensible decision: retreat, locate something with chairs, and give our ageing joints the evening they deserved.

The piano bar at Café Georges V across the road fitted the bill perfectly – here the singer performs on the piano, and the audience appreciates it from the comfort of actual seats. Civilised nightlife for those of us born before Spotify.

Other evenings were more familiar: Parisian terraces, cold beer, good food and wine, and the sort of people-watching that passes for entertainment once you reach a certain age.

Later, a wander along the Seine – Eiffel Tower glowing obligingly in the background – and a brief moment of “yes, growing old gracefully is not so bad”.

Musée de l’Illusion: Dignity Optional

In a clear sign that either maturity has bypassed us or we are simply beyond caring, we spent part of an afternoon at the Musée de l’Illusion.

Heads on plates.

Giant chairs that shrink you to garden-gnome size.

Handstands.

Rooms designed specifically to make adults look ridiculous, which of course we embraced immediately.

Coffee Pilgrimage, Part Two

Paris also delivered on its other speciality: very good coffee in very small cafés.

Terres de Café offered yellow tables, perfect Arabica espressos and generous slices of cake – the sort of combination that makes you feel briefly optimistic about everything, even your bank statement after Bacha.

Fifty-Four Years and Counting

Fifty-four years of friendship and, frankly, we still behave like the same two teenagers from our days in Harrogate. Just with earlier bedtimes. Different countries, different lives, long stretches without meeting – but whenever we do, the conversation resumes as if we were in the pub last Friday night.

Paris gave us the usual routine: resurrecting old stories, laughing about who misremembered what, and at antics that would baffle – and occasionally shock – anyone under forty. Apparently some double acts just keep going, whether the world has asked for them or not.

But there is also that faint, unwelcome voice in the background reminding us that we are not stockpiling infinite future trips.

So we make the most of the ones we get.

Still Standing

Paris snapshots from last week… still standing, still laughing, and still proving that growing older does not necessarily mean growing up.

It just means you schedule your fun between coffee stops.