Paris:- Friday, 7. February 1997:- It is freezing or it is one or two degrees, but the sky is clear and winter blue. This is the day I've been waiting for - a day in February to go to the Ile Saint-Louis and see how many Parisians are sunbathing on its southern quais.

The reason for doing this, besides being out under skies that do not feel like overhanging lead, is because there was an exceptional February about three of four years ago. For two weeks in the middle of winter, clear and almost warm skies came to Paris - as a substitute for all of us who do not go to the mountains to get up close to the sky.

This sunworship-day scrubs the old-car 'Retromobile' report. Going through the hangers at Paris-Expo at the Porte de Versailles will keep until next week.

For a change, instead of coming at the Ile Saint-Louis by the shortest way, I change métro lines at Palais-Royal and ride down to the Sully-Morland station, which is just across the Seine from the eastern end of the island.

As soon as I am on the Pont de Sully, the view downriver is perfect with the spire of Saint-Gervais in front of the Hôtel de Ville on the left, the Pont Marie in the middle and the northern flank of the island along the Quai d'Anjou on the left. Somehow all the traffic streaming along the Georges Pompidou expressway on the right bank seems dwarfed and hushed by the sky.

The rue Saint-Louis en l'Ile is a narrow blue canyon slicing through the island from one end to the other. It is cool shadow so I pass it up and pass by the gas station and the fishing-gear shop, to the sunlit Quai de Béthune, with its warming facades behind the whisk-brooms of the leafless trees on the river side of the quai.

There are not many people about: a young lady takes a photo of the facades and then hurries off towards the Pont de la Tournelle. I am going that way too, but not in a hurry.

The Ile Saint-Louis, in the very centre of Paris, and though close to the overflow of visitors to the Ile de la Cité, is very private. The doorways, not very elaborate or outrightly simple, do not display many brass plaques.

Most of the town-houses along the quai were built in the mid-17th century; except for number 24, which was demolished in 1935 and replaced by a modern building. The quai itself was built between 1614 and 1646.

The island was called Notre-Dame, when in 1360 a canal was cut through it in order to stretch a chain across the river from the Barbeau Tower on the right bank to the Lorioux Tower on the left bank, along what is now the location of the rue Poulletier. The chain was to stop barges entering the city from upstream. Of the two islands thus formed, the smaller was called l'île aux Vaches and the larger retained the old name, Notre-Dame, and they were both more or less deserted.

Henri IV had a project to reunite the islands but died before it could be carried out. His wife, the ever-busy Marie de Médicis, took up the project in 1614 and turned over the management to Christophe Marie who, with the help of the financiers Poulletier and Le Regrattier, filled in the canal, built bridges to either bank and a passerelle to the Ile de la Cité.

In return for this, the group subdivided the island as sort of an annex to the high-tone Marais nearby, and grand 'hôtels' were built for important court functionaries and wealthy financiers; most of them by Le Vau and his brother François. The island was renamed Saint-Louis in 1725, but became 'Fraternité' during the revolution.

Except for the shops, mostly in the western end of the rue Saint-Louis en l'Ile - which were in the original plan - there are no monuments, banks, cinemas, dentists offices or métro stations on the island and it has remained relatively unchanged for 350 years, unlike the neighboring Ile de la Cité.

In the middle of the Pont de la Tournelle I try a shot of the Quai d'Orléans with the wide-angle lens, but this is hit-and-miss because the viewfinder has no adapter for it. On the Quai d'Orléans I keep looking at the stone walkway on the bank of the river below but there are only a handful of sun worshipers there.

Where a ramp goes down into the river water I see that the water is not all that cloudy, which means I suppose, that snow in the far-away mountains is not melting yet and skiers will not need roller-skates this weekend for the beginning of the winter 'vacances.'

Around the slight bend, as I expected, the terrace of the Brasserie de l'Isle Saint-Louis, which faces south, is full. If it was Wednesday or in August, it would be deserted. If it was night and the evening after a rugby match, the interior of the 'Oasis' as some call it would be full - but it is a pretty busy place all the time anyway. The food is Alsatian.

On a day like today, I think you have to come early to get a table on the terrace. There is no other like it in Paris when the sun is out.

The are shops and cafés in the rue Jean-du-Bellay too and when I get to the Quai de Bourbon I turn left to have a look at the little place above the downstream end of the island.

I knew a lady once who used to have an annual party on the stone walkway at the river level; I forget for what occasion, but it was in late spring or early summer. It was just cocktails and wine until darkness and until hunger got the better of everybody.

From there the guests would go across to one of the restaurants on the Quai de L'Hôtel de Ville where somehow a table for all would be found and at the end all the paper tablecloths would be red with spilt wine and covered in baguette crumbs.

Instead of that delight, I go straight up the rue du Louis-Philippe and turn right to follow François- Miron to the métro station Saint-Paul, at rue de Rivoli.

Along the way I note there are a lot of new restaurants in old buildings, and an especially nice one that was once called something like 'Rio de Tequila' is now simply named, 'La Perla' and is without the neon beer signs from south of the border.

I have, in the past, passed a long rainy afternoon in the Brasserie de l'Isle Saint-Louis, but La Perla looks like a good place for doing it too. I will too, if I ever have the time and it is rainy, as it will be sooner or later.