Why Cafés Are the Real Living Rooms of a City

Where daily life spills into the street.

We’ll be in Paris for the entire month of April.

We’re going to do our best to pretend we “live there,” even though that’s not really possible because we live someplace else.

But the plan is for me to work in the morning and for us to walk many kilometers each day throughout Paris.

In May, I intend to do a dispatches from Paris series constructed from notes I take during our time there.

Subscribe now to ensure you don’t miss any of that. I’m excited about April.

I love café culture in Paris.

When Paris cafés set and reset their terrace seating they don't do it the way the do in Spain. I only have a couple halfway decent images from Paris to illustrate—you’ll have to wait until April for the good ones.

But—to start—these are representative examples of how it's typically done in Spain.