A Short Story About Paris

Every night from about 9 until 1, the Eiffel Tower puts on a 5 minute light show on the hour. We were finishing our dinner tonight, and Emily was telling a story when the light show started up.

"Oh look," she said, completely deadpan. "It's midnight."

What cosmopolitan girls we are raising here.

June 26, Part 2--Paris: Notre Dame

The best way to see Notre Dame? Take along someone who has just finished reading the novel by Victor Hugo and stand back. Hannah all but vibrated with her excitement of being in THE place where one of her favorite books took place.

There is nothing like this in America, and there never will be. Obviously, we have no 12th century great cathedrals, but even if we did, you would never have the opportunity to tour it as you can tour Notre Dame. Because no where in America would we countenance letting hundreds of people climb 400 steps up spiral staircases that are no wider than 3 feet. Once you start up these stairways, you are committed. There are no elevators, no escalators, and no little chairs that can lift the tired, the elderly, or the aerobically unfit the rest of the way. And there is no way to give up and go back down. The acrophobic are not accommodated in any way.

One tip from one who has experienced this tour: do not volunteer to carry anything for the other members of your party. As the Mom, I had the bag that held all the day's necessities: keys, money, extra batteries, extra cameras, souvenirs, etc. Because this was Paris, and I wanted to look a little bit chic (and not like an ugly American) I was carrying a (semi large) black shoulder bag. Because I am pathetically desperate to be helpful, I was also carrying a bag of souvenir books we bought to bone up on the sights and locations we had already seen.

This meant that I took up the entirety of the width of the tiny spiral staircases.

Here's the drill. You stand in line outside the north tower until you are admitted.










Due to space constraints, only about 20 people may enter about every 10 minutes. We waited an hour, and could probably have left one of us in line while the others patronized one of the fine establishments nearby.
















Once you are admitted, you enter the north tower and start up the largest spiral staircase you will see, about 4.5 feet across, and you ascend approximately 198 steps to the gallery. Here you enter a largest room, which contains an ornamental spiral staircase and is the entry point to "Esmeralda's cell." This is the small 6'x6' room that Quasimodo found for her when he rescued her from hanging and stashed her inside the cathedral for sanctuary.

Conveniently, it is also a gift store. Cleverly, we did not buy anything to add to our already heavy bags.

After absorbing the articles on offer, as well as selected quotes from Victor Hugo, you are free to continue up the stairs, which have narrowed down to the 3' width that is the standard for the rest of the tour. You climb another 215 steps to the "Chimera gallery." This is a gallery that spans the two towers and is populated with all the fantastical creatures we know and love as "gargoyles."

These are amazing sculptures, actually--each one is different, each one is full of personality. This was my favorite part of the cathedral, actually, and I have the pictures to prove it. There is also a lovely view out over the island toward the west, and you can pick out most of the famous sights of Paris--the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Conciergerie and Saint-Chappelle.

The stairs up are narrow, and dark, and would have been even darker before electric lights were added at each turn of the spiral. We were forced to conclude that Victor Hugo's hunchback must have been immensely strong to have climbed these dark and steep steps with the unconscious Esmeralda over his shoulder as he scampered up all the heights of the cathedral calling "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" to the crowds gathered below.

The contrast is also incredibly moving--the dark and slightly oppresswive stone stairwell is close and was quite humid during our visit. The entry onto the gallery suddenly opens up to light, sky, and moving air as well as the curious faces of the mythical creatures who dot every corner of the walkway.

Of course, as literary tourists, we had to look down onto the plaza in front of the cathedral, which was thronged with people, just as in the Victor Hugo novel. In our case, however, the crowd was NOT there to see a hanging, but to hold a memorial vigil for Michael Jackson, found dead hours before. We did not bother calling for sanctuary to them.

From on the galley, one can see the paving of the parvis that has ben laid out to show the much smaller one that would have been present in Quasimodo's time. The current layout provides an enormous approach to the cathedral's facade, so you can stand back and see it in its entirety. This is a fairly new development, as originally, the space in front of the church was only about twice as wide as a sidewalk, with a narrow street centered on the church. Thus until fairly recently, it was only possible to see about a third of the facade at any distance, and to see the whole of it only very close up.

