Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Loire Valley, Paris
558 Reconnecting with France and Real Estate Shopping with David Palachek
[00:00:15] Introduction and Welcome
Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 558, cinq cent cinquante-huit.
Annie: Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.
[00:00:30] Today on the podcast
Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with David Palachek about reconnecting with France, exploring Paris, and the adventure of real estate shopping in the Loire Valley.
Annie: If you’ve ever dreamed of living in France or want insider tips on travel, culture, and making big life changes, this episode is packed with inspiration and practical advice you will not want to miss.
[00:00:54] Podcast supporters
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[00:01:25] Magazine segment
Annie: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with David today, I’ll discuss the Eiffel Tower’s secret engine and a milestone in the restoration of Notre Dame.
Annie: Want all the links and the full episode transcript? You’ll find everything on the page that lists all episodes by month at joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
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[00:02:09] Welcome, David Palacheck
Annie: Bonjour, David Palacheck and welcome back to Join Us in France.
David: Ah, Bonjour, Annie. Ça va?
Annie: Ça va trés bien, merci, et toi?
David: Trés bien.
[00:02:18] David’s Previous Appearances
Annie: So this is your fourth time on the show. You were here talking about a vacation you took long ago on episode 119 that I called Canal Saint-Martin, but I don’t know that we talked about that mostly, but whatever. The second one was episode 195, How to Look Stylish in Paris,because you care about those things.
David: That’s optimistic. Yeah, exactly. Very optimistic.
Annie: Yes, and then episode 292, Le Corbusier Sites in Paris.
[00:02:46] Business Trip to Paris
Annie: This time we’re going to talk about a recent trip you had with your nephew, right?
David: Well, it was a business trip that I took. I had not been back to Paris since 2020 when we did the Le Corbusier trip. We actually were there in February 2020. We were there less than a month from when the borders closed. And so this entire time had been very anxious to get back, but you know, everything was closed and then personal issues, whatever.
David: This was the first time that we actually were able to go, and there was a business opportunity. There’s a show that happens once a year, twice a year in Paris called Maisons et Objets, where it’s a furniture show, a lighting show. They also have an entireexhibition hall dedicated to, like, silk flowers if you ever wanted to go. But it was a professional opportunity to go.
Annie: Right, because you’re an architect. So this is the sort of work you do, yeah.
David: I’m an architect, yes. So, you know, we saw that it was coming up. I’ve always wanted to go. My husband, Michael, was like, “You know, just book, we’ve been wanting to go back. This is a great opportunity and great excuse.”
David: So, you know, we decided that I’d go ahead and take it, and having not been there in so long, suddenly the trip just started blossoming, and blossoming, and becoming more, and more, and more.
[00:03:55] Exploring Real Estate in the Loire Valley
David: So the first thing that happened is when we were there in 2020, when we came back, you know, we had gone in 2018 to the Loire Valley and fell in love with it. So when we came back in 2020, we immediately said, “Okay, let’s get serious about maybe trying to find a piece of property to buy in France.”
David: And then the pandemic hit, we put that on hold. What are we doing? Why are we buying a property on a different continent? So we kind of, like, shut that down. But just before the trip happened, Michael started getting emails from real estate agencies. You know, “This is this property. This is this property.” And they were all places that we really were fond of, like Saumur or also Fontevraud-l’Abbaye, two places that are really close to our hearts.
David: So Michael actually said, “Well, why don’t you extend your trip, your business trip, by an extra day, take a day trip down to the Loire Valley?” Which I did. “And take a look at the properties that are coming up.”
[00:04:45] Traveling with Family
David: And so that happened, and then the other thing that happened with my nephew is,my nephew moved to Madrid from Austin, Texas, last July. I just kind of, like, wrote him a text and said, “I know this is really funny because you’re in Spain, obviously, and I’m going to be in France, but it seems really weird being on your side of the Atlantic and not at least letting you know that I’m going to be there.” And he wrote back and just said, “Well, what dates are you going? I’ll come up and, I’ll fly up and meet you.”
David: So what was supposed to be a business trip, which was very successful, also became a good family trip, a bonding trip with my nephew. I got to introduce somebody who’d never been to Paris before. I got to introduce Paris to him. And then he and I both went down and spent a day in the Loire Valley, in Saumur, and found a property that we’re interested in.
Annie: Fantastic.
[00:05:31] Frequent Visits to France and Making a Plan to Move to France
Annie: How many trips have you taken to France or Paris or Saumur all together? Like…
David: I think I’m at six now because I know I’ve stayed in four hotels. I’ve stayed in the Hotel Mayfair. I’ve stayed in the Pavillon de La Reine. I’ve stayed in the hotel, Monntauribert. And then this time, I stayed in a very interesting property, which is on a barge in the river, called Off Paris Seine. And then we were there once for a day trip from London that we went to see the Musée des Arts Forains. So we were there for one New Year’s Day one time, and then we also flew in with my parents the time that we went down to the Loire Valley. So that makes six.
Annie: Wow. That’s a lot. That’s a lot, and it’s interesting that you, just today, I was listening to somebody talking about people who have a project to move away from home. Sometimes it’s in retirement, sometimes it’s before they retire, and he was saying that only 4% of people who talk about this actually do it, but it sounds like you might actually do it.
[00:06:33] Dreaming of Moving to France
David: Well, it’s… the wheels are going. And it’s funny because I was talking to my therapist about this. There is actually a point where it’s like, it’s good to have a dream or a fantasy, and a lot of people, I think, have a fantasy about, you know, “Someday I’m going to live in France.” Okay, well what does that look like? And if you really do want to do it, what are the steps that you start taking? Do you start doing real estate investigations, which again could be fantasy, you know? “I want to live in a $3 million house on the Cote d’Azur,” something like that, which is not where we are. But if you really do want to take it from a fantasy to a dream, it’s like, you can start taking some concrete steps. And we definitely have taken those concrete steps. Michael reached out to the real estate agent who had sent us this one property in Saumur that we’re very interested in, and you know, started corresponding with her, and then we started corresponding that I was there, was going to take a day trip down, and started, you know, doing the investigation, too. Because theoretically, yeah, it’s fine. We’re in New York. I could fly to Paris. But what’s it going to be like getting from Paris to the Loire Valley? Is it something I’m going to want to do long term? So, we took the TGV down, and it took a little over two hours, and it’s okay, well this is doable, especially if we’re only doing it once or twice a year, or going for two or three or four weeks at a time.
David: This is completely doable. And you know, a meeting with the real estate agent who, by the way, has a YouTube video, so I already knew what she looked like and had talked to her and stuff like that.
