Open Sesame.

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I’ve got a thing about deceptive doors opening onto the unexpected. Paris is great for that sort of thing, and I loved the door to the building which housed the apartment in Nantes where we’ve just stayed. It’s pictured above. It’s an anonymous, nondescript, unpresupposing door, dilapidated and giving away nothing of what lies behind it. Forbidding, uninviting and not worth a second look. But behind the grubby facade is an equally down-at-heel staircase, all stone and peeling paint. Up the staircase and through an appalling looking plain and filthy door leads you into a real gem of an apartment, all clean, fresh and lovely, a world away from the dingy entrance. Whenever I see those doors in a dirty Paris back street my imagination thrills at the mystery and surprise they suggest.