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Showing posts with label 5thArrondissement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5thArrondissement. Show all posts

Thursday, November 3, 2011

St. Etienne Church

This church was a few block up the hill from our hotel and very near the Pantheon.  The stained glass windows were magnificent.  I was pleased that I was able to capture this one in such detail.  (A full view of the church can be seen on Wikipedia:  Saint-Etienne-du-Mont).  This church actually started as a chapel around 1222 but was soon too small to hold all the worshippers and visitors due to all the surrounding colleges being built in that area.....the Sorbonne being one of them.  An enlargement was done 1328 but still not large enough.  The monks donated land for a new church in 1492.  To read more of the history of this amazing building see the Wikipedia article.   



 I could find no documentation of these beautifully carved bannister walls and panels that led up the stairs.

What an amazing lectern!  I have seen these in churches in Wales, but none so intricately done as this one.  Such a masterpiece.....but, again, I could find no documentation on the artist(s).

The crypt of St. Genevieve...the patron saint of Paris.  Also entombed here are:  Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine.

Friday, October 21, 2011

The windows in our room (Judi and Sharon) were very tall skinny windows......OPEN all the time because there it was very hot and stuffy......no air conditioning.   About 2AM it would cool down and we could sleep under a cover.  ")  Sometimes we even opened the door to our room to encourage a draft or draw of air through the windows and the room.  It was such a surprise to some of neighbors in the adjoing room.  LOL   But, all in all, they would just smile and say good day or Bonjour.    (We never left it open at night, of course!)  The view from the window was across a private drive into the apartments you can see.  We had some interesting views from this window.  Every morning an old man would come out on his patio and draw or proof read a manuscript (well, that's our story, anyway!  LOL).  On school days the sounds of children skipping, laughing and talking would draw us to the window to see them being escorted by fathers/mothers down the drive and through the gate.  The school was close by for we could hear the children in the day time playing on the grounds and also hear the school bell ring.   Late at night we could hear the revelers from the local pubs/resteraunts as they laughed, talked and sometimes argued on the street just outside the drive gate.
  

Our room number was 106 and we had a very short hallway with a door to close it off......which we always left open.  Occasionally one of our neighbors would close it, but not often.

This is the man on the patio to the left of our window.  He was there every morning....very diligent on his work.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Shakespeare in Paris?

              Judi is standing in front of one of the first "sights" that we visited in Paris.  There were so many people inside and I was so jet-lagged that I just could not make myself go inside.  This English language bookstore was opened about 1937 in tribute to one in the 6th arrondissement.  It is also a reading library.  This location  had an appearance in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" movie.  I really thought I'd come back later in the week and take a peek.......but with so many other plans daily, it just didn't happen.