Annie: Cool.
David: Very cool. So it’s, you know, then we came back and, it just so happens our son is 20 and he’s out of high school, and we’ve been talking about, “Okay, well, what do we want, you know, the next years of our life to look like?” And, “Do we really want to be in the suburbs anymore or do we want to split our time between our apartment in Manhattan and our beach house in maybe, you know, Europe?”
David: And so you really start looking at it and it’s like, “Okay, well, this is something that’s very doable.” Some people retire to warmer places, some people get a condo in Florida. Some people get a house in Arizona or New Mexico. And for us, it’s like we just decided that we’re going to point our plane in a different direction and go to Europe.
Annie: Yeah.
David: And there are all sorts of things, you know, that I think that that affords. One I think we’re looking at it is, if we have a footprint, we can actually turn it into a business that we can do in our retirement, importing French design products.
Annie: Hmm.
David: But also, there are all sorts of explorations within France and the rest of Europe that we’ve really been wanting to do, that when we were traveling with the kid, we didn’t want to do because it was always connecting… You know, we didn’t want connecting flights or trains or whatever else. But if we have a home base… we can go to Toulouse, for instance, for the weekend, or we can go to Nice, or we can go to wherever else that you want to go by train because, “Okay, well, we’re going to be here for three months, so let’s take a weekend trip or two.”
Annie: And some of these places you need an overnight somewhere to stay. I mean, like from Saumur to Nice, you probably want to spend a couple of nights before you head back. But, you know, it’s doable. It’s really fun. Toulouse, same, because Toulouse you’d probably have to go to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps on the train and then connect through Bordeaux and then Toulouse. And they keep threatening to give us a direct TGV between Toulouse and Paris, but I’ll believe it when I see it. They’ve been talking about this for 20 years.
David: Well, that’s one of the things that I’m very excited about Saumur, is apparently there is once a day or twice a day there is a direct TGV between CDG, you know, Charles de Gaulle, and Saumur. I guess for people flying in or people flying out of the country, they do it once a day. And that train is an hour and 45 minutes.
David: The train I took we had to connect through Angers, and that took about two hours and 15 minutes. And apparently if you go through Tour, it’s a little bit faster, but, you know, I can do that. The train is really wonderful, and it goes directly out ofGare Montparnasse. And it was really funny because it was good traveling with my nephew because, you know, since he’s been in Spain in July, he’s really been taking advantage of being able to take weekend trips. So he went to Nice for his birthday. He went to Amsterdam. He’s not gay, but he went to see one of his best friends in Amsterdam for Gay Pride Weekend. He knows how to work the flying within Europe and how to use the train. And it was really funny because I was really nervous. I’d never taken the train.
[00:10:40] First Trip on the Metro and How to Get Around Using Trains in France
David: This was my first trip that I ever took the Paris Metro.
Annie: Oh, okay. The metro, the first time metro? Oh, wow.
David: The metro, the first time on the metro, the first time from the RER from the airport, first time on the metro, first time the RER outside of the city. So I didn’t know, so I was thinking American security. “I need to be there two hours before my train.” And he kept saying, “Oh, well, David, you’re making this way too serious, you can just show up.”
David: So we had a very early… I think we had a 7:45 train to Saumur. And I wanted to show up early, and he was like, “Please don’t show up any more than 30 minutes or 45 minutes before.” So I talked him into a little bit more. We took a a G7 taxi to, actually, I think he hired an Uber, but we took an Uber to Gare Montparnasse, which took less than 20 minutes, and then we just sat because it’s like, there is no… He was… it was really funny because Charlie was even saying, he was like, “Oh my God, the security’s even more lax in France than it is in Spain,” because basically, you just swiped your pass on your phone, and you walked onto your train and you were there. And we were like, “Oh my gosh, this is so easy.”
Annie: Yes, because the TGV in Spain, you have to go through security, kind of a metal detector sort of security. In France, you don’t do that. And there’s no point showing up more than 30 minutes before your train because imagine you need to go to the bathroom, okay? Bathrooms at the train station are terrible, try to avoid it. But if you must, you must. You might want to get a sandwich or a drink that takes five minutes. There’s plenty of places to get stuff like that. And then they won’t announce your platform until 20 minutes before it’s time to go. So there’s no point getting there more than 30 minutes ahead of time really for a train, for a TGV.
David: Right, right. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. I will have to say one thing about the bathroom, which is really funny. On the way back, we were transferring over in Angers and we had a layover, I think it was like 25 minutes, 35 minutes, something like that. And the train station in Angers is not air conditioned at all. It was really cold the day we were there. Cold by France standards, not by New York standards. So we were camped out in the relay store that was there, the newsstand store because that’s the only place that had heat, and I needed to go to the bathroom. And so I went, finally found the bathrooms, and I started walking in and the attendant that was there was like, “No, no, no, it’s like 50 cents,” or it was like a dollar for a public bathroom. And I just looked at him, I was like, “You’re crazy. I’m not paying for that. I’m so cheap.”… I won’t say, “I’ll wait till I get on the train.”
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for train stations, you often have to pay a little bit to get to the bathroom.
[00:13:12] Why Saumur?
Annie: All right. So tell me briefly, why do you like the Saumur area so much? What attracts you to it, besides the proximity to Paris, obviously?
David: Well, right, so it’s two hours from Paris, it’s great. But what’s really great about it is we had taken a trip there in 2018 with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law, and really at the time fell in love with the area.
David: We were staying in a manoir, a really beautiful manoir in Verneuil-sur-Loire. And it was this great walled property, and it was a small manoir and a barn, and the owners were Americans. They lived in the barn and then rented out the manoir when it was rentable and in season. It had a pool. It was actually a walled compound.
David: And it was old enough that they actually had been… and had gone through all of the building records with the town. And there actually was a door in this wall that had been built or had been blown through the wall from Louis XIV, because their property apparently was where they had collected taxes for the entire region, and Louis XIV at one point showed up, and at that time, before that, the only way to get onto the property was to drive underneath a dovecove, and they didn’t want the king to be shat upon, so they actually had to open up a different door for the king.
David: But, you know, part of the moat around thismanoir was still existing. But we had fallen in love with it. Saumur itself is such a lovely town. There’s a lovely place, Place Saint-Pierre, which is the property that we’re looking at is actually on Place Saint-Pierre. A really beautiful église that’s on the square. There are beautiful markets every Saturday. We were there on a Saturday. The entire town turns into a farmer’s market. They drive in oysters from the coast. The vegetables that were in the vegetable stands looked like a photo shoot, they didn’t look real. You’re right on the Loire, you have…
Annie: But they are real.
