Between Dreams And The Night Sky: Paris

Day II

The Conciergerie

Unfortunately the weather forecast was correct and it was raining on Saturday morning. I went to the Conciergerie as soon as the museum openend, to make it in time for my guided tour at Montmartre.

Rainy weather can be nice for taking photos, as long as the rain is not too heavy . I love it when everything is reflected on the wet ground.

And it was so quiet this morning! I was almost alone at the Conciergerie.

I can`t say if I would recommend visiting the Conciergerie. I spent one and a half hours there, but of course I didn`t have to pay for it. Maybe it`s just the right thing for a rainy day.

Some of the cells and other rooms are decorated with dolls and furniture or other stuff to show what it probably looked like when Marie Antoinette was a prisoner there. But I didn`t like it. It seemed a bit over the top.
Still, the Salle des Gens d'Armes with the gothic arch is really beautiful.

The beautiful clock on the Tour de l' Horlog

Montmartre

The house on the right side is the place where van Gogh lived and the house in the middle is where Henry Toulouse-Lautrec lived. Seems to have been a funny bunch up there on Montmartre during impressionism, according to what I`ve heard.
The guided tour on which I went was good, although I didn`t agree with everything our guide said about van Gogh. I thought about intervening, but it wasn`t that bad. Just the typical tourist anecdotes with not much truth in them.

Typical street at Montmartre. The golden dot in the middle is the roof of Les Invalides.

One of the mills of Montmartre: La moulin de la Galette. There`s a painting of Renoir "Bal de la moulin de la Galette", which shows an afternoon dance there.
In the past, Montmartre lay outside of the city gate. Everything concerning alcohol and prostitution had it`s place outside the city, therefore on Montmarte.
In the beginning it was more like a village. Some of the mills are still there. The most famous one is the Moulin Rouge.
They still grow wine on the Montmartre, but I`ve been told that it tastes horrible.

Between all the Haussmannian architecture there are some different buildings on Montmartre. I found this one quite nice.

The Basilica de Sacré Coeur doesn`t need much explanation.
The rain had stopped by then and it was rather windy. I went inside, after the security check (they check everyone on every entrance at every larger building and miliary is patrolling everywhere), but it`s nothing special. Maybe even the little church in the village where my parents live is more beautiful from the inside.

The view from the staircase in front of Sacré Coeur. The tower on the right might be the Tour Montparnasse.

During my whole trip I was only twice bothered by someone who wanted to sell something to me. Most of the time they didn`t seem to recognise me as a tourist. Sometimes I was even asked the way by other tourists who were really surprised that I don`t live in Paris.
But there I took my camera out of my handbag and someone seriously suggested that I should buy a selfie stick. For my camera. And the Sony a7 is not small enough to be mistaken as a Smartphone. But one icy stare and I was left alone.

On my way back down I chose some smaller streets. There are so many nice little shops!

Sainte Chapelle

One of the highlights of the whole trip was the visit of the Sainte Chapelle.
I think the pictures speak for themselves.

In my opinion this is a brilliant example for the Gothic ambition to show the godly in the light. Many of the windows in the Sainte Chapelle are original ones and there are hardly any walls on the upper floor. The ground floor is covered with cross vaults.

From the outside it`s not that impressive.

Notre Dame

The most beautiful moment of my whole weekend was the moment I entered Notre Dame. I had been there before, but it`s so impressive! I had to stand there for several minutes and just stare. And then there was a choir practise going on and the organ started to play. It was so gorgeous! This moment will stay in my mind forever. And if there comes a time when I don`t feel that well, I will look it up in my head to feel better.