Notre Dame Cathedral


Photo1: The famous façade.		 We took the Metro to the nearest station (none of them seem to be adjacent to the famous venues) and walked about 3 blocks to the end of the island where the church is located. Here (as in several other places around Paris), the main walking area appeared to be compacted crushed granite. The sidewalks along the streets are concrete, but the big area in front of Notre Dame is...well, dirt!

As with a large fraction of all European buildings, the face of Notre Dame was half covered with scaffolding at the time of our visit. (Neither the façade nor the weather in the photo at the left are representative of our visit!)

The church is of course very impressive both in its size and in the beauty of its decorations and artifacts. Like the other large churches on our trip, it is also a major tourist attraction. The number of people in the building who were just looking ("lurking" as we would say on the internet) was much greater than the number of people who go there to worship or take part in the ceremonies or sacraments.

Photo 2: The other end (on the île de la cité)		 I really wanted to hear the organ as it was recently rebuilt and features complete "fly by wire" analog control (with MIDI interface). But the next organ concert was that evening and there was nothing going on while we were there (except for the crowds of tourists, of course)! We then had a choice of staying for the organ concert or going over to The Cité Museum of Science & Industry. Given Drurys' aversion to "organ grinding" and my curiosity to see the legendary Cité, we decided to make our way to the northeast corner of Paris.

Photo 3: Most of these large cathedrals have movable chairs rather than pews or benches.		 Photo 4: The networked (IBM Token-Ring) organ console. Note the 9" CRT displays on either side.

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