Paris - 7th June

Didn't have to set an alarm clock this morning, so we slept in til 10.30.
Went for a walk in the general direction of the river.
More amazing buildings and arcades.










We came upon a church that looked interesting so we went inside.
It was Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles. Excitingly named 'Chapter-church of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre'. It was founded in 1235. It contains some works of art and murals by famous artists that we had never heard of, but we were impressed anyway. It's organ dates from 1788, 3 keyboards and 24 stops. The organ is registered as a historical monument. There are no pews in the church they are all individual chairs. A nice find, we are well off of the main tourist track at this point in time.



 






Tammy found a shop she liked.





 
 
Eventually we arrived at the river. It's a beautiful river with gorgeous buildings on each side.

 







We decided to walk along the river in the direction of Notre Dame. Unfortunately they were removing asbestos today so they had the roads closed around it. We had to view it from the other side of the river, where clouds of asbestos were blowing over in the wind.
 
Just a bit about Notre Dame.
Construction began in 1160 and was completed in 1260. So no-one who saw the building works start would have seen it finished.
In the 1790's the Cathedral suffered a lot of damage during the French Revolution.
It became a popular tourist destination in 1831 after the publication of Victor Hugo's novel 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Until a few months ago, 12 million people visited Notre Dame every year, making it the most visited place in France, well ahead of the Eiffel Tower at a mere 9 million.
The Cathedral contained the crown of thorns worn by Jesus on the cross, a peice of the cross and a nail from the cross. 

On 15th April 2019 the roof caught fire and burned for 15 hours destroying the roof and the spire. The crown of thorns, nail and the piece of the cross were saved.
It will probably be a few years before it is open to the public again.
A coach driver told us he had driven past the building many times over the years and dropped people off to go inside, he had never been inside. He is sad that now he never will.
He obviously thinks it will be a long time before it is open again.
We were disappointed not  to be able to go inside, it was top of the list for Paris.

 


From there we headed back over the river and on towards the July Column.
The Column was erected in 1835 to commemorate the French revolution.
It is 47 metres high and is topped by a gold statue, the 'Spirit of Freedom'.
The column has the names of all the people who died in the French Revolution engraved on it.
The Bastille was a fortress built around 1360, it had 8 towers and was a huge structure, it would have been a top tourist attraction but it was demolished after the revolution. 
The July column now stands in it's place.


 




From the Bastille we headed off to find the Centre Georges Pompidou building. Along the way we passed through the typical Parisian streets with their amazing buildings. France has still got a lot of buildings and wasn't as badly damaged as other countries during the war. Mainly because they surrendered reasonably early in the war.   




 


Anyway.
We found the building. It was very revolutionary (like the word, thought I would keep using it) in it's time, the 1970's, having all of it's structure and services on the outside.
Steven remembers as a student studying it a little bit and seeing all of the photos of it. When we found it, it looked a little tired and, dare we say, a little dated. It is the museum of modern art. There were more than 3 people in the queue, so Steven decided he wasn't all that interested in modern art and anyway, all the interesting parts of the building were on the outside.

We went down to the underground and caught a train back to our hotel. The Paris underground is not wheelchair friendly with lots and lots of stairways. We found this difficult on our first day with our luggage. You have to go down a long flight of stairs just to go back up again. It's also a very large system. And the stations all have weird sounding names, our station is 'Strasbourg Saint-Denis'.



The coffee shops in Paris, of which there are many, have outdoor seating. It is often worth asking the cost of the coffee depending on where you want to sit. A coffee to take away may be four Euros, a coffee to drink inside may be five Euros, whilst a coffee to sit outside may be six Euros. They love to sit outside. But more than that they love to watch the people walking past. As a result all the coffee shops have their chairs facing out, towards the street. The coffee shops with the best view are the busiest. This coffee shop was on the corner, one side was a busy street, the other on a quiet street. The busy side was packed, this is the other side.

After a freshen up, or as Steven calls it, a beer, we went out for an evening walk to do some window shopping. Unfortunately the area we are staying in doesn't encourage window shopping. We think it may normally involve the throwing of bricks. 
We had a nice dinner at a Scottish restaurant and then returned home for bed.