Cat sitting in Paris

When we spent a year in Paris, we missed our cat so much that we had to go to one of the cat cafés to get our feline fix. Now I’m cat-sitting for someone who’s traveling and I get plenty of time with a cat who absolutely is queen of the apartment.

This lovely lady needed someone to look after her, I needed a place to stay: it’s a win-win. And it’s close to this nice view:

And not far from l’Eclair, a place I enjoyed writing at a few times last year, and visited again this morning for my petit déjeuner and another pass through the hardcopy of one of my chapters. It’s one I proofed recently, but I still managed to discover a continuity error with the previous chapter. It’s amazing (and frustrating) how those crop up!

Now: back to it.

Sometimes you miss your cat

Sometimes you miss your cat. Especially when she’s 4,994 miles away and you haven’t seen in her in 176 days. So back in January we decided to get our cat fix by visiting the Chat Mallows Café.

Wait–is that OUR cat? No… but she looks a lot like ours back home.

There are a few of these cafés in Paris, but we chose one in the nearby fifteenth arrondissement. It’s definitely a place for cat lovers. If you’re allergic, don’t like cats following you around, getting on your table, and investigating your food, then maybe you should try somewhere else.

Chat Mallows certainly has no shortage of cats–and cats of all kinds–at their café. Not just typical shorthairs, but ones with two different colored eyes, a nearly hairless one, and one aptly named Yoda.

 

Do you know the classic line about cats and dogs? Dogs have masters, but cats have staff. Here it’s literally true. Staff that look after them, make sure they’re healthy, and clean constantly. And that’s just the beginning. These cats live in cat paradise. Seriously, they have the best life.

Endless food. Flowing water. A big cat wheel (like a huge hamster wheel). A vast selection of boxes and baskets and hideaways to sleep in. Scratching pillars, ledges to leap along, and toys for patrons to tantalize them with. Oh, and a room separated from the rest of the café (and off limits to patrons) where the cats can go if their inner introvert takes over. All this and plenty of people paying top euro to get their cat fix.

Be forewarned: drinks are pricey. How pricey? Think double the price of already expensive coffee drinks in Paris. Like 8.80€ for a Café Viennois. We dropped 25€ during our time there—which is more than the girls and I spend to go to the cinema (taking in a movie is a relatively good deal in Paris—but that’s a topic for another post). But not to worry: the drinks were good—the chocolat chaud so rich and thick that the girls were happy to take their time while the cats entertained us (and tried to finish our drinks).

Two hours on a Saturday with tasty beverages and a bunch of friendly felines? It was most definitely worth it. And I guarantee you this: Carolyn enjoyed the time more than any visit to a museum!