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.
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