Photo 1: The street below Sacré Couer.
Photo 1: The street below Sacré Couer. |
Sunday morning we headed to the north of Paris to see Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) Cathedral. We got off the Metro and up the stairs to come out in a section of town which seems to have wall to wall used clothing and yardage shops. We picked out way up the narrow street which seemed to be filled with pedestrians and street vendors. Every now and again a brave motorist would make his way up the street, but only by blaring his horn to clear a path. A memorable sight was the little boy whose mother had told him to relieve himself by peeing against the tire of a Land Rover parked at the curb. |
 Photo 2: The Cathedral as the fog lifts. |
We finally got up to the top of the street and there was the cathedral way up at the top of the Montparnasse. At this point there were vendors with their wares spread out on blankets in the street. We crossed the street and went through the little iron gate and then proceeded up the steep hill toward the church. My count showed 238 steps from the iron gate up the hill to the front door of the church, but it seemed like double that! As we went up I kept thinking that the sidewalk vendors would eventually dwindle as we got farther up and closer to the front door of the church, but they were out there selling their trinkets and souvenirs to the very door! It reminded me of the temple money changers in the Bible. |
 Photo 3: The Ambulatory |
Sacred Heart is not as big as St. Paul's or
Westminster (or even King's College Chapel), but it is beautiful in its own way and very
nicely situated on a hill above Paris. A great half-circle part of the building behind the
altar (the Ambulatory) had various segments of the "pie" dedicated to various
causes including one asking for donations to the restoration and maintenance of Sacred
Heart itself. Here (as in several other big stone church buildings) they had very thin
column speakers slotted into the flutes of the big building structure columns. I didn't
hear any of these PA systems in operation, but at least the vertical control would keep
the sound from bouncing around the ceiling! On our way back out, the fog finally lifted and we could see Paris from this very scenic spot. We passed a little snack shop on our way down the street and went in and had a very good banana split. We then proceeded via Metro down to the "Ille de Paris" where Notre Dame is located. On both of my trips to Europe, the number of buildings covered with scaffolding was notable. On this trip, half of the front of Notre Dame was covered with scaffolding, apparently for renovation and cleaning. |