David: They are real, but it’s beautiful. The vibe of the town is really good. It’s just big enough, I think it’s 26,000 people, so it’s big enough it has its own opera house, which is nice. So performing arts are there. The arts in that area of the Loire Valley are amazing. There’s an entire, south of the river, there’s a road that goes through, and it goes through these wonderful towns like Candes-Saint Martin, then it goes through a town called Montsoreau, and eventually goes to Fontevraud-l’Abbaye, which is the Fontevraud Abbey.
David: And in addition to just being a really interesting historic site, they do these like really, really wonderful art exhibits at the abbey. So when we were there, they had very contemporary art that was there. We were talking to a real estate agent, she said that they had just had a Monet exhibit within the last year. So you can be out in the country, but you’ve got a performing arts center, you’ve got this great museum. They actually sometimes do yoga, apparently, in the galleries with this art. And I was like, “Well, sign me up for that.” The other thing is our son is a horse person, and one of the things in Saumur is the Cadre Noir, which is the National Academy of Riding for the French, where they do,what’s the horse dancing? Dressage, so they do dressage. You can actually go and see a dressage exhibit there.
David: And if you go in the other direction you end up in Nantes eventually. So for us, it’s a really great location, it’s relatively easy for us to get into, and you know, it’s just because we love it, we’d been there, we were very familiar, both of us felt like it was some place that we could spend a lot of time. And at a certain point, in our 50s and 60s, it’s like, “Okay, well, we know we want to do this, it’s some place that we’re very passionate about, and we’ll start.”
Annie: Yeah.
David: And maybe it’ll be where we live for the rest of our lives or maybe we’ll get a foothold in spending three months out of the year there, we’ll start realizing, “Oh, you know, maybe Toulouse was where we want.” You know, who knows?
Annie: But what’s beautiful about the Loire Valley is that there are so many chateaus that you can visit as well, and most of these chateaus have exhibits that they invite. So you have a lot of exhibits going around to various chateaus. You have ones that are only open on Week-end du Patrimoine, for instance. So really, if you want to be active in the local culture, you can, there’s plenty to do.
Annie: The food is… I mean, it’s not super famous for food. Wine, definitely, lots of wonderful wines are produced around Saumur. The food is, I mean, nothing comes to mind, but they must have local specialties. They had a bread thing, like…
David: They grow mushrooms there.
Annie: That’s true, mushrooms.
David: Champignon.
Annie: Yes, yes, yes. It’s a lovely part of France, and the whole western coast of France is superb. I mean, really, it’s a beautiful place to spend some time, so wonderful.
[00:17:48] Showing Paris to a Newcomer
Annie: So you said you showed Paristo your nephew. Where did you take him? Like, to you, what’s essential Paris?
David: Well, it was really funny, because I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said, “Well, I want to do the Louvre,” which we ended up doing, and then what else? He didn’t even say the Eiffel Tower. I said, “Do you want to go up the Eiffel Tower?” He said no, not necessarily. Oh, he wanted to see Notre Dame. And, you know, with Notre Dame having just reopened, I told him, I was like, “Well, I’m not sure,” because when I found out we were taking the trip, I immediately… because I booked the trip in December and they had just… We booked the trip about two weeks before they started taking reservations to see Notre Dame.
Annie: For the app, yeah. Through the app.
David: Through the app. And so, you know, starting in December, I started trying to get tickets and then realized that they were only opening up tickets 24 to 48 hours. Started listening to podcasts and Facebook to try and figure out how to do it.
David: But I had warned him, it’s like, “Okay, well, you know, we may or may not be able to see Notre Dame.” And he said, well, you know, what he really wanted to see was the exterior. And it’s like, “Okay, well, we can do that.”
David: The day that I got to France, I checked into my hotel and I had hours to burn before I could actually go into my room. So I had walked through the entire city. I’d gone to the Centre Pompidou.
David: I had a meeting, a business meeting up around the Gare Saint-Lazare. And so I had walked up that area and walked past the Opera. And on my way back to the hotel, I was like, “You know what? There’s probably no way I’m getting into Notre Dame at all because it’s just reopened. I’m not going to be able to get in, but I want to walk past it, I want to see it.” I wanted to see how bad the lines are and even see if it’s going to be possible to get into it. I walked through, it was about four o’clock in the afternoon. I just walked in. I just, like, walked in. I was like, “Oh my God, this is amazing.” Beautiful restoration. But Charlie was there. He came in Thursday night. He’d flown in from Madrid. He got there, he thought he was going to get there at midnight. He got there a little bit earlier. I had warned him, I was like, “I’m really jet-lagged, I’m not sure that I’m going to be up for anything tonight, but we’ll start off and we’ll try Notre Dame to begin with and then whether or not that is possible. If that’s not possible, I’ll take you to Sainte-Chapelle, which is a must see in my book.” But anyway, so by the time he got there, I’d gotten my second wind and he got there. Our hotel was on a barge, and so it had a smallrestaurant with limited hours and I knew that by the time he got there, there wasn’t going to be food. So I’d gone to the Monoprix around the corner and just gotten a sandwich and a bag of Dijon chips and stuff like that.
David: So he, I fed him and then I was like, “You know what? Let’s just go walk. It’s your first night in Paris, I’m not going to be like a lame uncle and be like, ‘Oh, I’m jet-lagged.'” So we walked up the river from our hotel which was right in front of the GareAusterlitz. And we walked along the river and we walked to the Ile Saint-Louis. Or, I’m sorry, Ile de la Cite. And we sat outside of the Notre Dame and then he said, “Well, how far is the Louvre?” I said, “Come on, I’ll show you. Let’s walk.” We walked up to the Louvre, we circled the pyramid and then we started walking back down the Rue de Rivoli.
David: And then we got, because I know it now well enough surprisingly that I was like, “Okay, we’re really close to Place des Vosges. We should just, like, cut through and you should see Place des Vosges.” And we stood in Place des Vosges for a while, and then at that point it’s like, “Come on, we’re going to ruin the next day, which is our big day in Paris. Let’s go back to the hotel.”
David: So went back to the hotel, got up early in the morning again, we tried that night to get tickets to Notre Dame, couldn’t get a reservation so I said “Let’s just hit it early.” So we hit Notre Dame early. Less of a line even than when I’d been in the day before, or the, a couple of days before. Went in, saw Notre Dame, which was wonderful.
