French word of the day: Patrimoine
Published: September 26, 2025
Well it is a cold and rainy September in Paris, no late summer days in the sunshine here. Apparently it has been the coldest September in 40 years.
On the plus side, this past weekend was Journées européennes du patrimoine, meaning “European Heritage day”. This is the occasion to visit government institutions and important landmarks that usually have their doors closed.
I will fully admit this is one of my favorite weekends of the year. Even though it usually involves running around from one place to another, kids in tow, and crossing your fingers that the wait in line won’t be too long. (Packing a good amount of snacks and juices helps on several of those pain points.)
In previous years we’ve been to the Palais Elysées, Assemblée Nationale, the Conseil Constitutionnel, the Cours des Comptes, and various other government institutions.
But the big one we were aiming for this year was the Senate, located in the Jardin de Luxembourg on the Left Bank.
Spoiler, we didn’t make inside this year either.
In the pre-covid (and pre-kids) days, I just rolled out of bed at 6am and made my way to the special attraction of choice and waited in line. Covid however, has retrained all of us.
The top attractions have now instituted reservation systems, no more line-waiting for hours on end. (I once waited over 6 hours to enter the Élysée, though I did make some good friends along the way.)
So reservations are a wonderful invention, except for the slight hick is that there is not a central booking system. Rather each monument runs a separate lottery reservation system on their own website.
Basically, a bunch of websites that don’t usually have reservation systems because you can’t usually visit them, all of sudden dusting off some old CSS/html code and pushing it live to their websites once a year.
And tickets are released randomly by each institution a week or so before, rather than on a particular day. Again if you plan in advance, it works wonderfully. Very little lines, and you get to enjoy the inside without too big a crowd.
Not every place has reservations though. And this year we decided to tackle some of the places we hadn’t seen, that didn’t have a reservation system. Le sigh.
In our defence, we started off well. The first on the list was the the Bibliothéque of France (Richelieu), which was logistically on the way to the Senate for us.
The Bibliothéque is actually regularly open to visitors, it is a library after all, but some zones are closed to “proper” researchers rather than the general public. If you get a chance, do visit as it was great. Lots of old books, large galeries, and plenty of treasures to look at.
After a delicious but longer-than-hoped-for lunch stop, we happened to walk by the Institute of France, a government institution that regulates the French language. It wasn’t on the to-do list but the line was small, so in we went.
Now I should mention that we had put off the Senate in prior years specifically because there was no reservation system. I did hope though that the reason it didn’t have a reservation system was that it was usually not busy.
Not quite. It was past 3pm when we rolled over to the Senate, and lo and behold, an utterly frightful line that was likely over 3 hours long.
Not one to rest on our defeats, we headed over to the historic Sorbonne University Chapel about a 5 minute walk away, which had another long line.
Right next door was the College of France and nearby the high school Lycée Henri IV, all with massive lines. None of these have reservation systems, defying the logic that they were not popular.
With the step count hitting 20000, we finally stumbled across a good-looking government building with no line.
This is the building of the Ministère chargé de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche (Ministry of Higher education and Research). While it looks a bit bland for Parisian standards, it is actually the historic College of Boncourt, a site dating back 7 centuries.
Perseverance pays, folks. And with that final dose of history, we decided it was time to call it a day and head to a place that is usually open: a bar.
After all, wine too is part of France’s patrimoine. Cheers!
In other news:
- And just like that, 5 days after my last newsletter, Prime Minister Bayrou is out, and Prime Minister Lecornu is in. I had to look up his name’s spelling, and news has already come out that he “embellished his resumé” with a Masters in Law that he never actually finished. This is the 4th PM in 20 months with the button already on the ejector seat.
- The Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley is having serious funding shortages for repairs and is asking for donations. You can donate here if you would like to help, with a special fund for American and European doners.
- The last maternity hospital has closed in the town of Versailles, so there will be no more children with “Versailles” as their birthplace. (For some reason, place of birth is a very important piece of info in French paperwork.)
And in the blog:
The “Beaux” villages of Alsace, France
Explore the best villages along the Alsace wine route, with picturesque landscapes, medieval history, and world-class wine.
Differences between Quebec and French languages
French and Canadian French are basically the same language that took two very different life paths.
French Pork loin roast with mustard
Roasted in the oven, this delicious French-style pork loin roast is cooked in a rub of garlic, herbs and mustard for maximum flavor.
This delicious bacon and blue cheese salad is tossed in a homemade creamy dressing that makes a wonderfully light and healthy starter or side dish.