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 | Paris Notre Dame de Paris Reviews | Tips 1 - 10 of 818 |  |
 | |  |  | Notre Dame de Paris: The Interior of Notre Dame holds many secrets | Tip Rating:   |  |  | |  |
The next time you're in the cavenous sanctuary of Notre Dame, look carefully at her side walls. If you're observant enough, you'll notice brown stains at about the knee level.
Well, just in case you lick your fingers after touching those stains, I'll like to tell you a little story. Right at the end of the 18th century, during the Revolution, it was vogue to hate the cathedral. Many of the treasures of the grand dame were either destroyed or plundered and the church grounds were used for events other than worship. At first, it was given to a couple of Cults but eventually, it was used as a warehouse for livestock. Does that ring a bell now?
Yes, the brown stains you're looking at are 18th century poo stains! The muck got so thick and plentiful at one point in time, it went up to the knee level. Fortunately, all the goo was cleaned up after a certain emperor wanted to crown himself there... Leave a Comment Directions: Metro: Cité RER:Châtelet-Les Halles, Saint Michel-Notre Dame Bus: 21, 24, 27, 38, 47, 85, 96
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| | | | Notre Dame de Paris: Of Hunchbacks and Love.. | Tip Rating: | | | | |
"Each face, each stone of this venerable monument is not only a page of
the history of the country, but also of the history of knowledge and art....
Time is the architect, the people are the builder."
— Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris
Even if you do not know who the hell Victor Hugo is, you would have heard the tale about the Hunchback in Notre Dame? Well, that tale is not just fluff written by Disney, it was a well-intentioned yarn written by Hugo during the 19th century to raise awareness and romanticise about the Cathedral which had fallen into a state of disrepair. At this time, many of the cathedral's treasures had been pillaged, her beautiful stained glass broken and her walls still covered with poo stains..
Well, Hugo's tale worked and repairs started. Of course, up till this day, there are poor sods who believe that the electronic bells are rung by a weight-challenged hunchback.. Leave a Comment Directions: Métro: Cité or St-Michel. RER: Châtelet-Les-Halles or St-Michel. Buses: 21, 24, 27, 38, 47, 85, 96Website: http://www.cathedraledeparis.com/
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| | | | Notre Dame de Paris: When the Bells Tolls.. | Tip Rating: | | | | |
The giant bell at the Notre Dames rings six times on Sunday and four times on weekdays and once on Saturday.
Why? Well, morning prayers are held on Saturdays at 9:30 a.m, afternoon prayers between 5:45 - 6:10 p.m. on every weekday and various times on Sunday.
I caught the Sunday afternoon mass just as it was starting at 5.30pm and it turned out to be a surreal affair complete with wispy smoke from incense, beautiful music from the blue-coated choir members and coloured lights falling from the rose windows. In case you're wondering, the bell is rung electronically and not by a sod with a hunchback... Leave a Comment Directions: Métro: Cité or St-Michel RER: Châtelet-Les-Halles or St-Michel. Buses: 21, 24, 27, 38, 47, 85, 96Website: http://www.cathedraledeparis.com/
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| | | | Notre Dame de Paris: The heart of Paris | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Next to the Eiffel Tower and the Arc du Triomphe, Notre-Dame probably is the most easily recognizable building in Paris. Built on l'Ile de la Cite, where the city was founded, it took approximately 170 years to complete this stunning Gothic masterpiece. It is worth going inside to admire its spendid stained glass or "rose" windows and numerous works of art. It is also definitely worth going on the Towers tour; the first 255 steps take you to the "Gallery of chimeras", which was added during the course of the restoration program that began in 1845. The numerous gargoyles and funny-looking chimeras, sticking their tongues out at Paris below, make for really great pictures! The only problem is that a grid has been added, presumably to stop people from jumping down as in the movie "Amelie"?
Another 147 steps will take you to the bell tower, where you can see "Emmanuel", the biggest bell of Notre-Dame with its 28,000 pounds. Of course, it is impossible to go up there without thinking of Quasimodo, the hero of Victor Hugo's popular story "The Huntchback of Notre-Dame" (1831). The tour ends on top of the 69 m tall left tower, where you will have a great view of the spire and of the city all around.