David: Then we had lunch reservations at this, one of my favorite restaurants, which is Les Ombres, The Shadows, which is, it looks, it’s on the roof of the museum that’s right by the Eiffel Tower, and it’s got a glass roof.
Annie: Ah, yeah, the Quai Branly.
David: Oui, oui, oui. So you eat there, it’s a really great prix fixe lunch. Really, really beautiful artisan food like, haute cuisine, but they have a prix fixe that’s like $50 per person, which I thought was a really good deal.
Annie: Yeah.
David: And so we had that reservation. We couldn’t get reservations to Notre Dame but we went to Notre Dame.
Annie: If you go early enough, you get in.
Annie:
Annie: Try and be there before 10:00 and then you usually, you can get in.
David: Right, we were there around 9:00. And so then I told him, I was like, “Well look, we’re, you know, we’re here, we don’t have tickets but let me go see if we can get into Sainte-Chapelle.”
David: So they were selling tickets, you actually have to go through, the entire place is cordoned off with security but I explained that we wanted to go to Sainte-Chapelle so they said, “Well, go to the office at the conciergerie.” So we went there and they were only selling split tickets where you had to do both.
Annie: Oh.
David: So we got a timed ticket to go into Sainte-Chapelle and then to spend the 45 minutes before we walked through the conciergerie and saw the cell where Marie Antoinette was held before she was executed.
David: And then went to Sainte-Chapelle. One warning is they had two lines where they had a on the hour and they had a half hour, but no signage which one you were supposed to get in. So we just, like, got in one and then it wasn’t moving. I was like, “I think we’re in the wrong one.” So we went and then switched and they were like, “Oh, you’ve got combo tickets, come on in.” And so we saw Sainte-Chapelle, which was fantastic, and then, you know, walked up and walked behind Les Invalides.Went to lunch and then, I was like, “You know, we don’t have tickets to see the Eiffel Tower but you really should…” Oh, well, actually, no, we saw that the last day. Losing what we did that day. So we went and did that.
David: Oh, then he wanted to go to the Louvre, so we ended up at the Louvre. And again, I’m, like, always got an edge, so we had timed tickets to get into the Louvre at 4:00. And so I was like, “Let’s not go through the pyramid, we’re going to go through the carousel entry.” It was January and there were so few people there that we just, like, basically walked in…. and walked into the Louvre. And you know, we weren’t there very long, but we went and saw all the David paintings, which are… I adore. Showed him the Mona Lisa, and he was like, “Well, am I supposed to actually want to go up?” I was like, “Well, do you want a selfie?” He was like, “No.” He goes like, “Okay, we’ll go see it.” He kind of stood there for a while and was like, “Okay, I’ve seen enough.” We saw Winged Victory. I never was able to find the Venus de Milo. But we were there for a couple hours.
Annie: It’s in a different wing.
David: That’s probably why.
Annie: Yeah, that’s why.
David: And although… because we did the complete U, because we ended up leaving out of Richelieu. So we walked out of Richelieu. So we did that, but I just couldn’t figure out, because it’s downstairs… We did see the original foundations of the original historic Louvre.
Annie: Okay.
David: So we made it down there, but it’s like, that’s the one thing I couldn’t find when we were there in the time that we had.
Annie: Well, in a situation like that, you can ask one of the guards, because they take turns guarding everywhere, and they typically know exactly how to direct you, but you didn’t know that. That’s fine.
David: We didn’t know that. After we did the Louvre, Charlie was like, “Well, do you want to go to a siesta and then get ready to go out in the evening?” I said, “Well, why don’t we… You had mentioned wanting to go shopping and do some clothes shopping. We’re here, it’s January, it’s in the middle of Les Soldes.”
Annie: Hmm.
David: So the deals are going to be incredible. So, he was like, “Sure, let’s go, let’s go.” So I took him to Galerie Lafayette and to Printemps, where we ended up actually buying some stuff. But we decided…
[00:24:55] Ticket Troubles in Paris
David: He was like, “Well, do you want to just Uber it?” I was like, “Well, no, I’m actually trying to teach myself how to use the metro. Let’s use the metro.”
David: So we end up taking the metro from Louvre to the Galerie Lafayette stop, but I’d been having this thing with… this difficulty with my phone, where I had the day pass on my phone, but I’d try and swipe it, and it would say that… it would give me this error.
Annie: Hmm.
David: And I was like, “Well, this doesn’t make any sense. I bought it. You know, whatever.” As it turns out, there’s some setting on my iPhone where, when you try to swipe it, there was a little thing at the very bottom of the screen that said, “Authorize with your code.”
Annie: Ah.
David: And I’d have to hit that, then I’d have to double-click the side of my phone, and then it would bring up the code to unlock my phone.
David: And once I unlocked my phone, then it would bring the ticket up, and there was no problem. And once I realized that, I would just do that before I even got to the station. But the first couple of times I tried to use it, I thought my credit card was bad or I thought something was going on. It was kind of nerve-racking, so I was a little bit thrown.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
David: But we finally got through the turnstiles, because that’s about the time I figured out how to do that. And so we’re going, and this woman walks up to me. And I was like, “Oh, it’s one of those petition ladies. It’s a pickpocket, it’s a scam or something.” So I just like, kind of waved her off, and she was like, “No, no, Monsieur.” I was like, “No. Wow, you are so aggressive with me.” I was like, “I’m… She’s totally going to pickpocket me.” And it was like, “No, no,” and she was like, screaming at me, “Yes, yes.” And then all of a sudden, like, two or three other people come over. I was like, “Oh, my God. It’s like a gang of pickpockets.”
David: And I look over, and then I realized that they’ve got the jacket on with the metro logo on the jacket. I was like, “Oh, I’m being controlled. They’re actually checking. They want to see the ticket.” And I immediately started apologizing. I was like, “Oh, my God. Desolee, desolee, desolee.” And she was like, “No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine.” And then in French I was like, “I am so sorry. I thought you were pickpockets.” They all doubled over with laughter. They’re like, “Ha ha ha, pickpockets?” “Pickpockets? Ha ha ha.” “Okay. Bonne journee.” And then they let me go, but I was like, “Oh, my goodness.” You know, be prepared to be controlled. Don’t put up a fight.
Annie: Yeah, there’s a lot of controls on the metro, and these people are not friendly. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before, they’re not paid to be nice. So, if you are in violation, you will get a ticket, and you will need to pay it right away, and it’s very unpleasant. But by then, you had figured out how to use your app, right?
