Your bill, Sir? That'll be €15 and a Matisse . . .

I've been meaning for a long time to drop into le café des Templiers. You'll find it at Collioure, a seaside town near Perpignan, closely with Les Fauves - that's to say Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck etc.

Being penniless and unknown back in those hopeful days before the First World War, the young artists were in the habit of bartering paintings to pay their hotel and bar bills.

Thus the bar eventually ended up with a remarkably valuable set of pictures. I'm not sure how much of the original collection survives, as some of the current paintings are of distinctly later period, but it's still a great place for a beer.