July 6th Tuesday Notre Dame, Pantheon, Gardens, Sacre Coeur

We were at the Notre Dame early this morning to beat the crowds and had a great look through this magnificent Cathedral. What an awesome façade – I just love those portals, and the stained glass windows are glorious. We also went round the back Lincoln and checked out the flying buttresses! When you were biking in Spain I remember you telling us about a church you passed which is supposed to have the biggest flying buttresses in the world! See what an impact that information must have had on me, I still watch out for flying buttresses!
From here we headed over on to the left bank of the Seine and walked down past the Sorbonne with all the students out and about in the streets. Then around the next corner was our destination the Pantheon. What a fascinating building with its square cross shape flooplan and fabulous dome, built in a totally revolutionary way and what a chequered history it has had swinging between religious and republican use since day one. An example of this is the huge pendulum which hangs from the centre of the dome and so perfectly demonstrates the earth’s rotation. Our timing was perfect to join a group going right up to the top of the dome…… wonderful views of the interior on the ascent and great views all round over the City once outside at the top.
Once outside again we followed the students to a great little patisserie and got our best baguette to date which we quickly carried to the nearby gardens and devoured, plastered with a gooey camembert, cherry tomatoes and French radishes. Mmmmm. The gardens we were in surround the Palace of Luxembourg which used to be the Royal Palace but now houses the French Senate. It has a large area of mature trees with park benches and moveable chairs. There are plus statues, manicured lawns, formal flower gardens, petanque and tennis courts, a great and frenetically busy children’s playground and even a huge pond with solid wooden toy yachts children can hire for E2.00 per 30minutes. It’s a great leisure haven for locals and well used and respected.

From here we took the Metro across town to visit the Basilique de Sacre Coeur. This gleaming, white, domed cathedral sits on top of a hill, so we took the funicular railcar to reach the steps to save ourselves for the climb up this dome! I’m not that keen on getting too far off the ground, but on the other hand I like to get the views, so I’ve done very well getting to the top of all these domes on this trip! 300 steps up an ever narrowing circular staircase was pretty claustrophobic, but great 360 degree views when we got there and a really different perspective on things from here. The viewing through the interior was also very worthwhile. I thought the perfectly round shape of the altar area and interior dome and the glowing colours of the dome frescoe with Christ dominant were really striking.

Home tonight for the Soccer finals which has been great for me to catch up here.