David: Yeah, they had shown me. It was really funny, talking about people not being pleasant. The person who’d kind of showed me the first time is the… The hotel where I was staying was really well-situated as far as the metro, because it was right in front of the Gare d’Austerlitz, but across the river is the Gare Lyon.
David: And so it’s on two, really convenient to two metro lines. So that’s the first time that I was like, ” I just bought this pass. Why isn’t it working?” So I went to the ticket office. And in French I said, you know, “Excuse me, pardon. Bonjour. Pardon. Pouvez m’aider? J’ai achete un billet.”
David: You know, “I’ve just bought this ticket on my phone but it’s not working, can you help me?” And the guy was like, “Yeah, give me your phone.” He looked through, and he kind of, like, made a face and said, “wait a minute,” because there was somebody behind me. Helped the guy behind me. Got out of the ticket office, walked with me to the turnstile, swiped it a couple of times, and he was like, “I don’t know why this isn’t working.” Actually went and got another woman who came over and started scrolling through. You know, she’s the person who showed me.
David: But it was so funny, because as a New Yorker, I was like, “Okay, there’s no way that anybody who’s a subway worker in New York is going to take their time to come over and individually try and get you through the turnstile.”
Annie: Yeah.
David: But anyway, so yeah, I had figured out by that time what was going on. That’s about the time after the Louvre situation that I was like, “Oh, maybe what I can do is I can go through the steps before I get to the metro stop.”
Annie: Right.
David: “… so that the ticket’s upped before I even get to the turnstile,” and that’s what I did for the rest of the trip, and it was fine.
[00:28:41] Navigating the Paris Metro
Annie: Yeah, yeah. That’s interesting, because you must have been somewhat nervous about taking the metro, and then you had problems with your ticket and you had problems with the contrôle, so maybe you’re now just petrified to go on the metro again, but…
David: Not just petrified, but it’s just… as a New Yorker, it’s really funny, because I was like, “I can do this.” And every time I got on, I got on the wrong side of the platform and ended up going in the wrong direction. One day, I was trying to get from Austerlitz into the Saint-Michel station, and then all of a sudden ended up at the station at the Bibliotheque Nationale, and was like, “Oh, I went the wrong direction.” So I switched, and then, “Oh, yeah, I went in the wrong direction.” And then got out and got to the other platform, and then the trains were being delayed. Like, the next train was like 45 minutes, and the one after that was an hour.
Annie: Oh, dear. You might as well walk at that point.
David: Yeah, I know. Well, at that point I just, I took a g-… I swear by the G7 app for taxis. Because I just went out and hailed a cab, and the cab was there with like two minutes and got me where I wanted to go.
Annie: Yeah.
David: And then there were a couple of times that we got on metro trains that all of a sudden the lights would just go down, and they’d make an announcement and everybody would grumble and just got off the train.
David: And I was like, “Okay, if I’ve got time, I’m going to come back because hopefully I will be coming back more frequently. I’m going to learn this, but I’m only going to do it when I’ve got plenty of time and I want to save money.”
Annie: Usually the metro is very efficient. I’ve gotten used to it, but it’s true that… I mean, I took the metro in New York and thought it was quite a bit worse than the metro in Paris.
David: It’s dirty by comparison.
Annie: It’s dirty and also I wasn’t used to it, and all these different companies running trains. I was like, “Oh, this is so confusing.” But it gave me more sympathy for people who come to Paris and are confused, because if it’s brand new, of course it might be confusing. That just makes sense.
Annie: But you’re right about the G7 app, it’s very efficient. I like it better than Uber in Paris because they’re more professionals, you know. I’m traumatized because I was in Paris a couple weeks ago and this woman, I called an Uber to take me to the train station, to Montparnasse, and on the Uber app it said she was going to be there in four minutes, and 20 minutes later, she arrives. It was a good thing I had plenty of time to get to the train station. And she totally had stopped for lunch, because it was 1:00 PM, and I could see that her car was parked, with the app you can see where the car is. It wasn’t moving. So I thought, “Well, maybe there’s a protest or maybe she had a breakdown or something.” No, she was having lunch. When she showed up, she had a Coke in her hand and a sandwich on her, you know, on the passenger seat. And I was like, “Son of a…”
David: With, well… with Uber, I’m always afraid that I’m going to get a bad rating so, you know, I’ll just wait it out. But then at the same time, you know, it is that situation. It’s like once you’re logged in. The other thing about taking the G7 as opposed to taking the Uber is the taxis can take the taxi lanes, so when there’s a lot of traffic, it’s faster, because Uber drivers have to sit in traffic.
David: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes they don’t and then the taxi drivers yell at them and then you’re in the middle of a fight. So, don’t do it. Yeah. Yikes.
[00:31:48] Exploring Montparnasse and the Eiffel Tower
David: Before we end up losing that train of thought, which I think we almost have, but, you know, Charlie the next day went with me to the Montparnasse station. We went down to Saumur together, which was a lot of fun, and then came back. And then that evening ended up having a dinner out in the Montparnasse area, which I’d never been to really that much. That’s totally hopping. I love that neighborhood.
Annie: Yeah, it’s beautiful. Yeah, it’s very nice.
David: It’s wonderful. And then the following day we got up, he had a flight and wanted to go to brunch. So we actually went to Rue Cler for brunch, and then walked around. We had a couple hours before he had to go to the airport, so I actually took him to the Eiffel Tower. I was like, “You really should go to the Eiffel Tower.”
David: And I had, really hadn’t been to the Eiffel Tower since any of the security fencing had gone up. So I didn’t know if you could get into the security fencing without a ticket to go up, which you can.
Annie: Yep.
David: And again, because it was kind of drizzly the day that we went, so we basically just had to walk through security and we were able to walk around the Eiffel Tower, which I actually have to say as a first-time person, that’s probably enough. I mean, I think it’s so impressive walking underneath it, that you don’t even need to go up.
David: And then walked across the bridge to the Trocadero. He wanted to see the Arc de Triomphe, so we took him there. And then, he went ahead and went back to the airport. I took him back to the hotel so that he could catch a cab to go to the airport.
[00:33:05] Art and Architecture in Paris
David: And then I went to… I’d been dying since it opened to go see the Bourse du Commerce, which is the Pinault Collection.
David: Which is there Les Halles. So I walked over, actually, I think I successfully took the metro that time. Yay for me.
Annie: Good.
David: And went and saw the Pinault Collection, which is really, really, really an impressive piece of architecture, both the Tadao Ando intervention as well as just the building itself is stunning.
