A CHEAP HOTEL IN PARIS

When Jonathan Newdick travels he always looks for cheap hotels. This is because, as he says, 'Observation is impoverished by comfort'. The following is an edited diary extract.

Even at €16 per person per night the Hotel R is not a bargain. The ancient gilded sign at the door says it is a hotel for travellers and has hot and cold water in all rooms. Monsieur le Patron who welcomes us unwillingly is the same size and shape as Bernard Manning. His shoulder-length grey hair is greasy and thin. He shuffles silently in his socks and wears a soft grey track suit, tight from the knees to the ankles but loose above. This gives him the appearance of a huge baby in its first romper suit. Stains suggest he should still be in nappies, and his flesh is the colour of stale bread. 

Monsieur le Patron's wife is the same size and shape as her husband but she has more colour and she dresses with more care. Her hair is yellow, her lips are pink and she wears more rouge on one cheek than the other. For some reason this is endearing. She is kind and generous, gives directions and warns of strikes. She might once have been a nurse and you know that if you were dying she would cradle you in her arms and if you were dying you wouldn't mind.

The ceilings at Hotel R are stuck with polystyrene tiles. They are the same colour and texture as Monsieur's flesh and their adhesive is failing. There are reproductions of Monet and Sisley on the walls, unframed and behind sheets of yellow-grey polythene with drawing pins at the corners. Not one of them seems to have its full quota of pins — some have two and some three, so none of them lies flat against the wall. Around the edges of the room there are knots of electric cable, studded with connectors and adaptors and bandaged with colourful insulation tape. The sheets are clean, there are no bed bugs and we sleep surprisingly well.

Petit déjeuner is a quarter of a baguette and cool coffee in a cup which may not have been washed. Outside it is like Spring. The mid-October trees are still leafy and green. But there are strikes and I recall Madame's words of warning. There is litter on the pavements. Newspaper and banana skins. Notre Dame is full of people and nobody praying. If you close your eyes the sound is of an auditorium before the orchestra arrives. Footsteps, papers rustling, coughing and quiet talking by thousands. The Pompidou Centre is closed because of a strike, so too the Musée d'Orsay and Manet's Olympia remains unseen. So there is a long lunch at La Fregate by the Seine. The afternoon light on the plane trees is pure pointilliste and you wonder why it took us so long to see them that way. 

I pay the bill and thank the waiters for tolerating my sitting there writing for so long and we leave early for Gare Bercy in case there are delays on the strike hit metro. There aren't and we are early. But as a fitting end to the day, the night train to Venice will leave at 22.30 instead of 20.01. Because of a strike.