After a month travelling through France, our final stop was Paris.

Ordinarily that sentence would be the start of a whirlwind account of museums, monuments, galleries and long days spent walking the city. Instead, it became something rather different.

By the time we arrived, we were simply ready to slow down.

The previous month had taken us from the Mediterranean coast to the Canal du Midi, through vineyards, medieval villages and country markets. Along the way I had also managed to have an unfortunate disagreement with a cobblestone dock, leaving me with ribs and a shoulder that still had strong opinions about how much sightseeing was appropriate.

So Paris became less about ticking attractions off a list and more about catching our breath before the long journey home.

That wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

One morning Louise and I wandered down to Notre-Dame. The cathedral has always been one of the defining landmarks of Paris, and after the devastating fire of 2019 I was curious to see how the restoration work was progressing.

The scale of the effort is remarkable.

Even from the outside it is clear that this is one of the most ambitious heritage restoration projects in the world. Scaffolding still surrounds parts of the structure and work continues in many areas. Looking closely, we could see that some of the flying buttresses had re-emerged while others remained hidden behind restoration works. The cathedral is still very much a work in progress.

What struck me was the balance between preservation and reconstruction. The challenge is not simply to repair a damaged building. It is to restore one of the world’s great Gothic cathedrals while remaining faithful to the craftsmanship, materials and techniques that created it in the first place.

The project reminded me of our visit to the Chauvet Cave replica in the Ardèche a few days earlier. In both cases the challenge is the same: how do you preserve something irreplaceable while ensuring future generations can continue to experience it?

The French appear to take these responsibilities seriously. Whether preserving prehistoric cave art tens of thousands of years old or restoring a cathedral that has watched over Paris for centuries, there is a clear determination to protect the past rather than simply replace it.

Apart from Notre-Dame, we did very little.

We wandered, sat in cafés, watched Paris go about its business and enjoyed the luxury of having nowhere in particular to be. After a month of travelling, that was enough.

Looking back, it is remarkable how much we managed to fit into four weeks.

The journey began with two extraordinary weeks travelling with Michael McCoy and the Travelling Masterclass. What can only be described as a gardening masterclass took us through some of France’s most impressive private and public gardens. Along the way we visited countless wineries, enjoyed memorable meals, met wonderful people and gained a far deeper appreciation of French gardening, landscape design and horticultural history than we could ever have achieved travelling on our own.

The second half of the trip slowed the pace considerably. There was the Canal du Midi, the farmhouse at Saint-Étienne-de-Lescattes, village markets, local restaurants, prehistoric caves and, of course, my ongoing recovery from an encounter with a particularly unforgiving dock.

Before long it was time to head for the airport and begin the long flight back to Australia.

What I’ll remember most is not any single attraction, meal or photograph, but the extraordinary ease with which France combines history, food, landscape and everyday life. It is a country that rewards slowing down, something I was occasionally forced to do and ultimately came to appreciate.

Whether we were wandering through world-class gardens, enjoying a simple meal in a village restaurant, cruising a centuries-old canal, standing beneath the vaults of Notre-Dame or looking at cave art created tens of thousands of years ago, there was always a sense that the past remained part of everyday life.

It was a wonderful month, and one that will stay with us for a very long time.