My Marais secrets, a new look at Notre Dame, and a surprise TV appearance!

And more from Paris this week

Goodness me, it was one of those weeks in Paris. So much has happened, let me share it with you.

Firstly, I was on TV! If you watch the TODAY show on NBC, you may have glimpsed me on a bateau mouche river cruise talking about the Olympic Games. However, if you were in the middle of a particularly big sneeze, or especially a series of sneezes, you would have certainly missed the whole thing. In other words, it was brief. But a very cool experience.

Here’s a link to Instagram where I shared the majority of my appearance. I heard there’s a longer version out there, but as I’m in Paris and not the US, I’ll never know for sure.

Luckily, my wife Lina and I spoke to the same channel last summer for a bigger piece about the Eiffel Tower, which also came out this week. I’ve embedded it below. If you look closely you can see Lina doing a watercolour… that’s a page from our new book that’s coming soon :)

Notre Dame Progress

This week also marked five years (!) since Notre Dame burned. I can’t believe it has been five years. It really doesn’t feel that long ago that I was walking among the hymn-singing Parisians as the embers burned. See the video below or watch it on my YouTube channel here.

Here’s a blog post we published this week where we gathered lots of our past interviews and videos

I went down to see the progress and took my camera with the mega zoom. I snapped a load of pictures and videos - the new spire is looking incredible. Here’s what it looks like up close. I’ll upload more pictures soon, but I do believe it’ll be ready for December, as planned!

The Earful Tower Podcast

This week on the podcast it was Scott Hillier, an Australian movie director in Paris who runs the European Independent Film Festival.

He talked of the iconic light in Paris, his film festival, and his exploits around the world as a director and war photographer. 2024 marks the 19th year of his festival, and this year it will be held on April 19th, 20th, and 21st in Montparnasse.

Secret spots in the Marais

This week I did a few walking tours of the Marais - and as luck would have it, one of the tour guests was a very active photographer. He took really cinematic shots at all my secret spots. I had half a mind to share these pics on social media, because they were great, but then I realized I would just giving away all my best secrets!!

Secrets like, for example, how in the Hotel de XXXXX you can glimpse a XXXXXXX from the XXXXX. And if you go into the courtyard of the XXXXX you can see a XXXXX from the Philippe XXXXX wall.

In an attempt to keep my cards close to my chest, I shared his pictures on a Patreon-only members post, which you can access here (if you’re a member of course).

OK, OK, I’ll share one: In the picture below, it’s the Hotel de Sully garden, my favourite shortcut to the Place des Vosges.

Our tours of the Marais and Montmartre are in full swing and you can book one here. Given my wife and I are expecting our second baby any day now, I can’t guarantee that I’ll personally be leading any tour, but I always do my best to do the Monday morning walks of the Marais. And even if I’m not the guide, our team is exceptional.

Look at the reviews if you don’t believe me, 84 five-star reviews in a row! Below is the latest one from this week, click through to TripAdvisor to read more. I bet you’d never figure out what I’m showing in that third picture. Clue, it’s at an aristocratic mansion-turned-library.

Alrighty, that’s enough for one newsletter. Thanks to all for reading, have a lovely week, and keep an ear out for a new Earful Tower episode on Monday.

Oliver