David: And now that it’s renovated, the area around the Bourse du Commerce is just amazing. The shops are cool. There’s a really cool Japanese food store and cat tea room that’s right around the corner. There’s the really beautiful church, the Eglise, that is, was the old church for all of the people who used to sell at Les Halles is there and very definitely worth seeing.
Annie: Saint-Eustache.
Annie: Yes. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful church. And for all the people who complain that, you know, Notre Dame is too clean, just go there and you can see what… you know, churches looked like before they were scrubbed down. Yes. Saint-Eustache is a good example of one that needs some help. Yeah.
David: It needs a little scrubbing.
Annie: Yeah.
David: And then I wanted to go see, there was a really great exhibit at the Grand Palais. And so I went up to the Grand Palais, and it didn’t matter if you had tickets in advance or not. The line to get into the Grand Palais was like 45 minutes.
Annie: The security.
David: Yeah. I was like, “You know what? At this point, I’m just, it’s my last day. I, it’s too much for me.”…
David: But what’s interesting about this trip is, you know, me not necessarily needing to see all of the big sights, it was great to go with Charlie because I took him to all the big sights and I could see… it’s funny, you know, I hadn’t seen a lot of those since our very first trip to Paris, like, 12 years ago.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
David: And so it was interesting to me to see how accurate my memories actually were. It’s like, had they changed or had my memories just been faulty? And I was like, I liked everything that we saw. It was like, “I don’t remember that being quite like that. Okay.”
Annie: And Paris has improved, I think, as a result of the Olympics, in part. And they’re just getting better at being more welcoming and more organized. Paris is a really nice city to visit. I mean, honestly.
David: It’s a great city. My French is improved enough that I can mostly communicate in French, and that helps a lot.
Annie: Yeah, and if you’re going to live there, you need… Like, I’m sure in Saumur, you will find plenty of people who speak English. But for everyday life you need at least B2 level of French, you know? Is minimum.
David: Well, so that’s all. I just, I adore France, and adore Paris. The 12 years or so that we’ve been going, to your point, it has gotten, it’s gotten cleaner, it’s gotten I think more interesting, you know? It’s like there’s the show that was there, there’s an entire new arts community or art center that I want to go to, but I ran out of time, called Centquatre, 104. It’s like an incubator for new art, and it’s around…
Annie: It’s on Rue de Rivoli, right?
David: No, no. I know the one that you’re talking about. No. This is actually out by where theParc de Lafayette is.
Annie: Oh.
David: So it’s out there in that portion of the city where the new symphony is. And it’s the old… It’s actually really interesting. It’s in the old city morgue.
Annie: Ooh.
David: But it’s an art center, and it’s all, like, they commission new works by up-and-coming artists. I found it accidentally through a sound installation that had been posted on Instagram. I was like, “Oh my God, this artist is so interesting, I wonder where they’re showing,” and they were showing there.
Annie: Oh.
David: But I ran out of time.
David: But to me, it was like this bug. It’s like, okay, well Paris isn’t just these sights. It’s like, Paris is a contemporary world city. Yeah, there are the things to see, but for me, it’s like, I’ve got the bug where it’s like, okay, well, I want it in rotation because I get to see a lot of things living in Manhattan, but there are things that never even come here.
Annie: Yeah.
David: I wanted to try and incorporate, see how I can expand my business and start traveling there. I want to continue to go for the arts and for performance, and just to be in the city is just amazing.
Annie: Yeah. And the whole area with the Cite des Science and the… I mean, obviously, the opera house there,what is it called? I forgot.Anyway, it might come back.It’s really not aged well. The exterior looks awful by now. It was-
David: Oh, the one at Bastille?
Annie: Not Bastille. Bastille is fine. The one by the Cite des Science.
David: Oh. Yeah, yeah.
Annie: Can’t remember what it’s called. La Symph- No, not Symphony. The-
David: Oh, I know what you’re talking about. The Jean Nouvel, who’s actually one of my favorite architects, but… Oh, he took his name off of that project.
Annie: He did, yeah.
Annie: Because they wouldn’t use the music… Cite de la Musique. La Philharmonie de Paris is what it’s called.
David: Yes, yes. Oui.
Annie: And yeah, the building doesn’t look good anymore. But that whole area has really improved. The Cite des Science was very fun. When we went there were a lot of exhibits, there were a lot of families with children under ten. And I used to not recommend it because I saw it was very loud and very unpleasant in there. They’ve made it a lot better. It was really a good experience for me this couple of weeks ago when we went. So, I would recommend that.
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[00:38:14] Things learned about France
Annie: Tell me, are there some things you learned about France that you want to share? Advice that you want to give people? You’ve given plenty already, but…
Annie: Well, I think, first of all, taking the train in… there’s no way I’m going to do, come back and forth to the airport any way other than taking the train. Which was, I did have a funny experience. I flew United flies into the doughnut terminal, Terminal 1. And so I had to, you know, do YouTube videos beforehand to figure out where to go to the RER station between Terminals 2 and 3. That was good. I did have a funny… You know, got there, got in the morning. You know, in New York you have like mariachis and things that get on the subway with you. And you’re like, “Oh, man.” And I got on the train and this guy walked up right to my seat with an accordion and started playing an accordion on it. It was like, “Are you kidding me?” “Are you kidding me?” Sometimes they’re not very good either.
David: Well, he was okay.
David: I still didn’t start belting out any of my Edith Piaf at him, so…
David: The Metro is really good, the G7 is really good. My advice is just basically go to Paris and try and see it not as a postcard, but try and see it as a city. And just spend time. There was so much that I wanted to see… I was so hungry to be there because I hadn’t been there for five years that I probably tried to do too much.
Annie: Oh.
David: And I think that, you know, especially for first-timers, it’s like, well, you may never come back again, but one of the things you’re going to miss if you don’t take time is you’re going to miss what it actually feels like to be in the city.
Annie: Yeah.
David: So I think that there’s a lot of like, kind of being relaxed that I didn’texperience.
[00:39:37] Hotel on a barge
David: One thing I do want to hit on before we leave is the hotel where I stayed is really amazing. It’s on the river. It’s on a retired barge. And basically what they did was they took two barges and they strapped them together and built a 54-room boutique hotel on it. And where the two of them come together, they actually put a swimming pool.
Annie: Oh, it’s the one with the pool. Okay. I know where it is. Yeah.
David: Yeah, it’s the one with the pool. It’s the one with the pool.
Annie: Yeah, okay.
David: I did bring my bathing suit with me because I was like, “I’m not going to swim in the Seine, but maybe I’m swimming on the Seine.” I ended up just like dipping my toes in the first night I was there just to say I could do it.
