So after feeling stupid, embarrassed and talking to my credit card companies to get my cards cancelled, Ellen decided we should go and see Sainte-Chapelle. (Info on most of my blog comes from Wikipedia.org which I heart oh so much!)
Sainte-Chapelle was planned in 1241, started in 1246 and quickly completed: it was consecrated on April 26, 1248. The patron was the very devout Louis IX of France, who constructed it as a chapel for the royal palace.
The church used to hold a lot of relics (Jesus' Crown of Thorns, etc.), but now it's famous for these windows. It's 'the best example of 'transparency'' - in other words, the walls 'disappear' and the windows are the walls. They are truly beautiful!
During the French Revolution, the chapel was converted to an administrative office, and the windows were obscured by enormous filing cabinets. Their all-but-forgotten beauty was thereby inadvertently protected from the vandalism in which the choir stalls and the rood screen were destroyed, the spire pulled down and the relics dispersed. In the 19th century Viollet-le-Duc restored the Sainte Chapelle: the current spire is his sensitive design.
This is the Palace of Justice which took the place of Louis' palace of which Sainte-Chapelle was part...
Beautiful! You can see Napoleon III's 'N' on the bridges....you'll see more of him later...
Just another view of the Seine...
They had a massive flood while we were there! The Louvre was under water and....
it's a good thing I had my trusty RED WINGS boots (I heart them!) to wade through the flood! (A 'friend' dared to insinuate that I should get rid of my beloved Red Wings boots - don't make me choose between you and my boots, 'friend', you'll lose! ;)
Okay, so just kidding, there was no flood, that's just the fountains in front of the Louvre! Old palace, now a museum...
There she be and she be pretty, ain't she?
The pyramid was designed by a Chinese-American in 1989! Ieoh Ming Pei 貝聿銘 is known as the last master of high modernist architecture. He works with the abstract form, using stone, concrete, glass, and steel. Pei is one of the most successful architects of the 20th century.
