Polo lives at the Train Bleu Restaurant inside the cavernous Gare de Lyon. From there Polo explores the neighborhood and meets many of its residents. And sometimes he actually catches a ride on the real Train Bleu, the once-famous overnight train to the Riviera. Polo is a cat.
The story opens with an assortment of scenes of Paris in the early morning of a Spring day. The city is waking up; the street cats are waking up; people walk their dogs, and stop to get bread and croissants. The classic Paris street-washing trucks go by spraying lovers kissing on the sidewalk. Commuters are riding the Metro and getting on and off the buses. A number 63 bus turns into the drop-off at the Gare de Lyon, the storied train station whose trains go to the Midi and the Riviera. Crowds of people are making their way into the station through the entrance doors and down the stairs into the cavernous hall, where a dozen trains are waiting at attention while mobs of passengers flow onto the access ramps.
Up the stairs opposite the trains is the restaurant Le Train Bleu, named after the overnight sleeper trains to the Mediterranean seashore. Inside, the wait staff prepares for the day. In the kitchen, a waiter and a chef are putting the finishing touches on a tray of food that the waiter whisks off to a quiet corner behind the reception desk in the plush interior of the dining room. There, in front of a window looking out at the commuter throngs below, lies a beige tabby cat stretching luxuriously, as the waiter brings him the feline equivalent of coffee and croissants. His name is Polo, and he lives at the Gare de Lyon.
