London Calling: Notre Dame and the Louvre

Still can’t believe I’m in Paris, France, and that when I return I’ll be headed to London again to live two more weeks in that wonderful city. Today, we slept in a bit in order to recuperate. Paris is an hour ahead of London so we lost an hour. By sleeping in, I mean until 8am. We had brunch at a place down from our hotel called Bechu. (I can't find a website for this either!) We had noticed it on our walk to the Eiffel Tower and decided to go back and try it out. For brunch I had a ham and cheese sandwich, and I think it had butter on it. Apparently ham and cheese sandwiches are very French. One cannot pass up the delicious pastries that this place has, so we got something for dessert. I had an éclair that was on my list of items to eat in Paris. The Morgans got a chocolate filled pastry thing. I did see the waitress scratch her head with the same hand that a piece of bread was in and I almost lost my appetite. That’s gross.

Our plan for the day was the go to Notre Dame because they had the veneration of the crown of thorns. What is that you may ask? From the website: “The relics of the Passion presented at Notre-Dame de Paris include a piece of the Cross, which had been kept in Rome and delivered by Saint Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, a nail of the Passion and the Holy Crown of Thorns.” In order to get there, we decided to take the Metro, which is the underground system. At first the process to get the tickets was very confusing. We had to ask a few people what to do, given that the kiosk was all in French. We finally managed that and took off with the directions we were given by the lady at our hotel. We had to change trains once but managed to find our way with ease. Notre Dame is absolutely beautiful. It’s so tall and commanding with beautiful architecture. And that’s only on the outside. We got there early because we did not know if there would be a line. I mean, this is pretty big deal. There was a massive line going into the church, but it was moving quickly and it was not time to see the crown of thorns. We asked and found out we had to wait until 2 to get in a line to see it. The massive line was leading into the church and people were allowed to walk around inside. So we went ahead and got in that line, because we did want to see the interior. It was just as beautiful as the exterior. I loved it so much. Everything was just beautiful. I don’t really know how to describe it. It was overwhelming with all its beauty. I kept looking for Quasimodo but sadly couldn't find him. After we walked around inside for a while, we came back out to find the line to see the relics. Well, we couldn’t find that so we got back in the long line again, thinking that may be it. It technically wasn’t but once we were inside for a second time, we asked someone and were told to take a seat in the middle. So we did and soon realized this was not an ordinary exhibit. We were going to sit through a ceremony. So we waited for a while since we got there so early and got some pretty good seats near the front. I talked to the guy beside me who was very nice. There were a lot of people there, and a lot of nuns. There was even a priest looking man who also looked like Rasputin. He was scary looking, and for some reason got the hold the pillow with the crown of thorns on it. I don’t really know why he got such special privileges; he didn’t even shower. The ceremony began and was all in French, so I really had no idea what was going on, but the music was quite beautiful and I liked the hymns though they were in French. At the end they brought down the pillow with the crown and people could go up and kiss it and such. It was like communion such that you go up row by row when you are told. Because we had close seats we were able to see it pretty soon after and apparently one was supposed to leave after. The crown is held in a very nice glass and metal ring, with one side only glass so that a person can see in. So, you really just look in there. Many people were kissing it, but I don’t do germs so I didn’t want to. I only got a brief look because they were keeping the line moving, but I’m so glad we went. If that really is the crown of thorns, that’s amazing. Even if it isn’t, it is a great reminder of the price Jesus paid for our sins. Wow. Just wow.

Interior photos

The Gargoyles

The Crown of Thorns

The next thing we wanted to accomplish was The Louvre. Paris is really confusing and the streets aren’t set up like normal and the street names change every so often, which is ridiculous. We managed to walk in the opposite direction and realized this soon after. While we were standing looking at the map, it began to rain. A man came up to us, who was super friendly, and in French-English told us he was going to stand under our umbrella (ella…ella…eh). Oh, hey. I guess that’s fine. I was looking around to see if he had a friend who was going to rob us blind. He walked a good ways with us making small talk, but then he started saying he didn’t have money. Goodbye now strange man. We managed to get rid of him and not two minutes after he left us, he was under another woman’s umbrella. One our walk in the right direction, we came across two notable bridge. The first is the Pont de Arts where lovers put locks on the bridge and throw the key into the Seine. There were so many locks and it was so cool looking. I could have spent a good long while there looking at all the different types of locks. Some people had even put big bicycle locks, but that just looked dumb and ugly. We also walked by Pont Neuf and were able to talk some better pictures than the ones we could on the boat ride. We finally made it to The Louvre, entered through the glass pyramid, and purchased our tickets. We had meant to do some research to see what important works were in there, but we didn’t. Thankfully the map had the highlights.

All the locks

Pont Neuf

People say that it can take a day or so to go through the whole museum and I totally agree, although I don’t know why you would go through and read everything. If you just want to see some highlights and a few other things, that also takes forever and I’ll tell you why. This museum is set up so that everything is completely spread out and on different levels. It was the most confusing thing in the world. That is the sole reason it takes so long. It’s massive and spread out everywhere. We got some exercise, no big deal. We needed to plan out what we wanted to see so we sat down at the café and had a little snack. I had the chocolate filled pastry, which was absolutely delicious. We set off to find the Mona Lisa, which is pretty much the reason people come here, besides people who like museums and art. There were a ton of people crowding around and the actual picture is very small! Who knew? I managed to elbow my way up to the front to take some pictures. We also saw Hammurabi’s Code. We also saw some other notable items. Amongst all this artwork there is a lot of nudity. Good gracious. In the sculptures, which is expected, and also in the paintings! A bit scandalous, if I do say so. In the end it took up roughly three hours to get through what we wanted to see.

The Louvre

The entrance

Mona Lisa

There was a fair next to the front of The Louvre and at the fair was a massive ferris wheel. It was a smaller, less impressive London Eye. From what I had been reading, it looked to be a permanent thing, kinda trying to be the London Eye. We wanted to ride it, but decided the view of the city would be much more lovely at night. We went to a place called L'imperial Rivoli for dinner, which was ride by the fair. It was very nice and we had the nicest waiter ever. We were all a bit smitten with him. For dinner I had beef bourguignon, which is a French dish that Julia Childes perfected. It’s basically a beef stew (heavy on the beef) in a cast iron pot. One also gets mashed potatoes. It was delicious. Simply wonderful, and I felt very French. All day we had wanted to try a crepe, since it’s French and on the list of food we needed to eat in Paris. We resolved to have some after dinner. Emily and I shared the chocolate crepe and the imperial crepe which had chocolate, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream. They were good. Not my favorite sweet I have had here in Paris, but good. They had a bit of a weird texture to them. After our lovely dinner we went to the fair. It was a spectacle. They had Disney characters painted on the rides and some sketchy looking rides. We made our way to the ferris wheel and got on it. We rode in little glass boxes with seats and had a great view of the city! We could see the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur. It was a great experience. Afterwards we hopped back on the metro and headed to the hotel. By the way, I am a beast at the metro system. A beast.