Thanks to the plan for development and the subsequent discovery of Roman ruins, the church is now entirely visible from the front.

The gallery is well guarded with screens to prevent anyone inadvertently going over, but the walk itself is quite narrow, again no more than 3 feet wide in most places. You can cross to the south tower and enter the bell tower, and climb another long stairway to see the Emmanuel bell, the largest of the bells of Notre Dame.

Although the cathedral is built of stone, the bell tower is actually made of wood, and sits inside (but independent of) the stone tower that surrounds it. It looks incredibly fragile, especially figuring that the wood has been there for 900 years, but the point is that the motion caused by the rocking of the bells, as well as the reverberation, beans that the stone would have fallen long ago under the stress. In contrast, the wood absorbs and disperses the motion. Because of the giant tusses that compose the belltower, the entry doors are tiny, and many tourists knock their heads against the beams that cross around them. While I managed to avoid self-concussion, I also opted out of climbing to see the bell itself, and managed to still be inelegant in manuevering with my bags. Although from where I stood, it appeared that the stairs were much wider and arise up the belfry in a square rather than a circle

The next stage is to climb up yet another narrow and dark stairway which twists up to the very top of the south tower. This is so much smaller than the gallery that a guide limits the number of persons who may ascend at one time. This is where I got separated from the rest of the family, as they went up and I was held back. So I amused myself by taking pictures and getting my breath back. When it was my turn, I had to stop feeling sorry for myself because behind me was a young man carrying an enormous camping back pack that would have sustained him for about two weeks in the wilderness. So my bags--not so onerous after all.

The very top of the tower is perfectly square, and from there one has a good view down at the roof of the nave, the metal spire and the statues of the apostles that stand just below it. From the top one can see Sacre Coeur, the famous white cathedral of Montmartre, as well as most of Paris. It's been years since I've read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and I had lost access to my archivist, but I believe Quasimodo was supposed to have carried the unconscious Esmerelda all the way to the top of the towers, possibly even scaling the exterior of the tower, before depositing her back below in the first gallery. Up close, scaling the cathedral seems possible, given the numerous little floral knobbly decorations that line the building.

Heading back down, the guides give advice; "Don't look down." The spirals are only briefly interrupted, and if you watch your feet the whole way down, you can get terribly dizzy. So the advice is to hold on to the rail and and look ahead. I did not bother to count how many steps it was to the bottom. Officially, it is about 400. If true, then it must be about seven hundred thousand and four hundred steps up--many many more steps going up than down.

After the experience of the towers, the church itself, while beautiful and enormous, is simply a church. By the time we exited the towers, evening mass had begun. Unusually for us Protestants, the sanctuary remains open to visitors during services, and dozens of people per hour walk up the two side naves past the various chapels to the transept. That is the place to see the deservedly famous rose windows.

Again, I am convinced that I remembered Victor Hugo writing that the interior of Notre Dame would have been ornately painted, the ceiling dark blue and patterned with stars, the columns and other architectural elements gilded and colored. Hannah doesn't remember that, so maybe I just imagined it. With just the white stone, the windows are vivid and eyecatching.

But my favorite part of the cathedral is the exterior, because this is where its incredible age shows. Sure, I "know" that the Cathedral of Notre Dame is a medieval building, but that somehow didn't prepare me to see gargoyles that have worn down to nothing but nubs. The fairly well protected carvings of the tympana also show wear and even missing pieces, which makes the passage of time more concrete.

There is a possibly apocryphal story about a stone carver working on the back of a statue to be placed in a nich on the outside of a cathedral--maybe even Notre Dame. A passerby asks "Why are you carving the back? No one will ever see it." The carver answers "God will see it." Something about that story sums up my feeling about Notre Dame. The multitude of figures carved in the stone show talent, imagination, and even the joy of craftsmen who worked on its construction. Their pride of craft and their whimsical humor make them feel very real, even though they have been dead for centuries. To see their work still in place, however worn by time, means that in a very real sense, they live on.

