Luckily for me, due to lack of space and a fixed place, my bibliophilia is limited to only a few very beautiful books and many museum and library visits. After visiting the museum Gutenberg in Mainz, the museum Plantin in Antwerp, here I am in Lyon at the museum of printing and graphic communication. I hope you enjoy this article because we paid an arm and a leg for a room during the Rugby World Cup, just so I could have time to visit this museum before our return to Paris. Given the time I spent in the museum, even JB realized that I like it a lot, a lot.…

If the blog is less updated than before, it’s because when we travel, we travel too much and no longer have time to blog, and when we rest, we rest too much and don’t feel like blogging either 😀 It will take me a long time to write the missing travel journals between April 2022 and July 2023, but we’ll try, slowly. August 2023 In August, after touring Europe (making a quick stop in Turkey), we returned to France to look after my sister’s cat while she was on vacation. As usual, JB rents us a Fiat 500 from Leclerc, whose price is always unbeatable for a one-month rental Since…

A long time ago, while spending a weekend in Chartres, we happened to run into a couple of friends on the street. We asked them what they were doing there and learned that the friend’s mother was taking a stained glass workshop in Chartres. That bit of info stayed in my head for about ten years because I was really impressed to learn that people still did it as a hobby and that there were classes—it totally aligns with my obsession with gothic cathedrals. In May 2023, I returned to Chartres (right in the middle of a pilgrimage) and went straight to the stained glass center to inquire and sign…

After my bookbinding, I went to visit Illiers-Combray. I could have visited it when I was in Chartres earlier this year, but at that time, I wasn’t reading Proust and Illiers-Combray didn’t exist for me. Illiers-Combray is the only commune to be renamed after a fictional place from a novel. Right now, the house of “Aunt Léonie” is under renovation (until April 2024). It was in this house, which belonged to his uncle Jules Amiot, that young Marcel Proust spent several of his Easter holidays as a child, between 1877 and 1880. Thanks to the support of its members and patrons, the SAMP opens this house to the public, transformed…

For someone who loves working with paper, it’s a bit surprising that I had never visited a paper mill before. During our stay in Rhône-Alpes, we discovered that a traditional paper mill still existed in Ambert, a 1-hour drive away. I thought it was difficult to visit, because someone mentioned online that it was better to book, but as we found out on a Saturday in September, there was a tour every 15 minutes. We booked and paid online, but we could have just shown up and bought tickets on site. This site was the favorite spot for paper mills thanks to its favorable location: not too far from Lyon,…

You know my love for Hermès silk twill scarves. However, Hermès is not the only one mastering the art of screen printing. In Lyon, you can visit the workshop of a company that still makes silk scarves using flat-bed screen printing, known as “à la lyonnaise”. Passing through Lyon, we barely had time to visit the workshop, even though Brochier Soieries also has a museum and several shops. The workshop overlooks an inner courtyard, and without an appointment, you can push open the doors and watch the artisans at work. There are no tickets; visitors give what they want. We got a private tour because we came early enough. We…