Guides
Notes on beginning again in Paris.
Practical, unhurried guides to starting a life in Paris, written the way Antoine speaks. No listicles, no “hidden gems,” just what actually helps.
Settling in
Your first 30 days in Paris: the gentle checklist
What actually needs doing in month one, what can wait, and the one habit that makes everything easier. A calm order of operations.
Paperwork, gently
Validating your VLS-TS long-stay visa, without the panic
Ten minutes, one official website, three documents. The plain-words walkthrough of France’s first piece of homework.
The words to say
What to say at the boulangerie: a script for your first week
The four-line ceremony that makes you a regular, why une tradition is the insider’s order, and pronunciation you can actually use.
Everyday Paris
The French pharmacy: your neighborhood’s quiet superpower
Why the green cross is the first place to go for small troubles, what pharmacists can actually do, and the phrases that open the conversation.
Trips away
Five gentle weekend trips from Paris by train
Reims, Rouen, Chartres, Auvers-sur-Oise, Fontainebleau: unhurried escapes under ninety minutes, with the station to leave from and a rainy-day plan.
Beginning again
Moving to Paris at 70: what actually matters
Lessons from the move that started L’Aube — on pace, dignity, eleven streets, and why courage looks smaller and better than you think.
Neighborhoods
The 13e: a love letter to Paris’s most underrated arrondissement
Village squares, the best Asian food in France, murals nobody tells tourists about — the quarter where L’Aube was born.
Everyday Paris
Paris transport for newcomers: Navigo, and taking it slow
Which pass fits a first year, how the métro actually works when you’re not rushing, and the small courtesies that mark a local.
The guides are free. The year is L’Aube.
Everything in these guides becomes living mornings inside the app — written for your street, your pace, your French.