Mickey and Hannah Attack Paris, by Hannah and Mickey

Imagine if you will, a somewhat busy street in Paris, filled with pedestrians and tiny cars (and - of course - Cops on Rollerblades (coming soon to a theatre near you)), when suddenly, and without warning, a single blaring horn rises over the din. Follow this by several screams, a few crashes, one very monkey-like maniacal laugh, and the distinct screech of French police cars (Mickey is providing it for me, where I copy it verbatim here - "WEE WAH! WEE WAH! WEE WAH!") This is the sound of Mickey and Hannah attacking Paris. (I have already been mocked by a Frenchman. Don't worry.)





The highlights so far of our trip were climbing Notre-Dame (Mickey walked up about three stairs before mock-screaming "SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!" and wondering how Quasimodo ran up all those stairs holding an unconscious person over his shoulder), seeing Box Five at the Palais Garnier, and walking down the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles - or "Hall of Mir-RURS!" (don't ask).




Notre Dame was very high, lots of steps. One kid we followed up to the bell tower counted 452 steps total, although he did skip from 389 to 450... so we're not really sure. (Mickey says the sign said 400 steps.) Throughout the tower tour, there were references to Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hannah thought the coolest part was where they found what Victor Hugo was thinking of for Esmeralda's cell in the towers. Mickey just liked saying "SANCTUARY!".



Our evil plots are thought of up on Notre Dame.


The Palais Garnier was very extravagant. Mickey thought that the "over the top decorations matched the posh-posh-posh-posh-poshyness of being in the opera all just made it go POOM!" It was very cool, and we got to go into the auditorium even though they were getting ready for the ballet. We might possibly have gone and stood obnoxiously outside of the Phantom's box as well... um, yes, we did.


Mickey thought that the coolest part was going into the restaurant and seeing the painted menu. (Mickey's reasoning: "They were paintings, AND THE MENU!") Hannah liked that the entrance for rich people went into a "cave" where there was a statue of the Oracle of Delphi, because Apollo is the god of drama and music - hence, opera. It was a gorgeous building, which was dwarfed in comparison to Versailles, which we went to that afternoon.

Now, why was Versailles a favorite?



We liked Petit Trianon, especially the Queen's Hamlet (This is NOT the Prince of Denmark in a glass case, as Mickey seemed to assume). It was very cute, although it seemed almost like Disneyland in that it was so cartoonish.

That about sums up our highlights from the trip to Paris, and we will leave you with this observation: It's easier than you would think to find French fries in Paris.

Next up -- Mickey and Hannah Invade York.

June 26, Paris: The Louvre

I am posting this with only a few pictures, because my pictures are still on my camera, scheduled to be uploaded tonight.

Day 2--our first breakfast in the B&B. Breakfast is verrrrry frrrrrrench. Orange juice, tea, milk, yogurt, granola (one with raisins, one with chocolate), fresh fruit, bread, croissants, butter, jam, and three cheeses. We all slept hard, but we are not yet over the sleep deprivation. Even without crossing seven time zones, getting only 3 hours of sleep takes a couple of days for recovery.

We opt for the Metro, since the delightful and amusing Batobus takes about an hour to travel from our location. We arrive at the incredibly convenient Metro station. "Parlez-vous l'anglais?" I ask the gentleman behind the glass. "Non!"

Sigh. "Je voudrais quatre billet de Louvre, s'il vous plait." "Quatre ticket?" "Oui. Au retournee, s'il vous plait." "Huit billets?" "Oui."

But there is a grand complication! A packet of 10 tickets is cheaper than 8! But I don't recognize the word for "packet." The man in the glass booth is trying to explain "cheaper" to me, which is not the problem. It seems to take forever, but it's really only about 5 seconds, and we are on our way.

The Metro exit for the Louvre drops us below the main courtyard of the Louvre, and into a shopping area with the pendant glass pyramid dropping from the ceiling and almost-but-not-quite-touching a tiny stone pyramide set in the floor. Unlike my confused recollection from "The Da Vinci Code," this pendant pyramid is NOT directly underneath the one in the courtyard. We have to walk several hundred feet to reach that portion of the concourse. It is beautiful. From below, the glass pyramid funnels bright light into the large marble floored courtyard. People are walking up and down a large spiral staircase, and a handicapped accessible lift rises through the center of the spirals.

