Stories of Parisian Life

A Paris cemetery that opens only one day a year? Cinithia takes us inside Montmartre’s hidden Cimetière du Calvaire for a rare glimpse of this centuries-old secret.

“This life that I had often dreamt about was my present. In all truth, a gift. The future yet unknown, filled with endless possibilities, was waiting in the wings to reveal itself.”

“Fall 2018 was my first actually living in Paris. It was filled with reminders of that earlier autumn I’d spent discovering the city – the scenery, the changing leaves, and the crispness in the air. The memories brought excitement – it was as if I had insight into what was going to come next…”

Home is where the heart is, not where you’re born. And Paris will always have my heart. As a teenager, I fell in love with the feeling Paris gave me, a feeling I was happy to find waiting for me upon my return many years later.

Realizing my dream of coming to Paris opened my eyes to even more possibilities, pushing me to achieve things I thought were impossible. But ‘impossible n’est pas français,’ and it’s certainly not Parisian.

It was one of the last days of summer in late August when I first went for a walk in Paris. I don’t recall how I ended up on Rue de Rivoli, next to Palais Royal, but the skies were blue with puffy cotton clouds, and the leaves of the maple trees were pea green – some beginning to burst into a jaunty yellow. I had just had a meal at an Italian restaurant, probably a tourist trap, but what did I know? I remember I thought it was the best meal I had ever had, and it really had been then.

On April 15, 2019, Notre Dame Cathedral erupted in flames. All around Paris, and indeed around the world, we all sat in shock as we watched one of the most famous and historic sites in the city burn. Here’s our experience of that day.