Today dawned rainy and cold (I miss the Spanish weather) but we donned warmer clothes, rain jackets, grabbed the umbrella and headed out to see the famous Notre’ Dame (Our Lady). We navigated the subway system and disembarked at the Notre’ Dame station. We arrived fairly early and so the lines to get in weren’t too bad and in about 20 minutes it was our turn to enter. (Remember that you can click on any of the pictures to make them larger then just click on the back arrow at the top of the screen to go back to the post).

Before we go any farther, let me relay some of the amazing history behind this massive and imposing work of dedication and love. I will interject here that one of our favorite guide book authors is Rick Steves and it is his books that we have followed in Madrid and here in Paris. I am going to quote his words about the building of Notre’ Dame here because I was so moved by his description:

Imagine the faith of the people who built this cathedral! They broke ground in 1163 with the hope that someday their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren might attend the dedication Mass, which finally took place two centuries later, in 1345. Look up the 200-foot-tall bell towers and imagine a tiny medieval community mustering the money and energy for construction. Master masons supervised, but the people did much of the grunt work themselves for free – hauling the huge stones from distant quarries, digging a 30 foot deep trench to lay the foundation, and treading like rats on a wheel designed to lift the stones up one-by-one. This kind of backbreaking, arduous manual labor created  the magnificent Notre’ Dame. 

With this in mind we entered the immense sanctuary of Notre’ Dame we spent the next hour+ awestruck by the magnificence that surrounded us.

 

 

 

You may have heard of a flying buttress but if not, it is not something out of the Wizard of Oz, it is a support structure. Because the cathedral was built with pointed instead of rounded arches, the weight of the arch pushes the walls outward instead of down. The flying buttresses (I know it’s kind of a funny name) were designed as counterpoint to the outward pressure.  In other words, they were constructed to keep the walls form falling down and its worked pretty well for over 700 years. {Wow, art, history, architecture – you’re getting it all.}

 

After the cathedral we grabbed a quick hot lunch to get warmed up a bit. By the time we finished the rain had stopped and it was beginning to warm a little. *A side note about Paris weather – you’ve all heard the expression, “If you don’t like the weather stick around for a few minutes and it will change.” Well in Paris it is absolutely true. Every day it starts off chilly and warms up late in the day and it goes from cloudy to rainy to sunny all within the same half hour – crazy.

But I digress, after lunch we began the walking tour Rick Steves laid out in our guidebook. Our first stop was at the Conciergerie, which looks a lot like the title of the person at a nice hotel who directs you to a good restaurant or helps you get theater tickets but its not even close. Actually the Conciergerie was the infamous Paris prison known as the last stop for 2,780 victims of the guillotine, including King Louis XVI and his queen Marie-Antoinette during the bloody French Revolution.  The outward appearance of  the building belies the horrors that occurred within.

The upper floors of this imposing building now house the Paris police department, but the bottom floor is open as a grim museum of those dark times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the dining hall we proceeded to the small cell where Marie-Antoinette – the “Let them eat cake” queen – was incarcerated for the last two months of her life.  The picture below is of a recreation of her actual cell. The wallpaper is the original paper in the cell and her rosary plus a few other personal items are in a locked cabinet nearby.

 

Our walk then took us to the square where the executions took place. This obelisk was erected on the spot in the square where the guillotine was located to honor the 2,780 victims of that guillotine.

 

Alrighty then, on to more cheerful subjects. Tom and I walked along following the “Walking Tour” meandering along the River Seine and through the busy Latin Quarter where the tour ended.

We were walked out by this time and had returned to the famous Left Bank of the Seine where we decided a tour cruise, also suggested by the book, would be a lovely way to get off of our feet for awhile. This ended up being a great idea and we thoroughly enjoyed a view packed hour gliding along the river and taking in the Paris sights from the water/in-Seine view.

This sides of this bridge look solid but are actually rails with cross bars, however the spaces are filled in with thousands of padlocks of all shapes and sizes creating a foot thick solid wall along each side of the bridge. Why?… because the tail says that if you and your true love put a padlock on the bridge, it is a sign of your true devotion and your love will be everlasting. It is a truly lovely sentiment that causes the city thousands of dollars in damage repair to the bridge – can you imagine the weight of all those locks? You have to admit that it’s an interesting story.

After the cruise we headed for the subway and home. All this fun is wearing me out!

Tomorrow Museo de Louver or The Louver Museum!