The Cathedral is open every day of the week, and admission is free. It costs 5.50 Euros to go on the Towers tour (but you can use your Museum Pass if you have one). Might be a good idea to get there early if you can - the line-up stretches along the side of the Cathedral all day long, and people are often turned away at the end of the day. Leave a Comment Phone: 01 42 34 56 10Directions: On Ile de la Cité (metro Cité)Website: http://www.cathedraledeparis.com/EN/0.asp
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| | | | Notre Dame de Paris: Notre-Dame | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Notre-Dame is now viewed as one of the key defining examples of the style which was to become known as Ile-de-France Gothic, by the early nineteenth century few Parisians valued their medieval past very highly. Interest in the medieval building was largely rekindled by Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris. For twenty years, Viollet-le-Duc worked at Notre-Dame, adding the spire, consolidating the fabric and replacing missing or defaced sculptures.
Inside
Interior, the immediately striking feature, if you can ignore the noise and movement, is the dramatic contrast between the darkness of the nave and the light falling on the first clustered pillars of the choir, placing an emphasis on the special nature of the sanctuary. Nearly two-thirds glass, it is the end walls of the transepts that admit all this light as well as the two magnificent rose windows coloured in imperial purple. These, the vaulting, the soaring shafts reaching to the springs of the vaults, are all definite Gothic elements, yet, inside as well as outside, there remains a strong sense of Romanesque in the stout round pillars of the nave and the general sense of four-squareness.
Not to be missed !
Before leaving, do not forget to walk round to the public garden at the east end for a view of the flying buttresses supporting the choir, and then along the riverside under the south transept, where you can sit in springtime under the cherry blossom.
And in front of the cathedral, in the square separating Notre Dame from Haussmann's police Headquarters, is what appears to be and smells like the entrance to an underground toilet. In fact, it is a very well-displayed and interesting museum, the crypte archeologique, in which are revealed the remains of the church which predated the cathedral, as well as streets and houses of the Cite dating as far back as the Roman era.
On the pavement by the west door of Notre-Dame is a spot known as kilometre zero. This is where all of the main road distances in France are calculated. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Notre Dame de Paris: NOTRE-DAME de Paris | Tip Rating: | | | | |
On the biggest island of Seine, "Ile-de-la-Cit?", was built being the first city kernel of the religious and terrestrial life of Paris.
Here was built also very soon, the cathedral Notre-Dame, the most important construction of Paris.
The cathedral was erected over the rests of an early-Christian basilica that had been built over a temple from Roman time on the other hand.
The construction was ordered 1163 by the bishop Maurice de Sully.
The church was first 1345 finished.
The rigors of the weather, the human attacks, the tragedy of numerous wars changed its countenance, above all during the French revolution, in the course of the centuries as one even considered in the year 1793 to tear off the church.
In the year 1802, it was intended finally again for the sacral construction.
Napoleon's coronation rite through pope Pius VII became taken place into the cathedral NOTRE-DAME, in the year 1804.
Under Violet-le-Duc, the church was restored by 1844-1864. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Notre Dame de Paris: You just have to see #3 | Tip Rating: | | | | |
This and the previous two tips cover some of the most iconic Paris sights. I don’t claim to have any original insights on any of them: there are, after all, now nearly 900 tips on the Eiffel Tower; about 600 on the Arc de Triomphe; and over 700 on Notre Dame! So why am I writing this? Well, as the title suggests ‘you just have to see…’. When you return home, your friends and family are sure to ask about these sights and to wish to see your photos. Fortunately, it’s possible to get acceptable photographs of all three fairly quickly if visiting time is short – the tour bus I’ve suggested above will take you past all of them within a fairly short trip. Plus the Louvre and a bit more.
If you can spare a little time though, Notre Dame can be much more than the imposing façade and the trademark two large towers. I rather like the view in the main photo, taken from the left bank of the Seine, just a little upstream, as this shows well the enormous flying buttresses and the general structure of the building. If you cross to the Ile de la Cité, you can get closer to the same perspective, near the apse of the church, and see more details (photo 2). Now head around to the entrance and go in. The sheer dimensions of the building (photo 3) still are amazing, just imagine what a knockout it was when finished in the 14th century! Equally impressive are the stained glass windows (photo 4): I won’t forget in a hurry the effect of the late winter afternoon light streaming nearly horizontally as coloured rays through clouds of incense on a Sunday afternoon on our first visit. Then head down to the left (from the front) rear of the building for a small display of how it was built (photo 5): it is staggering to contemplate how such a construction could be erected with relatively simple non-mechanised tools in the mediaeval period and easy to overlook what a dominant influence it must have been on the lives of the people involved. Directions: Métro: Cité; RER: Châtelet-Les Halles, Saint Michel-Notre Dame
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