The Eurostar is an incredible thing. At 10.30 am I crawled out of bed in London, threw a few clothes, toiletries and train tickets into a holdall. At 11.15 I was at Waterloo station. By 3 pm that afternoon, I was sitting in the Cafe de Flore on Boulevard St-Germain sipping the strongest espresso of my life smoking Gauloise cigarettes.

What else is there to do in Paris except this? I thought to myself. But only briefly because I was enjoying playing at looking surly and watching French waitresses in dresses floating by with tall glasses of wine balanced on trays.

I opened up my brand new copy of 'The Age of Reason' by Jean-Paul Sartre, and decided to get comfortable, but in a tortured existentialist kind of way. Apparently the Cafe de Flore was a popular haunt of Sartre's back in the day, and I imagined all the intellectuals having heated debates about the nature of being over the small tables, while famous actresses draped themselves over their shoulders. I couldn't see any of that today, although there was a rather sombre looking fat Frenchman nursing what looked like a thimble-full of port in the corner.

Not getting anywhere with the book, I decided to get on the Metro and make my way to the next stop on the tourist's cafe tour – Le Procope on Rue de la'Ancienne-Comedie.

Allegedly the oldest cafe in Paris, Le Procope also seemed to be the most attractive. I took a seat on the very French-looking balcony on the front of the building, ordered another espresso, and looked at the people walking below. No sign of Sartre here, although I heard that Voltaire was a fairly regular customer, and even that most famous of French philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

By this point, the place was getting busy and I was forced to share my table with a couple of Australian backpackers, fresh-faced off their 24-hour flight and apparently desperate for a drink. They looked a little bit upset with the size of their beer glasses, with the concept of a pint of beer something of a novelty in this part of the world. Clearly the joys of that most English of pastimes – the binge drink – had yet to be discovered by the French.

By this point my head was starting to spin from the huge amounts of caffeine that I had consumed, so I decided to make one last stop before heading for something to eat. The famous Les Deux Magots was to be my destination, where the ghost of Sartre was once again in the air. Apparently Picasso discovered Cubism here too, although I'd be interested to know how long he'd been drinking here before that idea popped into his head. The prospect of a coffee was too much for me now, so I ordered some snacks and a glass of red wine.

I was in London this morning, I thought, and it seemed a long time ago.