Let the architecture speak for itself...

DAY 3***

Today we were on another walking tour with Paris Muse Tours - this time, to view the history in the buildings around the Marais District, finishing at Notre Dame. Our guide, Inge, met us at the Place de Vosges, a beautiful hidden square featuring almost identical houses around a central courtyard. Inge showed us lots of detail in the architecture of surrounding buildings and monuments.

Note the Romanesque clothing on the French King, Louis XIII....

We visited the Maison de Victor Hugo, who wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame,and the house of the architect for the area, a man named Sully. He had a private mansion of his own, complete with sculptured gardens, with the four seasons carved into the building, and a  l'orangerie.

This is what's left of a once royal church, a nun's convent and the original city wall...

 We then headed towards Notre Dame, along Pont Marie, one of the many bridges across the Seine. Note the crest of the city of Paris, a sailing ship, on the base of the lamp post. The motto of Paris is 'She floats but does not sink", referring to the fact that the original city of Paris was built on an island.

Is this really good or just terrible parking? This is considered a lot of parking space in Paris!!!!........

Notre Dame Cathedral is Paris' most famous gothic styled church which took 200 years to build!!!! Gothic architecture was characterised by height, and lots of intricate detail. The height of Notre Dame is only possible because of the flying butresses, seen here at the rear of the church supporting the building.

The green men seen here are the Apostles - save for the guy at the top, with his back to us, who is the principal architect of Notre Dame's restoration, Viollet le Duc. He was inspired by Victor Hugo's book The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

 

Did you know that the gargoyles of Notre Dame, like many other gothic churches, are clever ways to disguise gutters? The pipes are actually hidden inside them!!!

However, this one to the right is the only one of the gargoyles of Notre Dame without any pipes - he is purely decorative!!

Inside the cathedral ,central to the east & west wings are the beautiful stained glass windows. They are positioned to be able to catch the rising and setting sun. Simply spectacular!

The front of the church features the kings of Israel. Most assume that they are kings or princes of France.

The detail in the carved statues and frescos are typical of churches throughout Europe. Note the pigeon making its home on this one of Jesus in front of the doorway - he stands with six disciples on either side of him.

 

This plaque marks the centre of Paris. All road distances from Paris are measured from this point. e.g Strasbourg is 1000km from Paris etc.

Apparently, if you stand on this plaque, close your eyes and spin around, you'll come back to Paris someday. There was no way we weren't going to spin on that!!

After being on our feet for a couple of hours, Inge directed us to a very authentic French cafe restaurant, La Petit Chatelet for lunch, just across the Seine from Notre Dame on the Latin Quarter side. 

Complete with blackboard menu in French, we managed to order and enjoy a lovely meal. Note: avoid tourist cafes on street corners especially around major monuments - food there is always quite ordinary. Better to struggle with a blackboard menu you can't read!!! Remember always to say 'Merci' when you are finished!!

We spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Paris-DW found a herbalist shop for some essential oils, and the streets of the Latin Quarter were filled with people and Christmas cheer.









Following on from our Cracking the Da Vinci Code Tour yesterday, we located the church of San Suplice, the scene of the nun's murder in the movie.

Overall, a good day!!

Cracking the Da Vinci Code

For our first day in Paris we had arranged a walking tour of the Louvre with Paris Muse Tours. We headed off to the Arc de Carousel between the Louvre and the Tuileries to meet our guide Kristen, who has a PhD in Art History. She was to show us the sights and sequences from the book and movie, but with a twist.

We began with a brass plaque on the ground in the forecourt alongside the Glass Pyramid that was one of the rose line described in the movie.

The "Arago" brass plate is in fact a recent addition by the French Government. The actual meriden to which the movie refers is however real. Many people around us today would not have been aware of the significance of this brown spot on the ground.



The rest of the tour went on to show us symbology often adopted by the Church was in fact re-interpreted from symbols used in pagan times. The statue here is in fact not of the Madonna and Child but of the Empress Messaline (wife of the Emperor Claudius) who wanted to be remembered as a motherly figure.









Other symbols that we could have missed include this swastika on the stem of this terracotta artifact - it actually dates from 700BC and was used to denote endless life. Not what we currently associate it with!

There were so many other treasures in the Louvre which show the symbolism that the book and movie make such a point of - the Venus de Milo and the Nike of Samothrace with its wings of victory at sea (perhaps the source of the Nike brand and its trademark 'wings'??.

Kristen informed us however that there is no position of Professor of Symbology, as was Robert Langdon in the book (played by Tom Hanks in the movie) - such work is the brief of art historians. Facinating stuff though!!!

What to do this afternoon????After a Croque Monsieur for DD and crepes chocolat for DS we decided a visit to Sacre Coeur and the Montmarte district for its fabric shops was not out of the question, despite it being late in the afternoon. A ride to the Metro station Anvers delivered us to the base of a steep hill, which we followed upwards until we caught sight of the beautiful Sacre Coeur cathedral, complete with skies clearing of the rain clouds from earlier today.

And to think we nearly didn't go!!!!

We stayed for a wander around the Christmas Markets, and after more hot chocolate, hot mulled wine, and "Saucisse" (French for sausage, which were way too big to finish) after which we went down to street level to the fabric stores.

The two largest stores, Marche Saint Pierre and Tissus Reine, are just across the road from each other and each have 5 floors of fabric!!!! The were many other smaller stores selling everything from dancewear to upholstery fabrics.












  The stores were open until late and very busy right up until closing time. Note: Lots of men buying fabric were also found in the store!!!!

Of course, we had left ourselves too little time for DW to actually peruse, select and purchase fabric in any meaningful way - there was far too much to choose from! Ah, but with a little time, and a group of sewing pals for DW...........