My Transavia flight from Berlin (where I’d spent a week attending workshops in Sept 2025) arrived at Orly airport just before 4 pm, and I soon found myself on board the metro to Châtelet station. I walked from there to my apartment rental on Rue Saint-André des Arts on the Left Bank. Originally, I had booked a place on Île Saint Louis, but when my older daughter decided to meet me in Paris, I decided to stay a bit longer and that apartment wasn’t available for the entire stay.
The main reason I wanted to go to Paris, not that anyone needs to have a reason—it’s Paris—is that there were two sights I’ve regretted not seeing on my first trip in 2010. One was Père Lachaise cemetery. We were going to go there after visiting Montmartre, but a huge storm with drenching rain came up, so we didn’t end up going. The other was Notre Dame cathedral. We stayed a couple of blocks away from it, walked past it nearly every day, and kept thinking we’d go in another day. Somehow, we never did. It became a catchphrase for us. For instance, in Budapest, we stayed very close to the Opera. On our last day, we made a point of going inside to see it, saying, “We can’t let this be our Notre Dame.” So, I’ve wanted to return to see Notre Dame, but with the fire, that wasn’t an option for a while. Otherwise, my daughter (who was also on that 2010 Paris trip) and I had seen many of the “top” sights—Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Tuileries, Place de la Concorde, Champs Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Musée d’Orsay, the Catacombs, Versailles, et al., so we were interested in exploring some different sights this time.
The first thing that struck me after 15 years since I was last in Paris was how much more crowded it was. I made my way past the lineups at Sainte-Chapelle and the crowds on Pont Saint-Michel to my street, where I found the door leading into my building. This door led into a courtyard shared by several buildings. My building had a teeny-tiny elevator, which was nice.
When I entered the apartment, I found a modern sanctuary in an historic building. Wow! It had a kitchen with stools at a counter, a sitting area with a very cool, wall-mounted glass heater between the two windows and another sitting area with an electric fireplace. Separate toilet rooms and shower rooms would make sharing easier for my daughter and me. The large bedroom had a king-sized bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and another window.
I headed out to pick up some groceries and settled in for the evening after a long travel day. My daughter would be arriving the following day.
I relaxed the next morning, waiting for my daughter. After getting her settled into the apartment, we decided to go to the Père Lachaise cemetery that afternoon. On the way, we bought Navigo cards and loaded them with one-week passes. We were hungry by the time we got off the metro near the cemetery, so we stopped into the nearby Land and Monkeys bakery for a snack, which we ate at the tables outside. I had a fig galette, and it was très bonne.
It was a gorgeous fall day—warm and sunny—a perfect day for wandering around Père Lachaise. Although Paris was busy, the cemetery was not, so it was a nice break from the crowds, too. Of course, I was aware of the famous people who were buried here, but I didn’t want to spend the whole time following maps to check off a list. I wanted to see Jim Morrison’s and Oscar Wilde’s graves, but beyond that, I just wanted to wander. What a fascinating cemetery. My daughter went along just to humour me. She wasn’t really interested. However, after seeing it, she decided to take her boyfriend to see it when they went to Paris last week. Besides Morrison’s and Wilde’s, we also saw the graves of Chopin and Gertrude Stein, as well as many other amazing mausoleums. It was a lovely and fascinating afternoon.