France Diary: May 4 through 25, 2025

By Lita-Luise Chappell. Photography by Vere Chappell.

Sunday, May 4

This would be our tenth trip to France together, and Vere and I were really looking forward to it. Our 9:00 a.m. departure from the house was a more lenient one for an 11:30 a.m. domestic flight. We would be flying to Chicago and then changing planes for the long flight to Paris.

With baggage checked and us settled in our seats, we had a brief delay as the captain came on and announced that the plane was overloaded, and tickets worth $900 were being offered to people to relieve the weight. Five people quickly raised their hands to get off and get another flight with that high monetary offer. A young man who had been sitting next to me with a bag full of ranunculus flowers for his mother on Mother’s Day, decided to take advantage of the offer and left us with the unusual empty seat. We promptly took possession of our widened space and enjoyed a rare opportunity.

Our four-hour-and-ten-minute flight took us to a rainy Chicago, with a three-and-a-half-hour window until our next flight. We had a good meal in the airport before boarding our next flight. We sat in a row with only two seats together, toward the back of the front section, watched a couple of movies, and listened to an audio book.

Monday, May 5

Eight hours later we arrived in Paris at noon. When we stepped out on to the street, the Parisian blue sky was streaked with some white clouds at a pleasant 68º F. This was a relief for the Parisians, after the week before in early May, with unusual heat of up to 80º F., and then the day before our arrival Paris had heavy rain and marble-size hail.

After an hour’s taxi drive into the city, we met up with the Airbnb owner in front of an apartment building on Rue Brezin. He gave us our keys and showed us how to get into the building. As usual in Paris, apartment elevators are very small. In fact, it was so tight, that only one of us could ascend with a suitcase at a time. But the apartment on the sixth floor was very nice. The hardwood floors, black and white bistro-like décor with modern art touches, good windows facing north, a double-size bed (which is slightly wider than a double in the US), and a completely black-tiled bathroom, were attractive and comfy. We would enjoy the apartment for five nights.

Once we had situated our suitcases, put our items in the bathroom, and set up our laptops, we could relax. After a fairly sleepless time on the last flight, the bed invited us in for a nap, to help us re-calibrate in a new timezone. We woke at 6:00 p.m., and with refreshing showers, we were ready to explore the neighborhood and get some dinner.

Our Airbnb was in a well-appointed area in the 14th Arrondissement, with several boulangeries, patisseries, restaurants, and ATMs nearby. With a walk around the block, we found a restaurant that touted “traditional French food,” La Table du Prince. Vere had the Magret de Canard (duck breast) with Dauphinois potatoes, honey sauce, and a small salad. I had the Salad Le Chevre Miel (goat cheese salad with honey), which was made up of mixed greens, assorted veggies, seeds, and raisins all lightly tossed in a honey vinaigrette. Diamond toasts were topped with rounds of creamy goat cheese. This would be one variation of many of this dish that I would have on this trip.

Full and happy, we ambled back to our Airbnb to digest, relax, and plan our outing for the next day.

Tuesday, May 6

On our first night, with the darkened curtains in place, and going to bed earlier than we would have at home, we both first woke at 5:30 a.m. This is always typical when readjusting to a new time zone. At 8:00 we went to the nearest place for coffee and pastry, A&K Coffee. Vere had a “bio” coffee that ended up being chicory, which he didn’t like at all, and I had a chai, and we both had a croissant. Yes, they are better in France because they use a specific fine flour, T45 or T55, and these flours have a low ash content, making the pastry more delicate. In the U.S., most bakers just use all-purpose flour.

After breakfast we headed to the subway to go to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, to see how the reconstruction of the church had fared since the huge fire in 2019. Before leaving home, we had looked up the opening hours. The website suggested making reservations due to its popularity, but entering times were not available until we landed in Paris. Now in Paris, today was booked, so we booked for Wednesday morning. Then we read that people who had gone without reservations were able to enter, regardless.

When we arrived, the line was long but continually moving. So we decided to give it a try. While traversing the long line back and forth, a cold breeze was blowing, which made us pull our faces down into our jackets as we moved along.

When we entered the church, it was packed with throngs of people slowly wading through the aisles. We moved with the crowd inside, and Vere stopped often to take pictures. Chandeliers were bright and the blue stained glass in all the windows shone radiantly.

All the stone within the church and all the altar pieces and side chapels had been scrubbed clean of soot, and all of the burned portions had been replaced. A front and central portion nearest the altar was open only to those who came to pray. As we edged our way down the north side aisle, colorful wood-carved motifs of the Virgin and Christ’s story were on panels to the right. Then on north transept, high up is the blue rose window, facing the rose window on the south redder tones.

The high altar had a modern shape, while the dark mahogany-carved choir sat old but rubbed clean. When we circled behind the main altar on the far eastern wall, there was one large artistic display made up of hundreds of square yellow lights on a golden background. It appeared as a modern rendition of the sun, perhaps giving homage to the celestial father. Opposite the sun, hanging from the ceiling above the main altar, was an upward-pointed large silver crescent moon. It is unusual to see any kind of crescent moon at a high altar; more often than not there is an image of Christ. But Notre-Dame is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, so the moon was prominently placed in keeping with its celestial counterpart.

Behind the main altar we could still smell remnants of smoke, even after six years. Along the inner walls on both sides were hung some of the original medieval art, but with the reconstruction and redecorating, a lot more modern art had been added, which we felt somewhat took away from the historical feeling of the original church. Thank goodness for the beautiful stained glass windows, which brightened the interior, and lifted the feeling of a darker time from the edifice.