David: But it’s really, you know, it was really quiet because it’s, you know, it’s just past the Jardin des Plantes. So it’s kind of just on the edge of where central Paris is. Super convenient because it’s right there by the two train stations.
David: And for me, they gave me this like really wonderful room on the ground level at the very far end of the hotel, so it was super quiet. The staying in it was really interesting because you really didn’t feel that you were on a boat until something really big came by, and then every once in a while there was kind of a little bit of like a jolt and it would take a minute or two for the hotel to basically come to a stop. I actually found it, like, a really, really easy place to sleep because it, it was almost like you were being rocked to sleep every night. But it was great. It’s another thing that I would potentially recommend is going… It wasn’t so easy, like, if I wanted to go out. You know, I had to walk around the Gare d’Austerlitz to get to the… close to the Monoprix.
David: You couldn’t just, like, go out your front door and find a cafe or a bistro or something like that. So it was a little bit of a, you know, inconvenience in that way. But if you wanted someplace to just kind of like decompress at the end of the day, finding a hotel that’s maybe a little bit out of the craziness, I mean, to me, made it a really, it was almost like a zen experience at the end of the day, just like go back and kind of think about, you know, what had happened during the daytime. And I don’t see the river. One night, I just had dinner at the hotel restaurant. I was like, “I’m so lame. I’m having a dinner at the hotel restaurant.” It’s like, “Yeah, in a glass room looking over the Seine.” I was like-
Annie: Yeah. It’s nice.
David: That’s not lame. That’s not lame. So…
Annie: Yeah. They often haveevents for companies.
David: They had one there… Yeah. They had one there one of the days that I went there.
Annie: When I was writing my Eiffel Tower tour, because I was staying by Javel, so it’s right along there, and so I would walk very often and that’s a great place if you want to jog, by the way, also.
David: There were a lot of joggers.
Annie: Right. Access to the banks of the river. It’s a great place for jogs. Right around there, you don’t have a lot of businesses, but you don’t have to go very far to find them, you know?
David: You know what else was really convenient that I wasn’t anticipating? Again, because to get to the Montparnasse station, I was a little concerned, it’s like, “Well, how long is it going to take to get an Uber or how long is it going to take to get a taxi?” Because you are equidis- not equidistance, but because you’re wedged between two train stations, you can get a taxi in under a minute.
Annie: Yeah.
David: Because there’s always taxis there for the taxi stands.
Annie: Of course.
David: So if you have the G7, like, somebody’s there in a minute.
Annie: Which is often… I mean, in Paris you never have to wait very long for a taxi anyway, but if you’re located well, that’s even better. I should mention, you said you would take the RER into the city, and that’s a fine thing to do, but just make sure you get the direct train, because the trains that stop at every station, there’s always somebody who is going to rush in, grab somebody’s bag and rush out the door, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
David: Yeah. I actually, I did take the local, but I was so paranoid because I-
Annie: You knew about this.
David: Yeah. When you see, like, I almost got arrested because of my fear of pickpockets. But no, I had a stainless steel carry-on that I travel with, and then my carry-on bag with my computer, I actually took the shoulder strap and unhooked it and wrapped it around the handle, like-
Annie: Mm-hmm.
David: … three or four times and then hooked it back in. You know, if they’d really wanted to and they had a knife, they could have come and… But even it was wrapped around so many times that, you know, they wouldn’t have been able to, like-
Annie: It would have been hard. Yeah.
David: It would have been hard.
Annie: Yeah. But you just have to be ready. Unfortunately, they can’t seem to stop these guys, and it’s really easy for them because they just… When it stops at one of the stations, they rush in, they grab whatever is easy, and they rush out the door, and the doors close, and the train goes and you’re like, “Oh, my God!” And then if you arrive at Orly Airport there’s line 14 of the metro now, and I would take line 14 of the metro between Orly and the city center because it’s 13 euros, you know. Well, it’s the same price to get to CDG, but in CDG, I think it’s not as, I would like it a little safer. Let’s put it this way. I hear too many stories of people getting robbed along that route. So, yeah.
David: Noted.
Annie: Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, you had a great trip and…
David: I had a great trip.
[00:44:39] Exploring the Loire Valley
David: I had a great trip and if everything goes well, you may have a field correspondent in the Loire Valley if you want one.
Annie: In the Loire Valley. Fantastic. Yeah. That’s a part of France where I just want to go and park myself there for a couple of weeks and go see, I mean, I’ve been to many of them, but briefly, and it would be fantastic to go again and just spend a little more time.
David: Yeah. We’ve been to Chambord. We’ve been to Chenonceau. The castle at Langeais is really wonderful.
Annie: Uh-huh.
David: And it’s not necessarily one that is, you know, on the guidebooks, but I found the town of Langeais to be just beautiful, beautiful.
David: And, of course, there’s Villandry which is spectacular if you’re a gardener.
David: It’s so rich and even if I could… Hopefully, it’ll be, you know, a landing pad to explore more of France, but you could spend years exploring just the Loire Valley and still have things to see.
Annie: I think there’s 400 chateaus in, like… I can’t remember the surface area, but I read an article once saying, you know, in this tiny area, you have 400 chateaus. It’s amazing. It’s never ending. And some of them are not open to the public. Many of them are. Some of them, they can’t attract anybody because people don’t spend that long in the area really. They will spend two, three nights max and then be off to Normandy or whatever. it’s actually not a bad idea to… if you’re going to be touring around, especially if you have your own car, to then go on to Normandy, or La Rochelle or somewhere like that.
David: My sister and brother-in-law… My brother-in-law is actually a historian. His degree is in history and his specialty is World War II. And so they actually went and they rented… There’s a Hertz in Saumur, so that they actually rented a car themselves and took a day trip to the Normandy beaches.
David: It’s very definitely doable as a day trip from there.
Annie: It is. It is.
[00:46:24] Final Thoughts and Farewell
Annie: David, thank you so much for talking to me. It’s always a delight to talk to you and thank you for sharing so many great tips and have a wonderful time settling in Saumur. That’s exciting.
David: Yeah, very, I’m beside myself. I’m really, really excited.
Annie: Merci beaucoup.
David: Merci.
Annie: Au revoir.
David: Au revoir.
[00:46:49] Thank you Patrons
Annie: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that, you can see them at patreon.com/joinus. I don’t have any Join Us in France Champions to thank this week, I hope this means that you’re all on vacation.