There is a brief line to get checked through security, and we walk to the museum itself, heading first to the medieval foundations of the original fortress.

Then, it's off to the Egyptian rooms. There are three floors of Egyptian artifacts. Did you know that France "administered" Egypt for many years, notably during the height of archeological discovery? Some wonderful pieces ended up in the Louvre. Being the geek I am, I have a profound desire to mentally sort the collection by date of creation, date and location of discovery. The Louvre has seen fit to group the collection by theme--writing materials; food preparation; metal work; faience. Eventually I give up--it is hard to re-arrange an entire museum-worth of materials by one's self.

But the statues of Ahkenaten are truly wonderful. He has been a favorite of mine for years now, willing to be depicted as a distinct human being rather than as an abstract god.

Suddenly, what is this? It is the Museum of Charles X. Quick history refresher required--Louis XVI is beheaded, and the National Assembly rules France until Napoleon Bonaparte takes over and declares himself emperor. Once he is finally defeated and exiled to Elba, Louis XVI's brother rules as Louis XVIII, then a third brother rules as Charles X. It is this third brother who has inherited the Egyptian treasures acquired by Napoleon and he displays them in a series of rooms opened to the public. In good Bourbon style, of course, the opulence of the rooms themselves overwhelms the artifacts displayed, and suddenly it is perfectly easy to see the Louvre as a royal palace instead of a museum.


























Wow. How will Versailles compare? We immediately decide we do NOT need to hike over to see the portions of the Louvre which reproduces the apartments of Napoleon III.
































For some reason, the Crown jewels are off display although Charles X has a number of amazing bits of jewelry to substitute.

Brains are beginning to get full, so we head off to Italian painting.

And as we turn the corner, there is the Winged Nike of Samothrace.

















She stands alone at the head of a grand staircase, and we admire her. But what makes her so much more famous than any other statues? She's not nearly as old as the materials in the Egypt collection. There is a lot of information on her on the Louvre website, but I'm not able to convey much of that without the visual aids on the internet.

We enter Italian painting, and it is an embarrassment of riches. How do you even begin to look at all the amazing works on display? And how does the paint stay on the canvases when the air in the gallery is so hot and humid? Halfway down the gallery is a turn off to a separate room, where the Mona Lisa hangs in regal splendor.

She is much much smaller than I imagined. Really, she is of modest size, especially compared to the truly monumental canvases hung on the side walls. She is also almost impossble to get close to--hundreds of people are trying to take pictures of her, of themselves in front of her, of themselves reflected in the glass which covers the painting and the protective shield in front of that.

I just want to see what all the fuss is about. I mean, we've all seen Mona Lisa reproductions until we just can't see her clearly for all the accumulated cultural detritus. As close as I can get--which isn't really all that close--it seems like the "trick" is in the way the light strikes the dimensional paint. She alternately appears to be straight-faced, and smiling slightly. Even without moving, I can see both a smile and the absence of one. Sort of. All the glass and pushing and humidity and the smallness of the painting make it hard to see. So I extract myself as gracefully as possible and exit the room.































(Who is more mysterious? Mona Lisa, or Hannah Ross? You make the call.)

Pausing for a moment to admire a HUGE and lovely painting of Aphrodite, which I like much better.

Outside in the gallery are six other paintings by Leonardo, including the Dan Brown endorsed "Madonna of the Rocks" and the single Vatican commision of John the Baptist. Emily is with me, and she is tired, so we find a bench where we can put silly words into the mouths of severed heads, saints receiving stigmata, and pietas. It is clearly time for nourishment.

After a cafeteria break in the Richelieu cafe (did Richelieu really eat Quiche Lorraine with Diet Coke?) we seek out the Venus di Milo--the last of the Big Three attractions we haven't yet seen. On the way, we pass through the "Room of the Caryatids."































(This is Diana, not a Caryatid.)

This is a room of amazing marble statuary, including a sleeping hermaphrodite who appears to be napping on an air mattress from our basement, and a lovely sleeping woman. So, we ask, what makes the Venus di Milo so famous?

