Paris, August 14, 2025

It must have been January, or maybe early February 2025, when one weekend afternoon, as JoAnn and I were sitting around, she asked me if I would like to go to Paris for my birthday.  She somehow remembered me saying, around the Christmas holiday, that I would love to see Notre Dame de Paris now that the restoration was completed enough for this Paris icon to open once again to the public.  

It is now more than 6 years since April 15, 2019 when the devastating fire occurred that threatened to burn this storied cathedral to the ground. This photo of the cathedral on fire was copied from a photo that was taken by the New York Daily News.

Through the tireless work of craftsmen, some using the same techniques as originality employed in the 12th century, when construction began, and in the following centuries as work continued. With the help of donations from across the globe, Notre Dame was finally on display again and, more importantly, open for mass.

We’d been there a number of times before and I wanted to see her after the soot from millions of candles had been scrubbed from the walls and cleaned from the windows; after the pews were replaced and the alter returned to its previous glory.

In the past few years, I have become intrigued with Gothic cathedrals; with their soaring pillars and ribbon vaults and of course, their flying buttresses.  The higher the ceiling the closer to God; the nearer to heaven.  The story-telling stained glass windows, letting the light shine in, telling the stories of the old and new testaments, saying there is heaven and there is hell.  One can just imagine, standing in the midst of a Gothic cathedral how someone, illiterate and poor, must have felt.  And, Notre Dame is all that and more.  Light and story telling is what a Gothic cathedral is all about and Notre Dame does just that.

But, our story doesn’t start or end with the Cathedral.  It begins when we arrive in Paris, around 12:30 PM on August 14th at the Charles De Gaulle airport to find a driver waiting to hustle us off to the Hotel Indigo, a small, intimate boutique hotel in the heart of Paris.  From our first steps into reception we were greeted as if we were old returning friends.  Let’s start with the reception area.

We were destined to spend the next six days in room 411, which overlooks Rue Edouard VII. The room is spacious and comfortable.  Have a look.

Hotel Indigo from the outside and the second photo from the inside. It was at the Auburn Cafe that we had morning coffee and end of evening cocktails.

Once checked in and having access to the room, we dropped off our luggage and decided to walk over to visit the Printemps and Galeries Lafayette department stores.  Not to buy but to look around.  That said, I have always loved the ceiling in Galeries Lafayette.  It is truly exceptional and a wonderful work of art.

The exterior of Printemps, on Boulevard Haussmann, is also outstanding with it’s highly stylized turrets.

One has a wonderful view from the roof at the Galeries Lafayette. This photo is of the rear of the opera house, Palais Garnier.

As we made our way to the roof I snapped this photo which I thought demonstrated interesting creativity.

As the day wore on we began to make our way to the Isle Saint Louis, where we had dinner plans at L’Orangerie Paris, a small restaurant at 28 rue Saint-Louis-en-L’lle. As luck would have it, L’Orangerie is next door to L’Auberge de la Reine Blanche, where we have dined on a number of occasions. We were surprised to learn that they are both owned by the same family. Interesting is that the kitchen for Blanche is in the L’Orangerie and there is a runner for Blanche who carries the food from one to the other. On our way there, I took this photo of a couple of street artists.

Here are two photos of the restaurant. It was really very pleasant and our meals were excellent.

By the time dinner was over we were exhausted as we had been up all day on the 13th, only napped a little on our seven hour flight, and were up all day on the 14th. We were headed for the hotel and a good night’s sleep. On the way back I managed to capture a few last photos, around 9:30 as the sun was setting.

Good night! There is more to come tomorrow.