Post by LHR02 on Oct 6, 2003 8:33:20 GMT -5
The bells of Notre Dame
Saturday, 4 October 2003
So let us now return to my first couple of days in Paris . . .
After that fantastic evening on the Champs Elysée we decided the next morning we would take a self-guided walking tour of Paris. Of course we began a bit late and didn't make it to Ile Saint Louis (in the middle of the Seine) until almost lunch time. We found a café that was situated right on the tip of the island that connects it to Ile de la Cité (home of Notre Dame). We ordered a three course lunch menu that seemed like the best deal. What followed was a huge meal that left me with rolling to Notre Dame as my only choice! The meal was quite good but I was stunned to see a couple of SIZE 2 little old ladies sit down beside me and proceed to finish everything (which I hadn't fearing explosion) and do so in 1/3 of the time it had taken me. Clearly the French know something we don't 'cause they were a size 2!!!!
As an aside though I will mention that since that time I have discovered the secret. You walk everywhere! I'm eating much more here than I do at home, I drink wine more often, eat bread all the time, and sometimes even pastries and I'm still dropping the pounds! I should add though that I walk probably a couple of hours everyday. With a lot of it being uphill and up 7 flights of stairs each day just to get to grammar class. All North Americans take note! ;op
After our sumptuous lunch we headed over to Notre Dame of Disney/Hugo fame. Anyone who knows me knows I love Disney movies and the music to Les Mis. As such I couldn't help but humming a lot of the melodies while in the church. The inside is quite lovely but it was the tower I wanted to see. This was the only place where we couldn't skip the line with our museum pass. The line wasn't huge or anything but it did move extremely slowly. Once we were allowed in we were ushered into a gift shop. There we waited until we were allowed up to the tower itself. I thought it was fantastic!! Most people just scurried quickly by and decended tout-de-suite. Mohammad and I though totally took the time to enjoy the view and happily snap pictures with gargoyles in the foreground and the city in the background. We even sat there and yelled three times REALLY loudly from the top: "SANCTUARY, SANCTUARY, SANCTUARY!!!!!!!" I know people heard us below but I wonder if anyone got it. It made us laugh though and now we can tell everyone we've claimed sanctuary from the top of Notre Dame. Apparently though we were having too much fun and lingering too much so we were asked to decend so the next group could come up.
After leaving Notre Dame we decided to visit the Deportation Memorial on the tip of Ile de la Cite. This is a seldom visited place as it's quite hidden and very few people actually take the time to look for it. It's located on the tip of the island in a little park. The memorial is to remember the thousands of Jewish people (and other people that were also considered undesireable) that were turned over by the French regime at the time to the Nazis. Many of these people were then shipped off to concentration or forced labour camps. Many of them never returned.
There is a set of stairs that you decend and it takes you down until you are level with the Seine. The monument is designed in such a way that you can see the sky if you look up and the water if you look through a grate-like thing but nothing else. You see no horizon. This is supposed to signify the very last thing the deportees saw before they left France. It was, I should mention, from this very spot that they were deported.
When you turn around you see the structure of the monument itself. You go in through a very narrow doorway and there are several things to see in there. The walls are etched with famous quotes that the people who built the monument believed reflected both the regret and the sorrow regarding the events that took place.
In the center of the entry you have the eternal flame. Around it is an etching that describes that the deportees were shipped-off from that very spot to the corners of the world and many of them never returned. Directly ahead of you is what appears to be a long hallway. You can't go in but you can look in. The walls of that hall are lined with thousands of little lights. Each one of them represents a person that was deported and sent into the hands of the Nazis. It's completely heart wrenching to sit there and realize that each one of those lights was an actual person with a family and people who loved them. It's a horrible horrible thing.
In the chamber to the left there is a cell. This is meant to represent the places where these people were sent and the conditions they had to live in. To look in that chamber after having seen the lights is an experience difficult to explain. It really helps you to understand how very fortunate we all are. And how much we take our freedom for granted.
One of the etchings on the wall (beside the cell) caught my eye in particular. So I pulled out my notebook and jotted it down. Here is what it said:
" Mais le jour ou les peuples auront compris ou vous etiez ils mordront la terre de chagrien et de remourds ils l'a larroseront de leurs larmes et ils vous eleveront des temples." - Vercors
Roughly translated it means: But the day when the people will have understood where you are they will bite the ground with grief and remorse and they will sprinkle it with their tears and they will build you temples. Of course in this case the use of the word temples is not literal but rather refers to monuments. I thought it was an incredible quote and definitely moving.
Before leaving the monument through the same narrow doorway you notice that above it is written the samething that is found at all Holocaust memorials: "Forgive, but never forget."
Of course after having left the memorial and being quite moved we couldn't continue on our walking tour as expected. We instead sat down for a while in the park and talked about the memorial and the holocaust in general. While we were doing this someone was playing a haunting violin melody in the background. It was all very appropriate.
Eventually we got up and headed over to an ice cream stand on Ile Saint Louis to try the world famous Berthillon ice cream. Let me tell you there is a reason why it's so well known! That stuff is incredible - very different than any ice cream I have ever had - but very very good!
By this point it was late so we headed over to La Samaritaine and the Chatelet - Les Halles area to do some souvenir shopping. Both Mohammad and I bought something that day. After a long lond day of walking we decided to head back to the foyer and rest a bit. But before doing so we made reservations for what was sure to be an unbelievable meal at LE VIOLON D'INGRES - a Michellin rated restaurant!!