(Did we even bother to take yet another picture of the Venus di Milo? It appears we didn't, although I take the opportunity to teach Emily the word "callipygian."

Sure, the pose is unusual, but we can't determine that for ourselves, because all the statues we have seen are in unusual poses. It is a mystery, we decide, and head out to Notre Dame.

June 25--Paris

We left the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport at 5:30, and arrived in Paris at 9:oo a.m. local time. Did anybody manage to sleep more than 3 hours? Not likely, despite the freely provided sleep mask, ear plugs and head phones for the inflight radio.

We landed at Charles de Gaulle airport, which is larger and more confusing than is believable, even without the language barrier. However, we sailed through customs, f0und all our luggage, and made it to a taxi stand.

Thus came my first real test with a native English speaker. Our taxi driver did not speak much English, and I last studied French back in college. Even though that was only six months ago (ha ha). I did manage to get him our address and paid!

We found this B&B on the internet, which looked amazing--and then we saw it in person, and there was no way that photos could do this place justice. It is GORGEOUS. An ENORMOUS apartment a block from the Seine, decorated in glorious colors and textures and objets d'art--very very French. The girls were speechless, and Emily grabbed a camera and documented just about everything in the place.



Then we told them to look out the window. At that point, Hannah's eyes just glowed, and Emily could only say "Dude!" Yup, it was just that impressive.
































That is the actual view from our bedroom window. No lie.

We were greeted by the housekeeper Jola, a woman about our age from Poland who has been in France 10 years now and has very little English. We managed with Cris's and my limited French and her limited English. Thank god for the excellent and expressive Franglais language.

We got the keys, got a tour, and were on our own.








So of course, we went straight to the Eiffel Tower. What can one say about the overwhelmingly ubiquitous symbol of France? That it is taller and more beautiful in person than you can begin to appreciate from the pictures? That is it swarming with tourists from everywhere? That it is delicate and lacy and each of the four legs ("pillars" officially) has a small elevator that runs up to the first and second landings? At least two pillars had people walking the stairs as well--hundreds and hundreds of stairs.

And much less junk than you might imagine. Sure, there were some unofficial sellers of key chains and models of the tower in all sizes, but they were clearly novices, as they ran in packs of at least 3-4, saying only "un euro? Un Euro?" Nothing like the hoardes of street vendors you find at D.C. tourist spots. At one point, a tribe of about two dozen ran by, with variations on the same few pieces. I wonder how successful they are.

The Eiffel Tower is hard to comprehend all at once, and from up close. So after a quick lunch quayside, we piled onto a Batobus and toured the Seine. Which was just about as wonderful as you would imagine, except for the severe jet lag.


















So we got out and walked around Notre Dame. Which is just as amazing as you would also imagine, except for the lines. So we walked to the Conciergerie and viewed the huge medieval hall and the prison cells of the Revolution, including the reconstruction of Marie-Antoinette's cell, where she spent her last days before being tried and executed.

In front of Notre Dame is a "Crypte Archeologic" remains of building construction on the Ile de la Citie dating back to Roman times. Of course, under ordinary circumstances, this is the kind of location where we would trace the ebb and flow of populations over time, link dates with significant events in Western Canon, and basically be the biggest geeks imaginable. Because we are loopy with jet lag, we note that it is cool, and then we move on.

Then it was back to the Batobus, with a brief stop by Cris and Hannah at Shakespeare and Co., a famous used book store on the Rive Gauche about a hundred yards west of Notre Dame. We circled Ile de Saint-Louis and Ile de la Citie, and started looking for a place for dinner. We ended up at Chez Andre, a recommendation from Scott and Barbara who ate there about a month ago. Wine was drunk, bread was scarfed, dessert was gulped--and there was food there too. Cris got the best, a to-die-for risotto with grilled scallops that he made many happy noises while eating.

Once we got back to our rooms, I completely checked out. I lay down on the bed, and woke up the next morning, still in my clothes and still on top of the covers. It's amazing just how good a good sleep feels.

More pictures later! I promise!