C'est what? at Ste. Chappelle

This morning Rick made another run to the bakery for more croissants, baguettes and bread.  We'll be ready to run a marathon after breakfast.

Our first stop was Sainte Chapelle, on the Ile de la Cité near Notre Dame cathedral.  We waited in the long security line, made even more serious because there is a high court of law sharing the entrance with the chapel.  After 30 minutes or so in line, we saw a sign saying that any unlawful items in our possession during the security check would be confiscated and not returned to the owner.  I said I didn't think that was true, that they held your knife, corkscrew, etc. at the desk until you came back out, as they had last time I was here.  That's not what the sign said though.  Rick always carries his swiss army knife and corkscrew in the event of a wine, baguette and cheese emergency.   When we finally got to the head of the line, Rick took the offending items out of his pack.  I asked if we could check them while we toured the church. Non, madame.  Then what should we do?  I asked.  You can take them across the street to the bar and check them there.  C'est what?  Now that is an interesting security system!  Needless to say, Rick was disgusted that we had no warning about this until we waited in line for 1/2 an hour.  He elected to wait outside while the rest of us toured the chapel.  If it wasn't 10:30 in the morning, he might have checked himself into the bar along with his knife!

Sainte Chapelle is a beautiful church on the inside, but nothing special on the outside.  The whole thing was built between 1242 and 1248, in just 6 years, as compared to Notre Dame, which took over 200 years to build.  The inside of Sainte Chapelle consists of two floors - the walls and ceiling of the lower floor painted in blue and red with gold fleurs de lis, and the upper floor walls almost completely covered with stained glass windows. 

The ground floor of Ste. Chapelle.  Every inch is painted.

Each circle in the stained glass contains one of 1100 scenes upstairs in the chapel

Then we were off to Notre Dame cathedral.  There was a Mass going on, but we were able to walk the perimeter along with hundreds of other tourists.  It's an imposing church, and lots of side chapels allow for a more intimate conversation with God or your favorite saint.  The architecture on the outside of the church is more beautiful than the inside, really, with the flying buttress design that revolutionized cathedral building.

Flying buttresses hold the church up

Behind Notre Dame there is a somber reminder of the deportation of French jews during World War II.  You walk down the stairs in the Deportation Memorial into a stark concrete chamber.  It's only decoration is a sharp and jagged iron sculpture on one wall.  Iron bars block the view of the Seine.  There is a hallway with walls set with 200,000 lighted crystals, each one representing a French Jew who never returned from the concentration camps.

Lighted crystals depict French Jews killed during WWII

On the square in front of Notre Dame is the Paris Archaeological Crypt.  It's a small subterranean exhibit of excavated Roman ruins, and shows the footprint of Paris in Roman times and in the middle ages.  It's worth a quick visit, and comes free with the Museum Pass.

We had lunch on Ile St. Louis and hopped on the Metro to get down the road to l'Arc du Triomphe.  The skies had cleared by then, so we thought a hike to the top of the Arc was in order.  Actually, we hoped the elevator would take us up, rather than walking the 284 stairs, but we were told it was only for people with "disease".

We had a beautiful view of the city from the top, and a fascinating look at traffic in the circle around the base of the monument.  It was impossible to tell how many actual lanes there were, but cars were circling around, switching lanes and peeling off to the surrounding streets at a smart pace.  It looked terrifying to us.

View of the Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc

L'Arc du Triomphe from the Champs Elysees

When it was time to descend the stairs we happened to walk by the elevator, and the operator looked bored so I asked if we could ride down.  She said, oui!  Our legs were saved.

We walked down the Champs Elysees for a bit, just enjoying the craziness of it all.  We went into the McDonald's to see if they served wine.  I remembered having wine at a McD's in France years ago, but it wasn't on the menu here.  They did have a lovely display case full of pastries that also served espresso, called McCafé. 

Even the pastries at McDonald's are above average!

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at the Rodin Museum, which is right in our neighborhood.  Rodin's famous sculpture, The Thinker, is outside in the garden here, and there are also some of his other great sculptures outside.  The museum is actually in his home, and contains more of his work.  It also meets my criteria of a museum that you can see completely in less than an hour!

Rodin's Thinker

Dinner was rabbit cooked with a mustard sauce.  It's easy to find rabbit in the markets here, and Rick loves to try exotic foods.  He found a recipe on the internet for the sauce, and of course it was a winner, as always.  I don't know.  I hate to go out on a limb too often because I don't like to fail, but it's nice to have a cook in the family who'll try anything!