One of the oddest things we experienced inside was a droning or wailing sound, rising and falling, stopping and then starting again. My first impression was that it was some white noise playing in the background to drown out all of the tourists shuffling and speaking. But truly, it sounded like the wailing of tortured spirits, which actually seemed appropriate for a church that has seen so many souls come and go through its history. However, in the end we realized that the sound was coming from power tools that were still being used on the outside upper parts of the church. Their droning had filtered down through the arches to create an eerie groaning.

Outside, in front of Notre-Dame, the Festival du Pain was in full swing. Many well-known bakeries from around Paris were under a huge white tent making all kinds of breads. Piles of dough were on long tables with bakers in line rolling, pressing, layering, and forming bread loaves, croissants, and other pastries. There was even a large grandstand outside at the far end, where the famous bakers were giving workshops. “Press the dough, roll the dough, smooth the dough, as one would apply pressure and longing with a lover.” We bought pastry and a spinach quiche, and sat on a bench to eat, looking up at the front façade of Notre-Dame.

We shared our impressions of how much the church had changed since the last time we had seen it in 2016. Vere commented that the stone walls, arches, ceiling, and floors of stone were now so bright white, having been cleaned much further than just the soot from the fire, that he thought the church had lost the original golden warmth of the older stone. For me, although the stones were cleaned to lighten the presentation of the old walls, the weight of all that stone still seemed oppressive, severe, and dispiriting.

Since we had time to spare before our next site, we walked around the church to its east side, and entered a small park along the Seine River. Behind a tall stone wall, the park contained a monument and underground memorial dedicated to the deportation of 200,000 Jews and other political prisoners to concentration camps in Germany during WWII.

We sat on a bench, the wall protecting us from a cool breeze that still blew. It was a quiet and serene place, in contrast to the crowds we had experienced within the church. We faced the garden and let the sun warm our faces.

Once rested, we crossed a nearby bridge onto the Île Saint-Louis. It is one of the two natural islands in the Seine River, the other being Île de la Cité where Notre-Dame sits.

Shortly afterward, we came across a small photo shoot of a woman wearing a long, tight gray knit maxi dress. The model held an ice cream cone until it began to melt too much, and then she handed it off to an assistant, so the cameras could keep taking pictures.

We continued along, knowing we still had some time before our next site, and decided to sit at a café for a while facing the Seine River. Vere ordered a soda and I had some pineapple juice, as we watched the tour boats full of people go by. One boat had cheering, happy school children, who threw their hands up and yelled “Wooooowww” as they passed under the bridge. In contrast to that explosive expression, at the very back of the boat sat some tightly-bundled-up Asians, with absolutely no expression on their faces. Above, the now wide blue sky drank in the sunlight and was dotted with small polka dots of white clouds all the same size, which appeared to be spilled white pastille candies against a turquoise candy lid.

While we were sitting there, the model reappeared with her entourage, and now she was wearing white slacks and a bright red blouse. She posed and turned, using an antique home movie camera as a prop, as the cameras continually clicked. This was Paris, after all, and models and cameras were commonplace.

Only a block away, just before entering our next site, we saw a mini-UPS truck. Then we went into the Musée Vivant du Fromage (Living Cheese Museum) for a tasting. It was a cheese shop that had set up a small museum in the back which showed where different cheeses in France came from and how they were made. One interactive area had the visitor answer questions, and it would say what the person would be if they were a cheese! Vere and I ended up being the same goat cheese, and it happened to be one of the cheeses we would be eating in the next room.

Our host, speaking mostly in French, gave us an introduction and had us taste four different cheeses. He talked about the preparation of cheese and how different bacteria were used to form different cheeses. He scooped fresh curds out of a container and put them into a cup with perforations to allow the water to drip out. He showed how the curds would settle in one day, two days, and longer, until a rind had formed and the cheese was firmer. Then there was the tasting. With each cheese, he put up on a wall a huge picture of the region where that cheese was made, and music from the region played in the background. The first was the mild goat cheese we had seen made. The second was a semi-soft brie-like cheese. The third was a firm Comté cheese, the favorite of the French people. The fourth was a bleu cheese. Each sample was delicious, and our guide was entertaining.

We re-crossed the Seine and walked along the quay, hoping to find a bouquiniste (secondhand bookseller) with whom Vere had stayed in touch over the years, as they are both photographers. Along certain sections on the right and left banks of the Seine River are sellers who sell vintage books and postcards from green metal box stands that open up. We didn’t find his friend, but Vere was surprised to find a book by a famous illustrator, caricaturist, and painter, Jean-Pierre Desclozeaux. When Vere was eleven and lived in Paris, he had gone to school with the illustrator’s daughter. He ended up buying the book.

A few blocks away, just as we were about to enter the Latin quarter, we came across the well-known English-language bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. This bookstore has been the meeting place for many well-known expat writers such as Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Eliot, and Pound. We browsed the shop, and Vere bought a few books.

Then it was time for lunch. We found a place to eat in the Latin quarter, the Maison Blanche (White House) Restaurant. Vere ordered a ham and cheese crepe with a salad, and I ordered a Salad du Mer (seafood). Just before we received our food, a group of eighteen Italian high school kids came in and filled three tables. It became quite loud with their banter, so we ate quickly and then left.

We had also planned to go to the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Montparnasse cemetery, but the weather had turned overcast and cold. On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at a chocolatier and bought a small assortment. Then back to the apartment by 3:00 to rest and relax.

At 7:00, we went to a restaurant just two blocks away called the Le Petite Baigneur (The Little Bather – a rather obscure reference to an early Robert Dhéry French comedy film from 1968). Vere had a steak with caramelized onions and a salad, and I had French onion soup. We both ordered glasses of Provence rosé wine to go with our meal. I poured some of mine into my soup, which always makes French onion soup taste better. Then it was back to the apartment.