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I Followed My Dream to Paris at 69—It Saved My Life

I Followed My Dream to Paris at 69—It Saved My Life
Dr. Pat found a healthier, happier life after making Paris her home. |©iStock/neirfy

Dr. Pat Winters gets up around 9 a.m. At 10:30, she leaves her Paris apartment in the Deuxiéme Arrondissement. She could easily walk to Notre Dame, but today she heads for Le Marché Bastille with her rolling cart to buy fruit, cheese, wine, and a fresh baguette. On the way home, she stops at a yarn store and purchases yet another color of Rowan’s felted tweed for the Fair Isle sweater she’s knitting.

For lunch, she’ll prepare a salad at home before she heads out to commune with the impressionists at Musée d’Orsay where she has an annual pass. In the evening, she’ll enjoy her apéro—prosecco with an amuse-bouche or two. When the bells of nearby Église Saint-Eustache beckon, she’ll go to French class with fellow students from Singapore, Yemen, Bangladesh, Brazil, Mali, Ecuador, and Ukraine.

Since the restaurants on her busy pedestrian street serve until 10 p.m., she will go out to dinner after class. The waiter will greet her with “Bienvenue” at her favorite restaurant, Le Compas. She may order a quintessential plat du jour—sirloin, perhaps, with shallot confit and frites maison. Maybe she’ll treat herself to crème brûlée for dessert. After dinner, she’ll video chat with friends and family in the US before going to bed around one a.m.

“Ironically,” observes the retired American psychiatrist, “realizing I had a life-threatening condition was just the ‘push’ I needed to make my dreams a reality.”

Dr. Pat has loved Paris since she first visited the city in her teens. She promised herself that she would return once a decade for the rest of her life. She kept that promise.

At age 59 and a half, she became eligible for a pension from her job with the Department of Health Services of Sonoma County, California, so she retired. At age 60, she treated herself to six weeks in Paris. That trip showed her that she could manage on her own.

Though she tried a stint in Ajijic, Mexico—one of her best friends moved there, and they shared a rented apartment for a year—and traveled throughout Europe, it was France that beckoned. Intent on spending a full year there this time, she bought a ticket to Paris.

The month of her planned move from Ajijic, Dr. Pat experienced several days of shortness of breath that rapidly got worse. She went to the emergency room, and the doctor diagnosed her with congestive heart failure, cardiomegaly (enlarged heart), and atrial fibrillation—a cardiac arrhythmia that can be fatal. During 48 hours in the hospital, her heart was continually monitored.

“I was pretty determined to move to France before I fell ill and already had purchased my ticket. My illness just firmed up my resolve,” says Dr. Pat. She informed her cardiologist that she had a ticket to Paris at the end of the month and asked if she would be well enough to travel. He said he thought so.

“I had already researched healthcare in Europe,” she adds, “and I was pretty convinced that the French system was not only adequate but better than most of the others I looked at in places like the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.”

In late February, at 69 years old, Dr. Pat flew to Paris alone. Her compromised health made her tired and anxious, so she rested for the first week or so. Then she found an apartment and settled into the City of Light. After two weeks, she had an appointment with a French cardiologist. He told her she was back in atrial fibrillation and referred her to a specialist in treating arrhythmias. The doctor adjusted her medication and arranged for her to undergo a procedure called cardiac ablation, about six weeks later, in a hospital in Paris.

“The French healthcare system has been a godsend, and the treatment has been exceptional,” she says. “I would go so far as to say that my foreign physicians (both Mexican and French) saved my life, so I don’t complain. My heart is in much better shape than it was a year ago, and overall, I am healthier than I would have thought possible when I was first diagnosed. I’m grateful for the attention I’ve received here.” She adds that “Mexico’s care is cheaper than that in France, but both countries charge a lot less than the going rate in the States.”

Her main advice for people considering a move to France: “Learn French! It’s not an option if you want to be here long-term. Every letter you receive will be written in French. The telephone messages are all in rapid French. The forms you must fill out are many… and all in French. Translation apps are well and good but only go so far.”

Paris: Infinitely Walkable and Friendly

Dr. Pat adores her new hometown. “Paris is the most cosmopolitan city I’ve ever lived in, and I’m thrilled to be here at this point in my life. I love that Paris has so many beautiful buildings, monuments, fountains, and green spaces. I’m particularly grateful for the abundance of activities and fun amusements. On any day of the week, there are things to do, places to go, and people to see. I can stay as busy as I want to be, and when it’s time to relax, there are parks, beautiful cafés… I even have a hammam (Arabic bath) right across the street from my apartment building. In Paris, my own two feet carry me to churches, shops, parks, and museums. I have three yarn stores I can reach on foot. That’s not true of any other city I’ve ever lived in.”

Dr. Pat’s biggest expense is housing: “I’m living in prime real estate. I pay almost €2,500 ($2,794) per month for a one-bedroom apartment of 40 square meters (430 square feet, though that does include water, heating, and Wi-Fi. I pay separately for electricity but that’s less than €100 ($119) per month. If I were willing to live in a less central neighborhood, the cost would be much lower.” Many things—clothes, yarn, and phone bills, for example—are comparable to the US if not cheaper. Her other expenses are minimal, except for meals in restaurants, where she admits she likes to splurge.

This is the Life: Eating Out Five Times a Week

Enticing loved ones to hop across the pond for a visit is the easiest thing in the world… just tell them you moved to Paris.
Enticing loved ones to hop across the pond for a visit is the easiest thing in the world… just tell them you moved to Paris.|©iStock/omersukrugoksu

“Eating out is one of my greatest pleasures these days, and though I’m happy to have company when I can get it, I don’t mind dining alone. I have my favorite table in a couple of the local places, and the waiters always seem happy to see me.” She eats in restaurants at least five times a week and pays €20 to €40 ($22 to $45) per meal, sometimes more. “The food is excellent, and I have plenty to choose from. There are at least 20 restaurants within five minutes of my front door.”

The main difference between her life in the US and in Paris is that she doesn’t drive—and she estimates that she saves about $1,000 a month by not having a car. “In California, one is dependent on an automobile for every little thing, from buying groceries to visiting friends. In my central arrondissement in Paris, nearly everything I need is within walking distance or a short metro ride away. I am grateful to not have the upkeep and expenses involved with car ownership. I do miss having one occasionally—on a recent visit to Sicily, I rented a car, and I appreciated the convenience… but I also found myself worrying about break-ins, fender-benders, parking tickets, and the like. Until I had a car to fret over, I didn’t realize how many anxieties are par for the course with vehicle responsibility. It feels very modern and European to live without one.”

When to Get Out of Paris and See the Continent

An unequivocal advantage to living in Paris is the ease and economy of travel. She spent the first week of October 2024 at Wool Week in Scotland’s Shetland Islands. In the past few years, Dr. Pat has visited Ghent (Belgium), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and Montreux (Switzerland), as well as Nice, Aix-les-Bains, Annecy, Brittany, and Avignon (all in France). When she escaped to Brittany during the Paris Olympics, a delighted Dr. Pat returned to find that the most visited city in the world had gotten a facelift for the occasion. “They spent two million Euros just cleaning the fountains!” She adds, “And when you live in Paris, people who don’t live in Paris want to come and visit you.”

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