Saturday, 19 May: As today was the last day of our Museum Passes, we had to visit Notre Dame and climb its Tower, St. Chappelle and the Conciergerie. We hoped for smaller crowds but the lines were just as bad as the day before.
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| Long line for the Tower, around 10am |
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| Notre Dame's facade |
We again took a detour into the Fete du Pain tent before walking over to Sainte Chappelle.
We waited in line a bit before they opened up a second line for Museum Pass holders. We got right through security, bypassed the second line for ticket buying, and were marveling at the stained glass chapel in no time. Felt like rock stars!
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| The security line, for non-Museum Pass holders |
I had forgotten how spectacular Sainte Chappelle is in person. It’s just breathtakingly beautiful. They are renovating some of the panels and the video showing the painstaking process was quite interesting. The downstairs chapel was pretty too but niece and I definitely would prefer to be royalty, wealthy, or privileged so we could be admitted upstairs. After a little shopping in the gift shop, we went over to the Conciergerie.
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| The restored outside of Sainte Chappelle |
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| Stained glass heaven! |
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| The lower chapel, now gift shop |
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| The Palais de Justice |
No waiting in line for the Conciergerie, just straight into the Guard’s Hall which is large and gothic. We did the circuit of rooms and learned a little more about the gruesome French Revolution. We saw Marie Antoinette’s memorial chapel and her recreated cell. It was quite a juxtaposition from the luxuries at Versailles. Niece and I both felt Robespierre got what he deserved after having guillotined 2780 persons. We also pretty much agreed that the Revolution was necessary because of the excesses of the kings/queens of France, but sad nonetheless.
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| Marie's original cell made into a chappel |
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| Marie's sad recreated cell |
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| The exercise yard; don't miss the downward facing spikes |
Feeling rather cheerless, we decided to go to lunch and try the macarons at Un Dimanche a Paris. We took the Metro and found the restaurant relatively easily. We decided against eating lunch there, it was kinda precious and expensive. Instead we had a nice meal at Le Relais Odeon: goat cheese salad for me; beef and fries for hubby and niece. Then we went to the delightful boutique at Un Dimanche to choose our dessert.
Everything was beautifully presented and looked so delicious. We enjoyed watching the chefs make the pastries we were about to eat. Niece and I decided on macarons and hubby got a pastry. We sat outside and enjoyed. Niece and I decided that these macarons were much better than Laduree’s, coffee and caramel were tied for the best. Delicious!
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| After lunch at Relais Odeon, we had macarons |
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| Un Dimanche a Paris chefs at work |
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| "We''ll take one of everything!" |
The map showed that we were sorta close to Jardin du Luxembourg so we walked over there. It is a beautiful park. We grabbed a couple of chairs and relaxed a bit. Watched the kids chase the boats in the pond, the joggers run around, the people milling about enjoying the pretty day, listened to the music coming from the bandstand. Decided against tracking back to St. Sulpice and grabbed the Metro back to St. Michel Notre Dame. We were going to wait as long as we needed to get up close and personal with the gargoyles!
This is one place we didn’t feel like rock stars because there’s no special line for Museum Pass holders--a travesty! It took about 50 minutes to get in (they let in groups of 20 every 10 minutes) so not a horrible wait. The climb was not bad to the first level but a little hairier to the second since it narrows a bit more. Totally worth it, though. We exited when it started to pour down raining and made it into Notre Dame without further lines because of the rain.
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| The line was just as long at 3pm |
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| The climb wasn't bad |
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| Hello, gargoyles and rainy Paris! |
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| The umbrellas were out in front of Notre Dame |
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| Niece did not enjoy the climb |
Notre Dame was very, very crowded. Unbelievably so. When we entered, a mass was about to start so the tourists were limited to the side aisles, making the crowding worse. It’s a beautiful cathedral but it was a hard to see that with the hordes in there. We wandered about, took some photos, saw the start of the mass (love the smell of incense in Catholic churches!), then made our way out through the hordes standing in the doorway blocking the exits. Why do people do that? It’s aggravating and dangerous and seriously, it wasn’t raining that hard (as niece said, “it’s just a little water people, get out of the doorway” ha!). I was quite unsatisfied with this visit to Notre Dame (hubby and I have been twice before and loved it) and I hope niece gets to see it again without the hordes…
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| The incense smoke made interesting patterns in our pictures |
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| So very crowded :( |
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| The French mass was familiar |
We walked around outside Notre Dame; the rain had gone and it was very pretty again. It was after 6pm, so the Deportation Memorial was closed but we lingered inside the park there for a bit. It’s such a sad piece of history that should never be forgotten or dismissed. I wanted niece to understand that hating people for being different (race, sex, religion, disability, politics, etc.) is never ok and can lead to atrocities such as those perpetrated by the Nazis. She gets it, I know. But it’s a lesson worth repeating as it needs never be forgotten.
We made our way to Ile St. Louis and bellied up to the pastry counter at Berthillon. We got macarons and a few mini pastries to go. We got ice cream (me, the usual chocolate and coffee) and ate it wandering around the pretty streets. Niece did not like her caramel ice cream (it was ok, a little burnt tasting), hubby liked his strawberry and coconut, and I enjoyed mine. We all agreed that Amorino was better, though. Also, the pastries were very good but the macarons only ok. Un Dimanche won the macarons competition, for sure!
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| Berthillon was a bit disappointing |
Back at the apartment, we decided on pizza for dinner again. It was as good as the first time and we met a really nice man (lives in the 7th) and his 20-something daughter (lives in London, visits Paris regularly). He said the pizza place was the best in Paris (we agreed even though we hadn’t tried any others, ha!) and recommended a boulangerie on St. Dominique as his favorite. He also told us we should visit the Cathedral at Chartres (would love to, next time!).
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