the island in the centre of paris, surrounded by the river seine & belonging to neither the rive gauche or the rive droite = the île de la cité. it's where the medieval city lutetia was centred, because it was protected on all sides by water.
nowadays, it's home to the one & only notre dame de paris, the gothic-style 13th century cathedral (as if it needs any introduction..).
don't know how i managed it, but i was lucky enough to have a walk around inside with not many other people - so i could look past the tourist-ish-ness of the place and actually appreciate it's history. i'm trying to get to a bunch of these more famous spots before the summer really kicks in, because it will bring with it not so much as a wave, but a tsunami of tourists. let's just ignore the fact that i am one of them...
notre dame is free to enter, because technically it's still a place of worship. they had a choir singing those really haunting hymns that echo throughout the cathedral. sends shivers down my spine!
the 200 y/o stained-glass windows filter weak rays of sun down into the cathedral. the most impressive ones are huge spheres made up of 100's of panes of glass.
apparently on the first sunday of every month you can climb up to the top of the cathedral and get some spectacular views, but despite living in montmartre and therefore at the top of 200 steps, my legs would probably turn to jelly 30 seconds into the climb... i'll stick to appreciating it from the ground.
this is another one of those places i have already been to - but every visit is a completely different experience. last time i was here it was evening, icy cold & dark - so the cathedral had a completely different atmosphere. still just as creepily beautiful as ever, though. the only letdown about notre dame - there's no hunchbacks.
S.
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