Paris: eight days on the Seine with Stéphane Bern in the footsteps of the history of France

2023-04-29 11:09:18

Stéphane Bern, jeans and sneakers, swallows a coffee in the spacious dining room of the Renoir ship, docked at the Pont de Grenelle (15th century). Back from filming in Lumio, Corsica, for his show “The favorite village of the French”, he is not there to shoot a new sequence. But to embark on this CroisiEurope boat to the high places of royalty erected along the Seine, between Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne) and Rouen (Seine-Maritime), with a hundred passengers on board since the day before evening.

“The CroisiEurope company, which introduces people to French heritage through the rivers, supports my Heritage Mission. She offered me to give lectures on her boats. I accepted this proposal with joy, confides the host with a broad smile. Telling a few historical anecdotes and little historical secrets allows you to have another look at the monuments. »

It is not Marie-Antoinette, a retiree from Mulhouse, who will deny it. “This is the fourteenth time that I have traveled with this company. When I found out about the program for this new cruise and that Stéphane Bern would be giving a lecture on board the boat, I registered immediately. I don’t miss any of his shows. I love history. »

Anecdotes and humor

This brand new eight-day cruise, with departure and return to Paris (from 1,599 euros including excursions), is punctuated by guided tours of the great places of royalty reached by coach. On the program: excursion to the imperial city of Fontainebleau and visit of the castle and its magnificent gardens, then return to Paris to visit the Louvre and then the basilica of Saint-Denis and the royal crypt where the kings of France are buried. Then Versailles and its majestic Hall of Mirrors, then direction Rouen, to follow the route of the abbeys of Saint-Wandrille or Jumièges, and follow in the footsteps of Joan of Arc before returning – without stopping this time – to Paris, admiring the loops of the Seine and its charming villages, such as Vernon or the Andelys.

Martine, originally from Belgium, says she is happy to (re) discover, over the water, all these high places of French royalty and to travel in this story that she learned, child, on the benches of the school when she lived in France. She also does not sulk her pleasure to see Stéphane Bern “in flesh and blood”. “It looks much younger than on TV,” notes the retired, a bit amused.

Evoking the Louvre, Stéphane Bern takes us on a crazy waltz of numbers. LP/Christine Henry

The animator does not sulk his pleasure either. “The most beautiful avenue in Paris is the Seine. The proof is, the events of the next Olympic Games will take place on the river”, he recalls in the preamble to his conference, contemplating the Parisian monuments which pass before his eyes as the boat sails towards Melun.

Seated on a stool, in front of a concentrated room and particularly studious passengers, notebook and pen in hand, he takes us into the history of the kings of France, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. A journey through time, punctuated by anecdotes and touches of humour. The host thus tells us that the Château de Fontainebleau, “family home” of the kings of France, became in the 14th century, in the midst of the Black Death pandemic, a refuge for the kings who, “while devoting themselves to the frenzies and hunts, taste the healthier air than that of Paris”.

Evoking the Louvre, Stéphane Bern takes us on a crazy waltz of numbers: 40,000 works exhibited, 14 km of corridors, 10,000 steps, more than 400 rooms, 2,000 doors and 73 elevators. “In total, it would take 96 hours to see all the works provided you only stay 10 seconds in front of each,” he says. Then the host will keep his audience spellbound with the incredible story of the theft of the Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world, stolen in August 1911 by an Italian worker who worked at the Louvre.

Stéphane Bern concluded by reciting the first lines of Apollinaire’s famous poem dedicated to the Seine. New passengers who wish to live this adventure alongside him will have to wait until 2024. In the meantime, his conference will be broadcast on the screens of the passenger cabins.