Arrival in Paris and first day there July 26,27 2014

Palais de Justice July 27

Arrival July 26

Notre Dame entrance

 

A Historic ssite

Notre Dame de Paris

The site of the Notre dame is the cradle of Paris and has always been the religious center of the city. The Celts had their sacred ground here, the Romans built a temple to worship Jupiter. A Christian basilica was built in the sixth century and the last religious structure before the Notre-Dame construction started was a Romanesque church.

 

Bishop Maurice de Sully started the construction in 1163. The Cathedral was to be built in the new Gothic style and had to reflect Paris's status as the capital of the Kingdom France. It was the first cathedral built on a monumental scale and became the prototype for future cathedrals in France, like the cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres or Rheims, just to name the most famous.

 

It took until 1345 before the cathedral was completed, partly because the design was enlarged during construction. The result is an overwhelming building, 128 meters long (420 ft) with two 69 meter tall towers (226 ft). The spire over the crossing reaches 90 meters (295 ft) and was added in the nineteenth century by Viollet-le-Duc. The Notre-Dame Cathedral has several large rose windows, the northern thirteenth-century window is the most impressive. The massive window has a diameter of 13.1 meter.

Gallery of Kings

The frontal west facade features three wide portals; above the portals is the Gallery of Kings - 28 statues of Judean Kings - and higher up are the famous gargoyles and grotesques. The spectacular eastern flying buttresses at the east side of the building are 15m wide.

 

Notre Dame entrance