Paris Part I

Gentle Friends we are coming down to the last couple of Posts about my trip.  I was in Paris for about 3 days.  I have been to Paris a few times and had seen many things already, all the highlights, so this trip I was going to concentrate on churches I had not already been to..... except the Sainte-Chapelle - that is a space I will always go back to, and make time for everytime I go to Pairs.  

Let me start off with some hotel snaps.....

.... this is actually not a shot I took, but one I lifted from their web site, for some reason my snaps just did not turn out.... My Hotel was in the 9th arrondissement and called, The Hotel la residence du Pre and is actually 3 hotels along the cobbled rue de Pierre Semmard - it's a budget type hotel, I told my travel agent when I was booking a place to stay.... "so long as it's clean and accessible, with a bath en suite, it would be fine."  My room was on the top, 5th, floor and quite small, but that was just fine.  Here are a couple of shots.....

... looking up the street..... and .....

.... looking down the street towards the Square Montholon.

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Like I said before one of the places I will always get back to in Paris is the Sainte-Chapelle.....

..... a little history...."Begun some time after 1239 and consecrated on 26 April 1248,the Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period of Gothic Architecture.  Its erection was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns,  one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom.  The Sainte-Chapelle is one of the surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Although damaged during the French revolution, and restored in the 19th century, it retains one of the most extensive in-situ collections of 13th-century stained glass anywhere in the world.  The Sainte-Chapelle has been a national historic monument since 1862. Though small compared to many other famous buildings, this "jewel box" structure is one of the world's most beautiful buildings still standing."  I would always recommend a visit to this space!!

The Sainte-Chapelle is made up of two spaces a lower chapel and an upper chapel.  Here are some snaps of the lower.....

and some of the magnificent upper chapel.....

... there was quite a bit of restoration going on in the chapel, as can be seen from the missing bits in the rose window...

... The most famous features of the chapel, among the finest of their type in the world, are the great stained glass windows, for whose benefit the stone wall surface is reduced to little more than a delicate framework. Fifteen huge mid-13th-century windows fill the nave and apse, while a large rose window with Flamboyant tracery (added to the upper chapel c.1490) dominates the western wall.  Here's a detail from the restored alter....

........  also on the Ile de la Cite is ........

.....La Conciergerie is a former royal palace and prison located on the west of the island.  It is part of the larger complex known as the Palais de Justice, which is still used for judicial purposes. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were taken from La Conciergerie to be executed on the guillotine at a number of locations around Paris.  Also on the island is another famous building......

... Notre Dame de Paris, a really wonderful cathedral on the eastern half of the Ile de la Cite.  The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic Architecture and among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world. I have been inside on other occasions but this time, the line which snaked for blocks was just too much for me and so I skipped it went along to the left bank and a visit to my next church..... Saint Severin....

 .....located on the lively tourist street, Rue Saint-Severin, it is one of the oldest churches that remains standing on the left bank.The church was built at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the Gothic Style, and has a nave with lateral aisles. An additional aisle on the south side was built in the early 14th century to accommodate the growing congregations from the nearby university. After the church was seriously damaged by fire in 1448 during the Hundred Years War,  the archpriest Guillaume d'Estouteville rebuilt the church in the Late-Gothic style, adding a new aisle to the north.

In 1489, a semi-circular apse was added at the eastern end with an ambulatory complete with columns including the strangely coiled central pillar - called the "palm tree" pillar, it was that pillar I was most interested in seeing.....

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The last church for today is Saint-Germain L'Auxerrois......

......Located at the center of Paris, at the edge of the Seine, this old parish church of the kings of France is generally regarded as the Church of the Louvre. Built over several centuries, it shows a variety of architectural styles, ranging from the Romanesque belfry to Gothic. Its stained glass dates from the 16th century, and contains sculptures from as far back as the 13th century.

 ....  this was a part of a much larger alter, It was a great piece to encounter.....  the imagery on the top is A&E in the garden and then on the bottom the Annunciation, as you can see it is behind a piece of crappy plastic for protection which really hindered my photograph.....

... and with this super window of the Apostles, I think that will wrap up this "Paris Part I" post.  Thanks again for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar