La rentrée: the week Paris becomes itself again

The last week of August is like no other. Parisians come back in waves, bakeries reopen after three weeks behind closed shutters, and the terraces fill up all at once, one evening, without warning. The city picks up its rhythm before its crowds have returned. People who know Paris often choose this window over July.

In practice, most neighbourhood shops reopen between 20 and 25 August. Restaurants follow a few days later: many stay closed until 1 September, and the best ones announce it nowhere. Check before crossing the city — a handwritten note taped to the window remains the most reliable source of information at this time of year, ahead of any neglected web page.

The weather is on your side. The days are still long, the evenings mild enough to dine outside, and the heavy heat of mid-August is over. This is the window when a terrace at nine in the evening is a pleasure rather than an ordeal. Bring a light jacket all the same: the gap between three in the afternoon and eleven at night widens noticeably towards the end of the month.

On the cultural side, the season restarts before the official announcements. National museums return to full opening hours from 1 September, and autumn exhibitions often open in the first fortnight — without the queues they will have in October, once the press has picked them up. Seeing an exhibition in its opening week is the cheapest luxury in Paris.

A word on bookings, because this is where the window closes fastest. The most sought-after restaurants open their September calendars at the end of August: this is when a Friday-night table can still be had with a simple phone call. Two weeks later, the same request meets a polite refusal and an offer three weeks out.

The rentrée also changes the city in less visible ways. Markets get their regular producers back, absent in August. Cinemas bring back their more demanding programmes. Bookshops unpack the new literary season, which for many Parisians remains the real signal that everyone is back. None of this is announced: you notice it as you walk.

Finally, a tip on getting around. The first week of September is when traffic becomes heavy again overnight, as schools go back. If you arrive then, allow plenty of time for a car journey from the airport and take the train whenever you can. The metro, for its part, returns to full frequency and is once again the fastest way across the city.

Markets deserve a special mention, because September is their best month of the year. Producers return after the August break and the stalls change season within two weeks: the last field tomatoes meet the first squashes, figs arrive, mushrooms follow. A neighbourhood market in early September offers a choice it will have neither in July, when many stallholders are away, nor in November, when the range narrows. If your apartment has a kitchen, this is the week it really earns its keep.

One last word on the light, which is the aesthetic reason to come at this time. At the end of August the sun sets early enough for the end of the day to turn golden while you are still out — around half past eight rather than ten. Paris’s stone façades were cut for this low light: they literally glow. It is also when the photographs you bring home will not look like everyone else’s.

In every apartment we leave a list of our neighbourhood’s addresses with their reopening dates, updated every year. It is information that goes out of date quickly and that no guidebook keeps current: knowing that the corner bakery reopens on the 24th and not the 20th saves you a pointless three-hundred-metre walk on a morning when you were hungry.