I didn't see a hunchback but I heard an ugly noise.

I know...there is a random French guy in my picture. I tried to cut him out with my red border, but it made the picture look weird so "Monsieur Picture Bomb" gets to stay. At least he's not flipping the bird or picking his nose or whatever. I have a story to tell about Notre Dame, about the first time I saw it actually, which was not on our Friday tour of the city - it was on Thursday. We had traveled from the Chateau Brou to Paris at a good pace with Jaime and I in the front seat as navigators. Dad encouraged us to find a way into Paris that would drive us past some of the famous sites, which we were eager to do. Everything was going well until we hit major traffic and learned that Paris is hell on wheels. We quickly threw our plans to see the sites out the window and instead focused on getting to our apartment in time to meet the landlady. We diligently tried to direct our flustered father aright, but Paris is cursed with rond-points (the infernal round-a-bouts) and poor signage and we were lost for two or three hours, I can't remember for how long because it all started to blend into a nightmare. We definitely weren't following Elder Wirthlin's counsel to "Come What May And Love It" (more's the pity). After finally finding our way, we dragged our bags into the apartment through the pouring rain and all I wanted to do was lie down and forget we ever drove through Paris, but Dad needed to take the mini-bus to the Alamo station. My faith in my navigation skills were nill, but Jaime needed to take care of squish-face Chase, so I offered to go. Dad, Mom, Laraine and I made our way toward the Hotel de Ville where we understood the Alamo station was located, but of course took some wrong turns and ended up on some one way streets, so I unexpectedly got to see some amazing sites. The first was the Paris Opera House which popped into my view all gilded and ornate. The second was the The Louvre. We drove under a massive stone archway and the next thing I knew I was staring at the hideous glass pyramid and the amazing architecture of the winter palace. It was gone in a flash, but the image is burned into my memory. The last site I saw (before we got stuck in a tunnel heading under the hotel in our attempt to find the stupid Alamo Rental and had to drive out backwards and then went down another tunnel and scraped the top of the mini-bus on the height clearance bar and then finally dropped off our vehicle before Dad lost his mind and drove us all screaming into the River Seine) was Notre Dame. We crossed a bridge that gave us a clear view of the back of the cathedral and it's amazing flying butresses. How ironic that an architectural support designed to fix a flaw makes the back of the church more amazing than the front. As aggravating as driving in Paris and returning the car were, I'll never forget those first glimpses of some of Paris' most amazing sites and the sense of wonder it instilled in me that in the midst of the hustle and bustle, the red light districts and the endless smokers and the grafitti, there was treasure that would come up unexpectedly and leave me breathless. So, back to Notre Dame!

Notre Dame de Paris, "Our Lady of Paris" in Anglaise, is a Gothic, Roman Cathedral and unfinished to boot. It is also O-L-D!! The first stone was laid in 1163 AD (in the presence of Pope Alexander III no less)...that is 847 years ago people! Bishop Maurice de Sully felt that the extant Cathedral of St. Stephan was too pedestrian to be the "parish church of the Kings of Europe" and had it demolished. The story goes that the Bishop then had a vision of the new church and scratched out the design in the dirt on the very spot where it would be built. The cathedral was built in stages with the eastern end (choir, high alter, etc.) completed first so that the building could be in use even while it was still being built. The whole was "finished" around 1345 AD, 182 years after it was started. I say "finished" because a building that old has undergone many restorations and refurbishings, but also because the final spires that were originally planned were never added, leaving the the two front towers flat on top.
The front of the church (or West Facade) has three portals over which are different scenes. The Portal of Saint Anne is on the right (which apparently has not much to do with St. Anne since the scene above the portal depicts Mary and baby Jesus), The Portal of the Last Judgement is in the center, and The Portal of the Virgin, which displays scene's of Mary's death, is on the left. The Portal of the Last Judgment has Christ in the center flanked by his apostles, and then the scene of the Last Judgement from the Gospel of Matthew above.










Above the Last Judgement scenes are all the Kings of Judah (descendants of Jesse), which later became a representation of the Kings of France, and then there is a Madonna and Child flanked by two angels in front of the circular window toward the top. Whew! My head was spinning - there was a lot going on with this building and we weren't even inside yet.
We entered the church through the Portal of the Virgin (no final judgement for me yet!) and were instantly greeted by the most hideous and annoying sound known to man...an organ being tuned. Here's the thing. Someone, maybe a demon from hell or something, would play an off-key note (and they started with the piercingly high ones) and hold it for a really, Really, REALLY long time. At the moment you thought your eardrums would burst, the note would come into tune, there would be a blessed moment of silence, and then they would start again. I looked at over-priced nativity scenes and then I tried to look at all the statues in the gallery, I really did, but I ended up practicing my speed walking just to get away from the noise. The only things that really made an impression on me were the statue of Joan of Arc (cuz I shielded Jaime and Chase with a blanket beneath her stern protection while they did a quick diaper change) and the Rose Window (cuz not even the horrible shrieking organ could take away from it's beauty).
Once outside, once again listening to the blessed sounds of horns honking and people talking, we walked around the church to see all it's features, stopping for a brief time to eat at the most darling sidewalk cafe. We unthawed with creamy hot chocolate and devoured Croque Monsieurs - the most heavenly ham and cheese sandwich known to man! I took another picture of the Rose Window (this time from the outside):
admired the flying buttresses (built to stop the walls from bulging out the back) up close this time:
and posed for a picture with my sweet sisters.
As we headed for the Eiffel Tower, we saw a fascinating sight. An elderly gentleman was on the grass along the sidewalk with his hands full of birdseed. He stood very, very still as birds flew in to eat from his hands, and he was surrounded by a veritable flock of tiny beaks and wings. Yet another unexpected sight around the corner on a day in Paris.