And with that the saga continues . . .
Saturday, 4 October 2003
So let us now return to my first couple of days in Paris . . .
After that fantastic evening on the Champs Elysée we decided the next morning we would take a self-guided walking tour of Paris. Of course we began a bit late and didn't make it to Ile Saint Louis (in the middle of the Seine) until almost lunch time. We found a café that was situated right on the tip of the island that connects it to Ile de la Cité (home of Notre Dame). We ordered a three course lunch menu that seemed like the best deal. What followed was a huge meal that left me with rolling to Notre Dame as my only choice! The meal was quite good but I was stunned to see a couple of SIZE 2 little old ladies sit down beside me and proceed to finish everything (which I hadn't fearing explosion) and do so in 1/3 of the time it had taken me. Clearly the French know something we don't 'cause they were a size 2!!!!
As an aside though I will mention that since that time I have discovered the secret. You walk everywhere! I'm eating much more here than I do at home, I drink wine more often, eat bread all the time, and sometimes even pastries and I'm still dropping the pounds! I should add though that I walk probably a couple of hours everyday. With a lot of it being uphill and up 7 flights of stairs each day just to get to grammar class. All North Americans take note! ;op
After our sumptuous lunch we headed over to Notre Dame of Disney/Hugo fame. Anyone who knows me knows I love Disney movies and the music to Les Mis. As such I couldn't help but humming a lot of the melodies while in the church. The inside is quite lovely but it was the tower I wanted to see. This was the only place where we couldn't skip the line with our museum pass. The line wasn't huge or anything but it did move extremely slowly. Once we were allowed in we were ushered into a gift shop. There we waited until we were allowed up to the tower itself. I thought it was fantastic!! Most people just scurried quickly by and decended tout-de-suite. Mohammad and I though totally took the time to enjoy the view and happily snap pictures with gargoyles in the foreground and the city in the background. We even sat there and yelled three times REALLY loudly from the top: "SANCTUARY, SANCTUARY, SANCTUARY!!!!!!!" I know people heard us below but I wonder if anyone got it. It made us laugh though and now we can tell everyone we've claimed sanctuary from the top of Notre Dame. Apparently though we were having too much fun and lingering too much so we were asked to decend so the next group could come up.
After leaving Notre Dame we decided to visit the Deportation Memorial on the tip of Ile de la Cite. This is a seldom visited place as it's quite hidden and very few people actually take the time to look for it. It's located on the tip of the island in a little park. The memorial is to remember the thousands of Jewish people (and other people that were also considered undesireable) that were turned over by the French regime at the time to the Nazis. Many of these people were then shipped off to concentration or forced labour camps. Many of them never returned.
There is a set of stairs that you decend and it takes you down until you are level with the Seine. The monument is designed in such a way that you can see the sky if you look up and the water if you look through a grate-like thing but nothing else. You see no horizon. This is supposed to signify the very last thing the deportees saw before they left France. It was, I should mention, from this very spot that they were deported.
When you turn around you see the structure of the monument itself. You go in through a very narrow doorway and there are several things to see in there. The walls are etched with famous quotes that the people who built the monument believed reflected both the regret and the sorrow regarding the events that took place.
In the center of the entry you have the eternal flame. Around it is an etching that describes that the deportees were shipped-off from that very spot to the corners of the world and many of them never returned. Directly ahead of you is what appears to be a long hallway. You can't go in but you can look in. The walls of that hall are lined with thousands of little lights. Each one of them represents a person that was deported and sent into the hands of the Nazis. It's completely heart wrenching to sit there and realize that each one of those lights was an actual person with a family and people who loved them. It's a horrible horrible thing.
In the chamber to the left there is a cell. This is meant to represent the places where these people were sent and the conditions they had to live in. To look in that chamber after having seen the lights is an experience difficult to explain. It really helps you to understand how very fortunate we all are. And how much we take our freedom for granted.
One of the etchings on the wall (beside the cell) caught my eye in particular. So I pulled out my notebook and jotted it down. Here is what it said:
" Mais le jour ou les peuples auront compris ou vous etiez ils mordront la terre de chagrien et de remourds ils l'a larroseront de leurs larmes et ils vous eleveront des temples." - Vercors
Roughly translated it means: But the day when the people will have understood where you are they will bite the ground with grief and remorse and they will sprinkle it with their tears and they will build you temples. Of course in this case the use of the word temples is not literal but rather refers to monuments. I thought it was an incredible quote and definitely moving.
Before leaving the monument through the same narrow doorway you notice that above it is written the samething that is found at all Holocaust memorials: "Forgive, but never forget."
Of course after having left the memorial and being quite moved we couldn't continue on our walking tour as expected. We instead sat down for a while in the park and talked about the memorial and the holocaust in general. While we were doing this someone was playing a haunting violin melody in the background. It was all very appropriate.
Eventually we got up and headed over to an ice cream stand on Ile Saint Louis to try the world famous Berthillon ice cream. Let me tell you there is a reason why it's so well known! That stuff is incredible - very different than any ice cream I have ever had - but very very good!
By this point it was late so we headed over to La Samaritaine and the Chatelet - Les Halles area to do some souvenir shopping. Both Mohammad and I bought something that day. After a long lond day of walking we decided to head back to the foyer and rest a bit. But before doing so we made reservations for what was sure to be an unbelievable meal at LE VIOLON D'INGRES - a Michellin rated restaurant!!
And with that the saga continues . . .