The cafes of Paris are where the intellectual, social and gastronomical life of this great city takes place. Politics are discussed, art criticised, love affairs formed, and – naturally – plenty of good food and drink is digested along the way. With a little help from the millions of tourists who descend on the City of Light each year, the Parisiens comfortably fill ever table of every cafe in the capital during lunchtime and evenings… but a strange lull occurs in between. The sight of these, usually bustling, meeting points almost completely empty struck Urban Travel Blog’s Monika Chodakowska as every bit as romantic as cliched scene of amours gazing at one another over a bottle of Bordeaux.

“There is this funny time in Paris when it is too late for lunch and too early for dinner. As a tourist you don’t really know what to do – sometimes you are just killing the time having a drink somewhere (like the couple in photo 5), but I prefer to take photos of empty cafes waiting for evening service or chefs running between their kitchens.”