Via Lemovicensis: a Day in Paris

After making it through border control at Charles de Gaul airport, I was pleased to find my checked bag actually made it this time. I spent a bit of time repacking everything into my backpack before going to the train station to head into Paris. I will definitely need to repack again when I’m not so hurried.

I was on the train by 10:20 AM.

By 11 AM, I was in Paris proper. It took me forever to get out of the underground metro station, though. It was a bewildering maze of tunnels. When I did finally find fresh air and sunlight, my first stop was to La Tour Saint Jacques. To my amazement, the exit I finally found was literally half a block away.

The tower is all that’s left of a great medieval church dedicated to St. James, which was once the start of the Camino if you were walking from Paris. I had heard that it was possible to get a stamp for your pilgrim passport here at a nearby kiosk even now.

The tower itself is a magnificent 16th-century Gothic structure set in a little park which was once the footprint of the original church. The kiosk, however, was shuttered.

No stamp for my pilgrim passport here!

So I crossed the Seine to Île de la Cité and then to the left bank. The left bank is crowded with little stalls selling all sorts of Parisian souvenirs and memorabilia – and books. I passed by the magnificent Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame.

All worthy of exploration, but first I had to dump my backpack at the locker I rented. And it was taking a long time to get there because of the massive crowds. 

I should explain that Easter Monday is a national holiday in France, and the weather was clear and sunny. It seemed like everybody was here.

Once the backpack was secured, I retraced my steps. My first stop was, weirdly, a bookstore. Specifically, Shakespeare and Company, the oldest English language bookstore in Paris and a fixture of the left bank for decades. Also, it was on the way.

There was literally a line to get in. The place is just amazing – a war of rooms on different levels carved out of a medieval building. It’s crowded with people and books, and it might just be the platonic ideal of the bookstore.

I couldn’t resist buying a notebook and a bookmark, even though I will now have to carry them more than a thousand miles. Surely there’s always room for another notebook?

And then the challenge was to find Sainte Chapelle, where I had an entry ticket for 12:30 PM. Because the zippers in my hiking pants set off the metal detectors, security frisked me before letting me in.

This little chapel, originally built to house the reliquary of the Crown of Thorns, is the most pure example of Gothic architecture I have ever seen. It’s also one of the earliest. The walls appear to be literally made of color and light.

No photo can possibly do it justice. I probably wandered around there for half an hour just saying “wow” over and over. I was not the only one.

Even the polychrome statuary and painting on the walls, leftovers from the Romanesque, are absolutely exquisite. There are places where you would swear that there were tapestries hanging on the walls, but it’s all entirely painted.

By the time I left Saint Chapelle, it was almost 2 o’clock. Now it was time to stand in the long, long line to see Notre Dame.

I stupidly forgot to make a reservation yesterday, which had been my original plan, so there was nothing to do but wait in the blocks-long queue.

Despite the length, the queue moved quickly. By 2:35 I was inside the cathedral. Ten minutes later I had my first stamp in my pilgrim passport. It wasn’t the proper stamp, because of course today is a national holiday so the regular staff had off. But a lovely lady at the information desk embossed it with the cathedral seal.

The building is absolutely beautiful, of course. No words of mine can do it justice. The modern furnishings, on the other hand, are quite jarring.

It was here I feel that my pilgrimage actually began. I prayed a rosary for Francine, and while I was doing that a priest wandered out to begin leading one in French, with occasional prayers in a plethora of other languages. I identified Spanish and German. I’m not sure what the others might have been.

I lit a candle for Francine in the chapel of the Holy Crown of Thorns and left the first holy card of my pilgrimage there.

I left Notre Dame at about 4 PM. By this time I was getting pretty hungry, having not eaten anything since breakfast on the airplane. But I definitely didn’t want to eat in any of the places near to Notre Dame – far too expensive, and the crush of tourists was becoming oppressive. Yes, I understand the irony, as I am a tourist here myself.

I also wanted to find an ATM. Cash is king on the Camino, and tomorrow I will take a train to Vézelay. This quest proved utterly impossible . Most ATMs in France are actually inside banks or post offices, all of which are closed on Easter Monday.

After wandering around for half an hour in a fruitless search for an open ATM, I gave up and popped into a café and had some lamb. It was tasty, cheap, and filling. The perfect pilgrim trifecta.

And I had my first Orangina since the last time I was in France.

While I was eating, I saw a young lady with a backpack pass by the front of the café. She had a pilgrim shell dangling off her pack. I wonder which route she is walking?

As for me, exhaustion was starting to set in. I figured it might be a good idea to check into my hotel. I walked along the left bank at a leisurely pace, people watching and browsing the various book stalls.

My hotel was a 3 km walk. I wish I had tracked my walking today, as I’m pretty sure it would’ve worked out to a pretty good distance.

It was a lovely river walk, and I crossed the Pont d’Austerlitz into a neighborhood with an eclectic mix of traditional and modern architecture.

I checked into my hotel at about 6 PM and promptly collapsed into the bed for a bit before I posted a couple of blog entries. A shower, bag repack, and possibly laundry will follow. And then I’ll need to get some dinner at some point.

Reviewing this entry, it definitely reads breezier than I felt a lot of the time. I kept coming back to the fact that Francine just loved Paris and was so looking forward to exploring it together.

Date: 06 April 2026

Place: Paris  

Today’s Photos!