Paris April 20, 2025 - Notre Dame
On the bridge, on the walk from the hotel.
The question on everyone’s lips - Have you been to Notre Dame yet?
The famous church re-oned after its multi million dollar face-lift, fire repair, and incredible recreation of timbers, roof and windows. It’s Easter weekend. I decided to venture down on day three. An hour’s walk from the hotel on the river. It’s a holiday with lots and lots of Parisians strolling, kids hopping and jumping about, the older generation grasping canes and each other but walking solidly through the parks.
The cleaned and repaired front of Notre Dame. On the upper right, there is damage wrapped in plastic. The cranes will not be gone for a few months yet.
I was also able to obtain the side of the church through the trees. Scaffolds and cranes.
I crossed the Seine on Pont de la Cité and walked down a closed road of parked police cars on the other side of which was a black and white photograph exhibition o French troops landing at Marseille coming home; discovery of the Concentration Camps; survivors being cared for; boxcars of those who had died and left by the Germans. All very disturbing especially after reading every day’s newspaper describing the October 7th massacre and the war it started.
Turned a corner. The crowds. Bleachers of them. Streets of them. But it has thinned out closer to the church. Long lines twisting and turning to the main entrance - timed tickets. Steady stream of people exiting the other side. Charlemagne’s base is surrounded by people. But the great king himself sits majestically, authoritatively above the fray. I finished reading his biography last winter. I remember learning about him in school. But his full story is every fairy tale woven into an impossible tapestry of stories. And they are all real.
I found a raised step that allowed me to see most of the building almost to ground level.
I also saw Charlemagne in his Glory.