Annie: To become a patron, go to patreon.com/joinus, and to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
[00:47:23] Video for Patrons
Annie: This week, I published my first short video with footage I shot in Annecy, in the French Alps, and I’m working on a new video about Vilanova i la Geltrú in Spain, where I spent the last couple of weeks.
Annie: I’ve talked about this city of, in Catalunya several times because I have been going there since I was a child and I own an apartment there that my parents bought eons ago. And it so happened that I bought a new camera and I have been playing with it, and it makes a huge difference. It’s a wonderful camera compared to what I had before.
Annie: The one thing that is mind-blowing in this video I’m going to share, is the human castle that happened just under my nose. As a matter of fact, I was so close to a professional TV guy who, you know, he was two feet taller than me, and he was holding this massive professional TV camera. And he kept kind of moving a little bit and going in front of me, whatever, but I made my way, I made my way. That footage is amazing. So for now, this is just for patrons, because I’m learning the craft and I know they like me, so I’m less worried about sharing with patrons. But pretty soon they’ll be on YouTube as well, give me a few weeks.
[00:48:42] Personal Update: Listing my Spain Apartment on Home Exchange
Annie: And on a personal note, I started renovating the apartment in Vilanova i la :Geltrú, a couple years ago, and I always had in my mind that perhaps I’d rent it out part of the year.
Annie: Clearly, I want to be able to go there whenever I feel like it. My sister is there right now, my brother will go next, my daughter goes, so do my nieces and their children at this point, so it’s used quite a bit. But there are still whole weeks in the year where it’s empty. And when you think about it, before you can rent a place out or loan it out even, everything needs to be in good working order.
Annie: You need to sort out the keys, make rooms in the closet, remove any items that visitors wouldn’t have any use for, like my recording equipment, for instance. I keep some there because I always need it. But I’m now ready. I’m very happy with the state of things. So I decided to list it on HomeExchange. That’s a good place to start, I think. And so if you’re in the HomeExchange system and would like to spend some time in Catalunya, look it up. It’s called Annie’s Apartment in Vilanova i la Geltrú. I just barely listed it, so no feedback yet, but I can’t wait to have some experience with HomeExchange. I think that’s a very good way to go.
[00:50:08] Annie’s Services
Annie: If you’re planning a trip to France and want expert help, you can hire me as your itinerary consultant. Someone emailed me asking if I’m an old style full service travel agent, you know, booking all your rooms and your travel and all that, and I am not.
Annie: I make recommendations for hotels, for restaurants, for experiences, tailored to your needs and based on my firsthand experience with you since we talk for an hour, but I don’t book anything for you.
Annie: Why not? Well, because I want you to have full control over your reservations because I think it’s just better for you, it’s going to work out better for you. If you need to make any changes, if you’re not happy with this or that, it’s better if you have full control.
Annie: So if you’d like to book the Itinerary Consult Service or any of my products and services, go to joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
[00:51:03] The Eiffel Tower’s Secret Engine
Annie: Let’s talk about the Eiffel Tower’s secret engine, which is water power at work. Did you know that the Eiffel Tower is still using hydraulic technology from the 19th century to move visitors up and down its elevators?
Annie: That’s right, beneath all the wrought iron beauty, there’s a fascinating bit of Old World engineering still at work today. It’s one of those hidden stories that most of the six million annual visitors never hear about.
Annie: In a recent behind-the-scene visit shared by journalist Yvan Allouin, and elevator operator, Eric Trahan we learned that the west pillar of the Eiffel Tower houses machinery largely unchanged since the tower’s early days.
Annie: The elevators that transport people up to the second floor, that’s 115 meters above ground, operate using a water-based hydraulic system first put in place in 1899 by Gustave Eiffel himself.
Annie: Here’s how it works. A valve opens, water from the counterweight flows into a piston, called a verin in French, which pushes a cart. As the cart moves, it pulls on cables, lifting the elevator cabin. When the counterweight goes down, the cabin goes up. The speed? About two meters per second.
Annie: Eric Trahan, who maintains the elevators, says he can tell whether the system is working properly just by the sound it makes. “I hear it sing,” he said. “When everything hums the right way, I know it’s running smoothly.”
Annie: What’s even more amazing is that the original pistons and cables from 1889 are still in use, though they’ve been reinforced over the years for safety.
Annie: In fact, the elevator system is now so secure, it’s often compared to the safety standards of the aviation industry. Sensors monitor the system constantly and any minor fault can be corrected on site. So it’s not just about the guy’s hearing, okay? If the problem is serious, a full intervention is triggered.
Annie: So next time you take the elevator up the Eiffel Tower, take a moment to appreciate the hidden world below your feet. It’s not just a monument, it’s a living piece of sightseeing history, humming quietly beneath the crowds.
[00:53:39] The Statues of Notre Dame Return
Annie: Let’s talk about a major milestone at Notre Dame, the statues of Notre Dame return. Something remarkable happened this week in Paris. All 16 statues that originally stood at the base of the Notre Dame spire are now back in place.
Annie: The very last one, the statue of Saint Thomas, was lifted by crane early Thursday, last week, and it is secured at the top of the cathedral, just under the freshly rebuilt spire.
Annie: The statue, like the others, is made of copper with a bronze patina. It stands about three meters tall and weighs just about 100 kilos. It was blessed by Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris before being carefully hoisted into position.
Annie: Why is this such a big deal?
Annie: Because these statues are some of the only original pieces of the spire that survived the 2019 fire. Just four days before the blaze, they had been removed for restoration work and they were sent to the Dordogne, where they were going to be worked on.
Annie: Marie-Hélène Didier, a top heritage conservator for the Ile-de-France region says, “It’s almost a miracle.”
Annie: The statues are currently still hidden behind scaffolding, but by the end of August, which will come fast, when the scaffolding around the spire is finally dismantled, they’ll be fully visible once again. Best bring your binoculars because, I mean, if you have very good eyesight, you will see them, but to really see them, you need binoculars or a very good zoom lens, or you, it’s also worth trying with your phone. Zooming in with your phone helps as well.
Annie: And a fun fact, Viollet-le-Duc modeled Saint Thomas in his own likeness, they say, because Thomas is the saint patron of architects. How fun.
Annie: This symbolic milestone shows how far the restoration of Notre Dame has come, and it’s a reminder that amidst the tragedy of the fire, the precious things, like these statues, were spared, and now they’re right back where they belong.
Annie: My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan.
Annie: And next week on the podcast, an episode about the trip of a lifetime with a family of six with Lori Belinski. That sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Annie: Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.
[00:56:25] Copyright
Annie: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent, and Copyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
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Episode PageCategories: Loire Valley, Paris