We both brought a spare pair of glasses with us on our year-long adventure, knowing from experience that we needed a back-up plan. Just in case!

But sadly for Mick, both his pairs were quite old.

Several months ago one of the arms of his better pair fell off. Missing a screw Mick thought.  But when we went to an optical shop in Montluçon he was given the bad news that it was worse than that. The young man serving us spent some time trying to ‘patch’ them up. However, five minutes after we left the store, the arm was off again.

Not to be deterred, Mick and I headed to the large sports store nearby, Decathalon, where Mick made a bee-line for the fishing aisle. He was after some fishing braid as he had an idea. The fishing braid was sold in large bundles, much more than he needed, so he settled on buying already-threaded fishing hooks. Half an hour later, he had used the braid to attach both arms to his spectacles. But, we knew that would not last the 12 months or more that we would be away.

What to do?

I contacted our optician in Australia who emailed Mick’s last prescription, along with advice that Mick really should get his eyes tested before getting new spectacles. I discovered that in France you must visit an ophthalmologist to get a script for glasses, as this is how the health system works. That sounded like a pretty expensive exercise.

After some further research, I found out about a company, called Lunettes Pour Tous,  that sold cheap frames and also provided FREE eye tests. And there were a few outlets in Paris. The easiest one to get to, according to our host, was at Saint Lazare Gare.

Our current house sit is only 40 minutes train ride from Paris, so we bought ourselves a day ticket (called a mobilis) for €17.80. This ticket allowed us to use any form of public transport during the day.

We parked the car at the railway station at Avon-Fontainebleau and headed  to the Gare de Lyon. We then followed signs to the Metro #14 line to Saint Lazare and found the shop – all in just over an hour.

Mick did not have to wait long for his eyes to be tested. It was only a basic test, and funnily enough, once I gave the optician Mick’s old prescription, it was exactly the same as the one she was recommending. Next step was to choose the frames which ranged in price from €10 to €50. Then came the selection of lenses. Multi-focal lenses started at €80 each and went as high as €120 each.

Lunettes Pour Tous advertises that glasses can be ready in ten minutes. But apparently not the multi-focals (which we think they refer to as ‘progressives’ over here); they take 10 days, which was not a problem for us because we are in staying at current location until early next month.

Once the deal was sealed after our first visit, Mick and I headed outside to explore around Gare Saint Lazare. It is one of the six largest stations in Paris and the place was humming with lots of workers making their way to one of the many restaurants for lunch.

There was a very busy shopping centre in the area, with large familiar names like Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. Both very ‘high end’ department stores. But Mick and I chose only to ‘window shop’.

 

Ten days later I received a text letting me know that the spectacles were ready. So we headed back to Paris to collect them. This time though, we planned to use our one-day travel ticket more effectively to visit some parts of Paris we had not seen for many years. Plus we understood better how the metro system worked and where we could go.

I needed to visit an Apple Shop, and we found one just across the road from the National Academy of Music. Once that was sorted, we headed for the Seine so we could have lunch and a glass of wine while we watched visitors and Parisians pass us by.

It was a glorious day for sightseeing.

We were so close to the Notre Dame we thought we had to take a look at it following the devastating fire a few months ago.

It still looked pretty magnificent.

Finally we headed back to the metro to get our train home to Samois-sur-Seine stopping briefly in front of the Hôtel de Ville, where games of volleyball were being played in the front.

This photo shows Mick’s new glasses, and yes they are on crooked. Sadly they were, and continue to make him feel giddy. We have been caught before in Australia at Spec Savers, and in Hong Kong where I had some glasses made up, that the lenses are just not quite right. I think Mick needs to get the glasses adjusted to make sure the focal point is in the right place. I don’t think we will go to Paris for that. But, one never knows.

POSTSCRIPT

Mick was sorry he had not tried these fancy pairs of glasses on during his first visit. He thought they looked pretty good on him.

And, notice this was the day he chose to wear one of his non-red shirts, which was not a good idea as it turned out. I lost him twice at the train station because he blended in with everyone else.