We took it easy this morning, got up a little bit late and virtually walked across the street at 10:30am from our apartment to the Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite in the Seine. We've seen this church on our way home but up close it is huge.
The number of "faces" focused on you as you approach is daunting.
Entrance was free and it only took about 5 minutes for us to get in. We were able to keep our backpack, take pictures, take video, and talk quietly. Some churches are so protective of what? stuff so old that a picture of it is going to ruin it?
The stained glass was beautiful and plentiful.
The iconic "rose window" looked great with the sun shining on it.
Here are a few more beautiful photos of the stained glass.
This is the line to get into the bell tower for views of the city. We decided to take a break for lunch and had some spaghetti from across the street. We took it back to the apartment (5 minute walk) to sit and relax for awhile. We thought we'd go look at the other church and then come back later in the day for high-up pictures.
After lunch when we had walked over we found out they were taking a lunch break at Sainte Chapelle and they wouldn't be open for an hour. We moved on...to the line to get up in the bell tower at the Notre Dame. An hour later we were on our way up another set of stairs.
Our reward was views like this.
It was a popular place for sure. There were gargoyles on all of the corners. I'm down at the end of the row of photographers.
The building at the very upper left corner of the picture is part of a courtyard that our apartment windows faced into. We were one street back from the street you see on the left.
Hey, there is the black steeple of the Sainte-Chapelle just a few blocks away.
Ah, Paris.
We got to go INTO the bell tower and get close to one of the huge bells.
Back outside.
Here is an overview of the city. Tower Montparnasse on the left, Eiffel Tower, Le Defense buildings in the distance in the middle, the green patch has the famous church on it called Sacre Coure, and on the right is the OTHER bell tower of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Karen loves those panoramic shots.
We found our way down and took more pictures around the outside of the building. Here is an excellent picture of a structural element called a flying buttress. It is designed to keep the main walls of a structure from collapsing outward from the weight of the building above it. It takes the pressure off of the walls and transfers that weight down the angled piece to the vertical element and then to the ground. AND it looks cool too.
Here is a view of the back side of the church. Notice all those flying buttresses keeping the curved wall from blowing out.
The rose wheel looks nice from the outside but not nearly as beautiful as from the inside with the sun showing off the colors.
We moved on to Sainte-Chapelle and found the security line to be fairly short. After you get through security you can then pay your entrance fee into the church.
The outside of the church (which was entirely within the walls of the Palace of Justice).
What have we here? Tall skinny stained glass windows.
Their rose window from the outside.
WOW!
There were places to sit so you could just take it all in.
The rose window from the inside.
There was a video showing how they were restoring and cleaning 7 of the stain glassed panels.
The entire church was made up of stained glassed windows and each one told stories from the Bible.
We left and wandered around the streets some more and found a beautiful nursery.
And an Orchid Shop was next door to that.
For dinner we found (finally!) some soft butter croissants with ham and cheese on them.
We found the ends of a couple of islands and some walkways along the river.
To put an end to our day we passed a really rocking band that was putting out toe-tapping music on one of the bridges. Another great day in Paris.
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