Day Trois

Today was our first day of actual site seeing, and it started out a little slow! We didn't leave la foundation until about noon. It was drizzling, but this didn't deter us from trekking across the city! We took the RER train to the St. Michael - Notre Dame stop, and as we travelled up the escalator the first thing that we encountered was crepes!

Above, Caitlin and Kelsey are pictured with their crepes, and below is the crepe stand!

I haven't had one yet since I had just had breakfast, but I do know that I will be ordering the chocolate and banane crepe when I do order one!

Apparently, Paris used to be split up into three separate areas. The city, known for the churches, the town, known for the palaces, and the university, known for the colleges. We headed to Notre Dame, and as we walked inside the stained glass took my breath away. To even imagine how the church was built was a feat in itself! If you are interested, you should read The Pillars of the Earth which is a historical novel by Ken Follett about the building of a cathedral in England in the middle of the twelfth century, and would have many similarities to the building of the Notre Dame. Notre Dame means 'Our Lady' in French, and was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress technique, which transmits the horizontal force of a vaulted ceiling through the walls and across an intervening space (just to share a little building construction with you). We had to take the pictures with no flash to show respect, which made some of the picture taking difficult, but here are a couple of photos that I thought were the best....

The front of Notre Dame.

The famous stain glass window inside of Notre Dame.

Some more of the pretty stained glass and archways.

Some of the archways on the inside.

A picture inside Notre Dame with the massive organ in the top right corner. The organ has 7,800 pipes, and 900 of them are still classified as historical. It has 111 stops, five 56-key manuals and a 32-key pedalboard. Not sure what all this means, but it must be impressive if the position of the titular (head or chief) organist at Notre Dame is considered to be one of the most prestigious organist posts in France.

Climbing in to the South Tower to look at the great bourdon bell. The Belfry is a wooden tower, which absorbs and deflects the ringing into a more solid lower part of the cathedral. The vibrations of the bells would otherwise possibly crack the sculpted stone of the towers.

Katy, Kelsey, myself, and Caitlin at the top of Notre Dame with the city of paris in the background (wish you could actually see that part).

We had some delicious gyros from a small little stand before we headed home to take a nap. Either we are still jet lagged, or all the walking made us really, really tired. We went out at night, but that turned in to a disaster. Two of the boys were too drunk, and were not allowed in a lot (and by a lot, I many any) of the bars, so it was pretty much just a lot of wandering around through the Latin Quarter of Paris. We may leave the boys at home next time.