Parijs

We head off to The Notre Dame Cathedral. Since the Metro entrance is just outside the hotel entrance, we take the train to get there, a brave choice. It turns out a tourist-card for 3 days is a better option than buying a ticket for every trip... and we plan more trips around the city!

Arriving at "Cité", the nearest station. Going right at the station exit, (should have taken left turn) we face the Palais de Justice de paris.


Located in the heart of Paris on Ile de la Cité, the Palais occupies 4 hectares of land and is spread out over different floors making up almost 200,000m². Inside, there are some 24 kilometres of corridors, 7,000 doors, and more than 3,150 windows. The history of the Palais de Justice in Paris is often associated with the history of the city. It is also inextricably bound up with the history of royalty, as the palace was for a long time the residence of kings. In accordance with the divine right of kings, the king had all the legislative and executive power, as well as judicial authority

Notre-Dame lies at the eastern end of the Île de la Cité and was built on the ruins of two earlier churches, which were themselves predated by a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter. The cathedral was initiated by Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, who about 1160 conceived the idea of converting into a single building, on a larger scale, the ruins of the two earlier basilicas. The foundation stone was laid by Pope Alexander III in 1163, and the high altar was consecrated in 1189. The choir, the western facade, and the nave were completed by 1250, and porches, chapels, and other embellishments were added over the next 100 years.

Notre-Dame Cathedral consists of a choir and apse, a short transept, and a nave flanked by double aisles and square chapels. Its central spire was added during restoration in the 19th century, replacing the original, which had been completely removed in the 18th century because of instability. The interior of the cathedral is 427 by 157 feet (130 by 48 metres) in plan, and the roof is 115 feet (35 metres) high. Two massive early Gothic towers (1210–50) crown the western facade, which is divided into three stories and has its doors adorned with fine early Gothic carvings and surmounted by a row of figures of Old Testament kings. The two towers are 223 feet (68 metres) high; the spires with which they were to be crowned were never added. At the cathedral’s east end, the apse has large clerestory windows (added 1235–70) and is supported by single-arch flying buttresses of the more daring Rayonnant Gothic style, especially notable for their boldness and grace. The cathedral’s three great rose windows alone retain their 13th-century glass.

Notre-Dame Cathedral suffered damage and deterioration through the centuries. After the French Revolution it was rescued from possible destruction by Napoleon, who crowned himself emperor of the French in the cathedral in 1804. Notre-Dame underwent major restorations by the French architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc in the mid-19th century. The popularity of Victor Hugo’s historical novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), wherein the cathedral is the setting, was said to have inspired the renovations. During a restoration campaign in 2019, a fire broke out in the cathedral’s attic, and the massive blaze destroyed most of the roof, Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th-century spire, and some of the rib vaulting.

We continue walking along the seine direction "Le Louvre" Museum. After walking a mile it comes to our attention that Le Louvre is in the opposite direction....

Finally arriving at the Le louvre Museum. Walking in from the Pont du Carrousel, entering the Place du Carrousel roundabout-park, the Pyramid comes into view. The Louvre building complex underwent a major remodeling in the 1980s and ’90s in order to make the old museum more accessible and accommodating to its visitors. To this end, a vast underground complex of offices, shops, exhibition spaces, storage areas, and parking areas, as well as an auditorium, a tourist bus depot, and a cafeteria, was constructed underneath the Louvre’s central courtyards of the Cour Napoléon and the Cour du Carrousel. The ground-level entrance to this complex was situated in the centre of the Cour Napoléon and was crowned by a controversial steel-and-glass pyramid designed by the American architect I.M. Pei

Entrance from Pont du carrousel

Glass Pyramid viewed from Place Du Carrousel roundabout

Entrance to the Museum

Birds eye view of the court yard of the Museum

Buy tickets and it is time to tour around in the Museum. It is the world’s most-visited art museum, with a collection that spans work from ancient civilizations to the mid-19th century. Le Louvre’s collection of French paintings from the 15th to the 19th century is unsurpassed in the world, and it also has many masterpieces by Italian Renaissance painters, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19), and works by Flemish and Dutch painters of the Baroque period. The department of decorative arts displays the treasures of the French kings—bronzes, miniatures, pottery, tapestries, jewelry, and furniture—while the department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities features architecture, sculpture, mosaics, jewelry, and pottery.

After a late lunch in Le Louvre restaurant, it's time to head back to the Hotel. Tired from the long walk along the Seine and in the museum, a good rest get us ready for a late dinner. Gare de L'este has a selfservice resto, good enough for a small dinner. And of course a drink at the Parisian bars not to miss.

Gare de L'este lobby

Self service buffet

Get a tray and load up

Appropriate name: East Side Cafe

Cool drinks

Time to retreat to the room