Tue 23.Apr.2013
Paris, France
Yikes! Here I am in Sevilla, Spain, sitting on a pile of pictures from
the past week in Cordoba, and these Paris images aren't even up yet. Time to
get going.
You can blame the last day of delay on the deeply unreliable wi-fi connection
at my otherwise admirable cheapie hotel here in Sevilla. I was about to upload this
page last night when the connection gave out. So you are getting it tonight instead,
from a Starbucks-like coffee house at a corner with the colorful name of Puerta
de la Carne - Gate of the Meat. Who could make this stuff up?
Sainte Chapelle
From a bus window I noticed something surprising - no queue on the sidewalk outside
the Sainte Chapelle. I took this for a dancing lesson from the gods; I was
supposed to visit the Sainte Chapelle that day.
Paris' high-gothic gem is being restored, mostly by washing and repairing
the exquisite stained glass windows. The finished parts glow now with the light
they were designed for. Gorgeous!
The story goes that some enterprising Turk sold one of the medieval King Louis
(Saint Louis, no less!)
Jesus' Crown of Thorns, perhaps throwing in the future Brooklyn Bridge for good measure.
Over the centuries, the crown proved a worthless fraud. But the chapel that Louis built
to hold it ... that is one of the wonders of Paris.
The Jardin des Plantes, originally a source of medicinal plants, is now a
park.
The oddly asymmetric towers of St. Sulpice church.
A photographer and his model caught me taking pictures of them taking pictures. We
all got a good laugh and a wave out of it.