Trip to Paris - day 2 - Notre Dame

Early

With Disneyland out of the way time came for proper sightseeing. Groggily I dragged myself out of bed and set off adventuring!

Like a brick

The hotel, nice people, gave me a map

Caption

The hotel was rather close to the center so I decided to go past Centre Pompidou (since I remember reading about it in a french textbook years ago in school and since they opened one up in Metz as well). The line to go in was rather long so I snapped a few photos and set a course to Notre Dame.

Pipes

 There didn't seem to be that many people around, probably because it was still morning, so I leisurly snapped some photos outside.

Avast!

Outside

 The inside was large, crowded and full of various churchly things. Much as expected. There was a mass going on as well.

Cathedralception

Pretty colors

I decided to wait in line to go up top. Unfortunately that ate up a lot of time. For reasons unknown the line would advance either very slowly or very fast. I chatted away with a canadian/australian/american woman and her daughter/niece to pass the time.

Up

A lot of stairs going up.

Up

 And a lot of stairs going even higher. Paris city of stairs. I've seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame(Disney animation I think) when I was knee high to a frog, and I vaguely remembered the gargoyles and little else. They did look somewhat familiar, and they seemed almost like they had personalities of their own.

And away

The city below is dense, almost maze-like with oddly shaped buildings taking up as much usable space as possible. It's a nice city but it's really not my kind of thing.

A maze

I took a a bunch of photos of the roof detailing for my own curiosity. It's interesting to see the detail put into some places which people generally don't see, be they commoners or tourists going along the tourist predetermined path.

Sky scraper?

Tastes just like chicken

After a considerable amount of climbing I reached the bell in one of the towers (the left one as you're looking at the entrance). I was a little surprised that there wasn't a little ugly man cowering in a corner. He must have either retired or moved to the other tower. Taking photos here was horrible since the lighting was beyond poor, and I didn't have the battery to use a flash.

No hunchback?

Going down was definitely easier than going up. If all else fails you can curl into a ball and let gravity do its trick.

Allthestairs

I think all landmarks have a piece of wall somewhere with graffiti which predates me, and my parents, and possibly my grandparents.

I was here

Onwards!