This suggestion has many possibilities, ones that might call on you to be creative. The point here is not so much to sleep in a strange bed, although that certainly will be the result of carrying out this suggestion, but to experience a routine part of life differently.

You can go to a travel lodge, bed and breakfast, guest house, or cabin. You can camp out, backpack into the wilderness, or sleep in your own backyard. If you feel like having a pajama party, you can call your cousin and ask to sleep at her house. If you’ve been seeing someone and feel that tonight’s the big night, make sure you do it at your partner’s place.

Once you’ve chosen your venue, prepare for the adventure by packing what you need—anything from your toothbrush to complete bedding.

What does it feel like to sleep where you’ve never slept before? How does the sleeping surface compare to yours? Is it harder, or softer? Does it squeak? What are the pillows like? Did you bring yours? Are the arrangements for tomorrow’s bath or shower taken care of? Will someone wake you up in the morning or are you on your own?

Sleeping in a strange place forces you to think about a variety of things that otherwise are as automatic as breathing. Every once in a while, it’s great to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange.

Paris, for long “a capital without a head”, has since 1977 again been headed by a Mayor. His official residence is the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall), to which the mayors’ offices (mairies annexes) of the 20 arrondissements are answerable. (On the administrative structure of Paris and the surrounding area see Facts and Figures, General, Administration.)In the Middle Ages the city’s chief administrator was the provost of the merchants (prévot des marchands), head of Paris’s corporation of merchant shippers, the Marchands de l’Eau, which belonged to the Hanseatic League. The provost, who was directly responsible to the king, was a man of great influence: in 1358, for example, the provost of the merchants, Etienne Marcel, led the first (unsuccessful) revolt of the burghers against feudalism and the monarchy. In 1789 the last provost - who as a royal official represented the monarchy - was executed by the revolutionary mob.

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The Ile Saint-Louis was formed in 1609 out of two smaller islands, the Ile aux Vaches and the Ile Notre-Dame. Under a project initiated by Cardinal Richelieu and carried out by three contractors, Marie, Poulletier and Le Regrattier, the two little islands were joined, connected with the right bank of the Seine by two bridges and laid out on a rectangular grid with houses in uniform style. By 1664 the work was completed and the first craftsmen and merchants had moved in; and soon afterwards they were followed by the aristocracy, who built their elegant mansions along the quais. In addition to the noble families illustrious writers such as Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, Camille Claudel and Emile Zola came to live on the island, and other residents have included Voltaire, Rousseau and such famous statesmen as Leon Blum and Georges Pompidou. And the 6000 inhabitants of the island still include well-to-do writers and artists.

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