They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That step, for me, comes at 5am on a Tuesday morning in central London. As first light breaks over Bloomsbury’s Cartwright Gardens, a blackbird starts singing from the treetops. The sound echoes off the Georgian townhouses and flows down to the pavement, where the only person around to hear it is me. I have a backpack on and a train to catch. The blackbird keeps singing as I walk through the urban dawn to Euston Road.
Within 15 minutes, I’m passing through check-in at St Pancras International, listening to grumbles in various languages about the ticket-reading machines. Less than three hours later, I’m stepping into Café les Deux Gares, a little chequered-tiled espresso joint in the 10th arrondissement. “Monsieur,” says the waiter in greeting. Jazz is tootling from the speakers, someone’s reading Le Figaro and a moped is parking up outside the window. Paris is very much awake.
