Visiting the renovated Cathedrale de Notre Dame

A lovely beginning for 2025

Here in France, christmas cards are hardly ever sent. Starting Jan 1, les Français send New Year’s cards. The rule of thumb is that one has the entire month of January to send these cards. Which, if you think about it, makes so much sense. Christmas shopping, parties, craziness, family get togethers are in the rear view window. Only taking down the tree and putting away ornaments remain. There is more relaxed time to send a card and even a letter of yearly catch-up.

So I am not late in wishing everyone Happy New Year. For me personally, I’m happy to say good bye to 2024. It wasn’t a bad year. In fact, if I were to write down all the successful things that I did or happened to me, it was a good year. But it was an emotional year. It was like grabbing on to the tail of a kite and hanging on for dear life during a raging storm. Among the bigger things that happened, I sold my home in Oakland, California, I had cataract surgery on both eyes, I had carpal tunnel surgery on my left wrist, the Paris Olympics came to town, and I joined a year long writing Studio making a commitment to write a first draft of a second book.

In December, I spent three weeks in very cold Ann Arbor, Michigan (where exists one of the most wonderful bookstores ever: Literati) with my sister and returned in time to celebrate New Year’s eve with friends in the Marais. For me, flying west to east produces much worse jet lag than flying the other way and it seems that I lost a number of days last week, getting my feet back on the ground.

Each day since my return, I went to the Cathedrale de Notre Dame website to get a reservation to see the renovation. It was clear that no one needed a reservation but if you didn’t want to wait in a long line in the cold, it was recommended. The site gives you three days: the day you are looking and the following two days. Even though the reservations/billets are free, every day, each day said ‘Sold Out’. Until yesterday. I was so surprised to see a possible reservation for 2pm that I thought I was seeing things. I confirmed that I wanted the ticket, printed it out, invited my friend, Cherilyn, to join me, ate some lunch, and off I went to see this miracle of rebuilding.

We have all seen photos of the new inside. Because of spot lights, it all looked so WHITE, so BRIGHT, so unNotre Dame, even though it looked spectacular. I wasn’t sure I would love it the way everyone else had.

When I got there, there were two very long queues, blocks long. I went up to a number of people and asked in French if they were in the reservations line. Not one of them spoke French. They just looked at me vacantly. So I asked in English and managed to piss at least one person off. She kept insisting that I had to go to the end of the line. It seemed that the majority of tourists had no idea that there was the possibility of reserving a ticket and a time. I found the reservations line, ten people in it, and was inside in less than two minutes even with the TSA-like security before entering. Cherilyn met me inside.

My first impression was deep relief. It wasn’t bright white, hurting your eyes bright. The renovators had managed to give all the columns and the ceiling a tone of ‘wear’, of having been around for awhile. All the artifacts had been saved and some of those were cleaned up to a just finished white.

All images are photos taken by me

In spite of the lengthy lines on the Parvis, inside was not packed with people. It was easy to move around with the exception of seeing the crèche that is put up each December for Christmas. There the crowds were huge and not moving. It was the only time during the 90 minutes I spent inside the cathedrale that I was annoyed and wanted to jab a few people with my elbow.

Because I love elephants, here is a small photo of the contingent from India.

To get to the crèche, you walk down the left side of the sanctuary. Passing the crèche takes you to all the chapels where one can pray to a specific Saint. Most did not have finished stain glass windows but instead a pattern that was a holding place. My understanding is that the stain-glass, the gargoyles, and the spire will all be continuing work for the next couple of years. At the back was a large chapel dedicated to the Crown of Thorns that has been in Paris since Louis IX acquired it. It was orignially housed in the Cathedrale but moved to Saint Chapelle which Louis IX built specifically to house the artifact. During the renovation, it has been on view in the Louvre.

Chapel for the Crown of Thorns.

Votive candles were everywhere for 2 euros.

We then walked up the right side of the sanctuary stopping to sit for about 30 minutes just to let the feel of the place saturate us. President Macron is one of the most unpopular men in France at the moment but this five year project that he pulled off, the renovation of the Cathedrale, is stupendous. Once inside and looking at every detail, it is hard to imagine that it was all done in this time period. It justifiably will be the most visited tourist “attraction” in Paris this year.

Many of the windows were saved from the fire. The BBC has a wonderful video describing the process of renovating the cathedrale. Click the link to watch it

The Rose window at the front of the cathedrale partially hidden by the magnificent organ.

Also up on the website is the calendar of musical events happening in Notre Dame for 2025. Many are already sold out but those of you living in Paris can have a look on the site. Click here.

As we made our way to the exit doors, we passed a machine of souvenirs. For three euros, I received a ‘gold’ coin that says Reouverture de la Cathedrale 8 décembre 2024.

I walked into the cold afternoon a very happy visitor to the new and restored Cathedrale de Notre Dame.

A bientôt,

Sara