A church-y day

After breakfast, the whole group went to see the church of Ste. Chapelle, built between 1242 and 1248 for King Louis IX. He's the only French king to become a saint, and this chapel supposedly held the Crown of Thorns. The outside of the building doesn't give any clues to the splendor of the interior. The first floor is nicely painted with fleurs-de-lis, and was the place where servants and common folks worshiped.

Here's where the servants and common folk worshiped. Very beautiful and ornate.

But go up the stairs to see where the Royal Christians worshiped. The entire room is surrounded by stained glass, containing 1100 different scenes, mostly from the Bible.

Stained glass upstairs at Ste. Chapelle. Sounds like the common people didn't get to see this, only the royalty

One of the beautiful rose windows at Ste. Chapelle

Our Museum Passes got us into Ste. Chapelle, but the security line was still long, partially due to the fact that the high court is also in this block of buildings.

Ste. Chapelle is located on l'Ile de la Cité, as is Notre-Dame Cathedral, so we headed there next. Notre-Dame took 200 years to complete, as opposed to Ste. Chapelle, which was completed in 6 years. The builders broke ground for Notre-Dame in the year 1163, and the dedication Mass didn't take place until 1345. Although professionals supervised the building, much of the grunt work was done by regular people, volunteering their time.

It's an amazing masterpiece from both the inside and the outside. The famous flying butresses are visible from the side and back of the cathedral.

Marchesa took a picture of the rest of us in front of Notre-Dame

Here's Marchesa, along with Il Padrino

Notice the line of statues above the doorways, and they're around each door too. In addition, there are sculpted friezes of Bible stories as well as cautionary depictions of Judgement Day and the eternal misery that would be the fate of sinners

Pope, now Saint, John Paul II statue outside of Notre-Dame

The story goes that the heads of all of the statues were chopped off during the Revolution, the peasants mistaking the kings of the church for the secular kings of France. A schoolteacher collected the heads and buried them in his yard, where they were accidentally discovered in 1977. The original heads now reside in the Cluny Museum. Replacement heads were recreated for the statues some years after the Revolution.

Flying buttresses are visible from the side of Notre-Dame, in the upper left, holding the highest part of the church up

Entry to the cathedral is free, but there's a security line. Some of us went inside, while Marco, Giovanni and Principessa used their Museum Passes to enter and climb the tower, which would otherwise have cost a little to see. They had to wait in a slower line, while the line to get into the church wasn't bad for us. Once again, the clouds were high, so the view from the top was spectacular.

The view from the rooftop of Notre-Dame. More statues!

I had hoped to be able to visit the Deportation Memorial behind the cathedral, but it wasn't scheduled to open for a few more weeks. I don't know if it always floods in the winter, or just needed routine maintenance, but whatever the reason, I was sorry we couldn't see it. It's a very moving reminder of the thousands of Parisians sent to their deaths during WWII.

The flowering trees in the gardens behind the cathedral were starting to bloom.

Marco and Caterina beneath the cherry blossoms

We had lunch at Esmeralda, near Notre-Dame, and were all happy with our meal there. After lunch, we walked down to the Seine, where the river cruises depart. We took a trip around the city, essentially circling Ile de la Cité, seeing some of the prominent buildings along the river. We actually got closer to the Eiffel Tower going by on the river than we had on our rainy first night in town walking over to see it.

We went under some of the elaborate bridges over the Seine

Going by the Eiffel Tower on the river cruise

Half of the group decided to see Montmarte, so headed up to that part of town to see the sights and have dinner. They ended up back in our neighborhood at the Frog & Rosbif Brewpub for dinner. We had good reports about the food. The rest of the group went back to the apartment and had leftover boeuf bourgignon for dinner.

Giovanni, Principessa, Caterina and Laura in front of Sacré Coeur on Montmartre. Marco must have taken the photo.

This was the last night for Giovanni and Principessa. They were flying home tomorrow.