France - Paris

05/03/15

Ah , the anticipation of Paris! J'adore Paris! 

 

Took a double-decker train into Paris (about an hour). First stop was 'Notre Dame', Jarvis and Ollie were very keen(even though they had been before) because they had studied it in detail on their Assassin's Creed PC game!

Again winter(although a beautiful sunny day) was useful in avoiding an entry queue. We were disappointed when we estimated the queue(in the cold) to climb the tower (which reaches the most famous of Notre Dame's ten bells and its Gargoyles) at 2hrs wait. We skipped it.

 

 

 

 Did a lot of looking up (towards heaven), the high vaulted ceilings, pointed arches, large beautiful stained glass windows and spires, all part of the Gothic style.

 

Quite dark and very atmospheric inside.

Chris and my basic(and probably incorrect) structural explanation might have been a bit lost on the boys?

The huge windows(front window measuring 13m in diameter) meant that there was very little stonework to support the heavy ceilings, so flying buttresses (an arched wall system designed to take the weight) were invented.

Inside there were little chapels arranged between the buttresses - Ollie was keen to go into the confessional.

 

 

Assassin's Creed Poses - climbing the exterior, the Gargoyles above weren't scary enough.

Next we travelled on the metro to the 'Luxembourg Gardens' (formal gardens begun in 1612 by Henry IV's widow, open only to royalty before the French Revolution). It is voted number no.6 of 1116 attractions in Paris by 'Tripadvisor' - I beg to differ. I think things might have been more spectacular in summer.  They were digging quite a bit of it up and there wasn't anything much garden-like, like grass. Excitedly we ran to the mediocre playground we could see in the distance to them find it fenced off with an admission charge, even for adult supervisors. I was pretty horrified - how publicly ungenerous(I guess I just don't understand how things work).

The last visit of the day was to the 'Catacombs'. I had imagined that this would morbidly fascinate the boys. To be honest they were only interested for the first 5minutes of 'bones' viewing and the fascinating history behind it all failed to fascinate them. Mum and I went to see these catacombs maybe 15 years ago. Things had changed a bit, a much better display now which seems to be the case with all the attractions I had revisited.

'Keg' bone arrangement.

After descending a narrow spiral stone stairwell of 19 meters we past through a  network of tunnels that seemed to go on forever (about 1.5 km). They existed from when this was a mine.

These tunnels are the reason there are few tall buildings in Paris; large foundations cannot be built because the catacombs are directly under the city's streets.
The tunnels also played their part in the Second World War. Parisian members of the French Resistance used the winding tunnels and German soldiers also set up an underground bunker in the catacombs, just below the 6th arrondissement.
We moved on past a well before we came to a stone portal, the ossuary entry, with the inscription Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort ('Stop! Here lies the Empire of Death"). Beyond this were the  walls of carefully arranged bones, some strangely artistic in nature. In fact below Paris's approx. 11 million residents lies the remains of 6 million others. This came about because the number of dead bodies buried in Paris's cemeteries and beneath its churches was so great that they began breaking through the walls of people's cellars and causing serious health concerns.
So the human remains were transferred to the underground quarries in the early 1780s.
The transfer of the remains was always at nightfall on carts covered in black veils over a 15month period.
How could this history not stir the boys interest? - maybe you need to be older to be so fascinated by death?


Unfortunately after this we had the most miserable trip back to our apartment - about a 2 and a 1/2 hr trip(should have been 1hr), most of it standing like sardines inside a train or standing like sardines outside on a cold platform (train problems). Ah well, fortunately this isn't something I have to  do everyday.

On a topic side line, I should mention that the apartment we were staying in was right next door to Val d'Europe shopping centre - a huge shopping centre(140 shops) plus a large designer outlet(too overwhelming much for me) shopping area too. This didn't impress Chris much, but he even managed a couple of 'designer' purchases. I picked up a couple of things from 'Moschino' (not French, Italian) and 'Wolford'(not French, English). Val d'Europe was all a bit odd, overly artificial but trying very hard to be 'nice' and 'easy' .  Not surprising considering Val d'Europe was built in conjunction with 'The Walt Disney Company', who wished to create a town near the Disney resort. The architectural style is inspired from the "neo-traditional" style of the Baron Haussman (carried out a massive program of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris in the 19th century) and a town plan by a New York City company, based upon traditional French town planning principles consistent with the 'New Urbanism' US design philosophy - mmm!. Can't say I'm surprised it all seemed pretty weird. Ah, also the security guards. There seemed to be a lot of very menacing looking security guards almost blocking(lining up in a row) the entry points into the shopping centre. They were constantly stopping me and asking me to 'Ouvrez votre sac!' (Open your bag!) - not that they could see anything inside my back, it was always too full.