We headed downstairs in the morning to try out the hotel's included continental breakfast. Being a continental breakfast, it was somewhat limited, including beverages, cereals, meats and cheeses and a basket containing different types of bread. Of the many things they do well in Paris, bread has to be near the top of the list. On the way out the front door, we purchased two Museum Passes from the hotel's desk clerk (more on this later). Then we stocked up on Euros at an ATM we'd seen across from the hotel and headed off on foot toward the first stop on our busy itinerary for the day, the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

At this point you might be asking why we set such a busy itinerary for our first day. What about jet lag? Don't they say you should take it easy your first day after flying across nine time zones? Don't they say you should listen to your body? Well maybe. But we'd done this a few times, and it was pretty clear our bodies were going to be saying "I don't like this." But we'd prepared for this. We'd exercised ourselves into some semblance of physical condition (not exactly marathon runners, but personally I'd gotten to a point where I could do a brisk three-mile walk while carrying a five-pound weight without feeling unduly fatigued afterward). On the flight across the ocean, we'd slept as much as we were able to, ate the airline food (not great cuisine, but necessary fuel) and stayed hydrated (a tip: plan ahead – don't guzzle a half-liter of water a half-hour before final approach; you will be confined to your seat until reaching the gate, and the approach, landing, taxiing and disembarking can take an ungodly amount of time when you're bursting at the seams). And we'd had enough experience to know the difference between hitting a wall and being in a situation where we could tell our bodies to shut up and get used to it. (Another tip: when you hit the wall, you'll know; rest immediately and get something to eat if possible – I've had good results from ice cream.) And we'd done some planning – uncertainty and unnecessary walking around can be draining. We knew exactly how to get to the cathedral, and we'd planned our next point of interest to be the Sainte-Chapelle church, located on the same island as Notre-Dame.

Notre-Dame. Right. Big church, major Paris landmark, frequented by hunchbacks. Built between 1163 and 1345 in Gothic style. Here are some pictures.







Notre-Dame was an early user of flying buttresses, used to hold the walls up. These were added during construction when cracks started to appear. Over the centuries, a number of decorations and modifications were both added and removed. If the elaborate carvings in the pictures above seem to you to be in awfully good condition for being 600-700 years old, it's because they are actually less than 200 years old. At the time of the French Revolution, the revolutionaries found themselves enraged by established religion, among other things, and tore all religious iconography from the church while looting its treasures. The row of 28 king statues across the façade, representing the Kings of Judah, received special treatment.

Thinking them renderings of French monarchs, the revolutionaries painstakingly beheaded each statue. Many of the heads were found during an excavation in 1977, and are now on display at the left-bank Cluny Museum (which we would be visiting later in the day). The cathedral was used for food storage for a time, but was cleaned up enough to serve as the setting for Napoleon's coronation (of himself) in 1804. The church remained largely unchanged until a restoration was begun in 1845, partly inspired by reaction to Victor Hugo's 1835 book, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The restoration was supervised by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and took 25 years. Both the interior and exterior were restored to Viollet-le-Duc's sometimes-controversial vision of their former glory. Also, a gothic spire was added and a number of chimeras (weird creatures similar to the already-present gargoyles) were added to the roof. The present fine condition of the façade owes itself to a restoration that was begun in the 1990's.

We entered the cathedral through the rightmost door, called the St. Anne doorway (admission is free) and began to explore the massive interior. We'd considered taking the stairway to the roof (not free), reached on the north side of the church, but the line was very long and we had a lot of plans for the day. In addition to the gargoyles and chimeras, there are apparently bells in the two towers (one in the south tower, four in the north tower, rung only infrequently), and of course a fine view of Paris. Inside the church are an assortment of chapels, an elaborate choir screen and a great deal of stained glass, including three spectacular and largely original rose windows (one in the façade, one at each end of the transept).












One can also visit the Treasury (also not free), in which are displayed a variety of reliquaries and vestments, among other articles, all extremely valuable and mostly dating from after the French Revolution (see looting, mentioned above). Some of the reliquaries were built to hold what is thought to be the true Crown of Thorns, which is housed in the cathedral but only displayed occasionally.






From the Notre-Dame Cathedral we walked toward the other end of the island to our next destination, the Sainte-Chapelle church.