Paris: Monday

Well, we'd walked by this church so many times, I guess it was time to go in. Before hand, though, we grabbed some breakfast at a bar near our apartment. It was pouring rain during our walk to breakfast, but, luckily, once we exited breakfast, it had cleared a bit. In the morning, I told Maya that first we would go see the most beautiful church she'd ever seen. After that, we'd go see a church even more beautiful. She pointed out that she was dubious, given her opinion of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I had to concede that perhaps she was right... perhaps Notre Dame could not quite match La Sagrada Familia. But it would be close.

First, we had to find the headless saint on the façade of the building. Check. 

We also learned that the 28 statues of men from the bible that line the façade above the doors were all beheaded during the French Revolution (the perpetrators mistook the statues as ordinary French nobility). By a series of circumstances, the statue remnants were collected (basically as trash) and used to build the home of some rich lawyer. Nearly 200 years later, a bank renovation in Paris uncovered 21 of the heads. However, the 28 statues currently on display on the façade are replicas; the original heads (or what remains of them) are in a museum.

Alright. In we go. We reminded Maya about the flying buttresses at the back. She giggled. But just look at the interior! I've decided in my careful study and comparison of French and Italian churches that, at least for me, the super vaulted ceilings in the French Gothic churches simply make them feel lighter and make you look up.

When you look up, man, just look at that glass!

We found a statue of Joan of Arc. The French really dig her.

Did I mention that there's some stained glass inside Notre Dame?

This was a photo requested by Cora. She really loved all of the "teapots" in the treasury.

I mean, c'mon. It's beautiful.

Back outside, it was still a beautiful day. We took some more looks at the façade before heading down the street and around the corner to La Sainte Chapelle.

Here it is from the outside. Just a pretty ordinary church, right?

And here we are in the lower chapel. That's a statue of Saint Louis (King Louis IX), who had the church built to house his collection of Christian relics, most notably the Crown of Thorns. These relics aren't in the church anymore (they're in the possession of Notre Dame, brought out on special occasions), but that's ok. The church itself is enough treasure.

From the lower chapel, we headed through these painted columns and up a winding stone staircase. The columns are painted in a mixture of fleurs-de-lis (a symbol of the French monarchy) and Castilian castles, the symbol of Louis's mother.

The upper chapel. Yeah. Glass. It was amazing.

Maya's scavenger hunt had us search out all sorts of thing inside the upper chapel.

Including this Castilian castle in the flooring.

Tim really liked these door handles.

We got separated as we exited the chapel; Tim was already outside, even though the girls and I were waiting on him inside. This would have been fine except (a) it was pouring and (b) my phone wasn't working. Oops. Once we got reconnected, we darted across the street to a little cafe for lunch. Obviously, since we were wet, the skies cleared once again. Here are some government buildings with La Sainte Chapelle behind.

We hopped on the métro and headed for the Musée de l'Orangerie in the Jardin des Tuileries.

It was gorgeous outside.

There was a line, so we got in it. We waited about an hour, during which time the sky clouded completely over, it got very cold, windy, and started raining. For security checks, they were taking about a hundred people in at a time, about every 30 minutes. After waiting about an hour, we were within 10 people of the front of the line, when they decided they had enough people for that group. Luckily, the guard saw us and said "Avec les enfants..." and waved us inside.

Once inside, we got an audioguide and headed first into the two elliptical water lily rooms. These are two rooms built specifically for displaying some sets of Monet's water lily paintings. Monet designed the paintings (obviously) but also how they would be displayed as a set. He gave them to France as a gift in 1918 at least partially in celebration of the Armistice; this gift was announced via a letter to his friend Georges Clemenceau (who also happened to be the prime minster of France at the time). There was an agreement that they would not be displayed until after Monet's death; in fact, Monet continued to work on the panels to perfect them. After Monet's death in 1926, the country constructed this pair of rooms specifically for the purpose.

The entire thing is, from paintings to the manner in which they are displayed, an amazing work of art.

For all four of us (perhaps for everyone, I don't know) this panel was our favorite:

Even Cora was enthralled in finding all of the individual colors in the bark of the willow tree...

Even if it looks like she's actually really really tired... :)

Since the day was dreary, we spent the afternoon looking at the remainder of the collection in the museum. Tim really likes this Monet, "Argenteuil." It's the only Monet in the museum other than the water lilies.

This is a partial view (artistically obscured) of André Derain's "Harlequin and Peirrot." The painting itself is notable because it looks like a jovial composition but its actually very sad (the expressions on the people are sad; the guitars have no strings, etc.).

There were also some amazing works from Renoir, which Maya and I loved (for instance another version of "Two Young Girls at the Piano"). Tim, not being a huge Renoir fan, I guess failed to photograph them for us.

Back outside, obviously, it was beautiful blue skies again.

So we took the métro back to l'Île de la Cité, planning to walk across the bridge to l'Île Saint-Louis to grab some famous ice cream.

A view of La Sainte Chapelle on exiting the métro:

We were walking past Notre Dame again, so some more obligatory pictures.

As we headed down the street alongside the cathedral, one of the shop keepers came out, alarmed, made it clear that we should hurry to take cover and that a big storm was coming. I understood none of the words that she said, yet this message was delivered clearly. It helped that she pointed in the direction of these clouds:

And these:

No. Those are not mountains.

We were 800 meters from our apartment, so we ran for it. We almost made it (and in fact, we didn't get all that wet in the end). Though it did start hailing on us as we ran the last block.

The storm blew over quickly. We had time to clean up, change clothes, comb our hair, etc., before heading out again for dinner. On this evening, we met Carole and Nadège a second time for dinner at a place called Chameleon. The dinner was creative but very very delicious.