Last week, Athena managed to visit Nôtre-Dame in Paris for the first time since the disastrous fire in 2019. Now that the gigantic roofs and central spire have been re-created with the timber of about 2,000 oak trees, it’s wonderful to see the familiar outline of the building presiding over the city once more.

Only around the exterior of the transepts and east end of the cathedral do the scaffolding and stacked Portakabins serve as a reminder that the work of restoration continues on a massive scale. Even so, the church itself has been publicly accessible since December 2024 and the western towers opened some three weeks ago.

Stepping through the monumental western portals with their ranks of statuary, the vast interior with its cleaned stonework feels totally different to its dark and d

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