Travel with me #53 : A visit to "Our Lady of Paris" - Notre-Dame Cathedral!

Our Lady of Paris

The Notre-Dame is almost every tourist's top attraction when visiting Paris. Even though it is not my first or even second visit to Notre-Dame, it is still on the top of my list of places to visit each time I have the pleasure of waltzing through Paris.

At first glance, I am immediately reminded of the childhood Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. As a child, I watched in fascination as Quasimodo traversed the building up high in the Paris skyline. It's intricate Gothic detailing so accurate that I could almost pick out the exact gargoyle that came alive in the movie from the real building.

On this day, the weather was less than ideal with the outlook being overcast for the whole day. Indeed it was fitting as I always envision Notre Dame to be quite spooky and dark, particularly with it's Gothic architecture.

With the cathedral being a focal point of visitation from tourists in Paris, it is no surprise that there are many people outside taking photos or queuing up to enter.

Here, we see the Notre-Dame facade with the Portal of the Virgin, Portal of the Last Judgement and Portal of St-Anne. This is actually the most popular angle despite facing west.

The north and south side have incredible rose windows accompanied by very detailed transepts modelled in a Rayonnant style. Even though the cathedral has gone through many restoration projects, the modelling remains true to it's original design and is still breathtaking every time I visit.

I found myself just staring at the building from the side and forgetting that I haven't even gone inside yet!

Here are some more photos of the western facade.

The Cathedral holds many services throughout the day. There was a service being held when I entered so there were a fair number of people sitting on the wooden benches.

Unlike the Sacre Coeur, the interior of the Notre-Dame has very little use of gold. In fact, I would say the glass windows are it's most defining features.

Here are some photos of the inside.

Notre-Dame is actually situated on one of the two remaining natural islands in the Seine within Paris.

Here you can see people walking along the river as well as boats passing down stream!

Finally, i'd like to show everybody the hotel I stayed at called Hotel Pastel

I chose this hotel because of how centrally located it is.

It's just a 10 minute walk from Champs-Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe and is conveniently located around many shops and restaurants!

As you can see, the hotel has recently been completely renovated so everything feels remarkably clean and new.

The reception area is small but has an interesting central lighting fixture in the shape of a gravity well.

Even though the room is relatively small, it has a really homely feeling which I adore very much. Everything is just the right size, not too big, and not too small. Actually, for little old me, it's already quite large.

The bathroom is very bright and very clean. Hygiene is something I care about quite a lot, so the Hotel has done very well to cover that base.

There isn't a bathtub which is my only small disappointment. There is nothing better than taking a long soothing bath after a long day of sightseeing, but at least the shower temperature actually works! (Won't have to call Miss. Opinionated for now)

And voila! Many pictures later, we arrived at the end of this edition of travel with me but not to worry, I still have a couple more interesting tid bits to share from my trip to Paris and those will be coming up real soon!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to comment!