Paris Day Two: Beauty, Faith, and Blisters

Day 2

On the second day of the trip the group is looking a little shell shocked. But this is to be expected, anyway in my opinion of what we experienced on this day definitely was worth seeing and still stands out as one of the more awe inspiring sites of this trip. To call Sainte-Chapelle, (or Holy Chapel) breathtaking is overindulgent while at the same time idiotically oversimplified. But when I try to think of anything better my imagination fails me. But I digress, as to what I learned at Sainte-Chapelle. I learned that it was built in 1246, making it 531 years older than the U.S.A., primarily to house the Crown of Thorns and fragments from the True Cross by Louis IX. The main chapel was Gothic in its architecture using light color and space for inspiration. This is all very dry and technical but I challenge even the hardest skeptic out there not to feel at least awestruck by the very magnitude of the main chapel. I personally am an Agnostic but I could VERY easily see how this room could inspire faith. The stained glass windows, the murals on the walls and floor, even the stairs to the raised pew were art. But that is enough of that I could write all day on this chapel.

Next we went to the Concierge, which was where Maximilien Marie Isidore de Robespierre; one of the primary people responsible for the French Revolution, was held before he was guillotined. Marie Antoinette was held here as well, though in slightly better quarters. I must say that I personally feel that Marie definitely benefited from the romantic nature of the French; seriously making a chapel out of her holding cell seems a little extreme. Now I admit there is not as much here as with the chapel earlier but a jail is still a jail no matter what you do with it.

Now the final stop for the day was none other than the palace at Versailles. I have to hand it to the French, they have style. The gates alone were worth the travel to get there. But once we made it inside the beauty was literally jaw dropping. One could spend weeks in there and not see everything fortunately the crowds were pretty light so we made good time through the palace. On thing that thoroughly impressed me was the technical ability of the artists back then. For the paintings on the huge domed ceilings actually seemed to be more detailed than the paintings, for sure they were more dramatic than any of the paintings on any of the walls. One other thing I feel is essential to any description of Versailles would be the Hall of Mirrors; this would have been utterly breathtaking if it weren’t for the windows at Sainte-Chapelle from earlier in the day. I was glad to make it through the palace at least once, for I was unable to continue down into the gardens kept by Marie Antoinette, this was actually fortuitous for I was able to round up all of the people who had gotten turned around in the palace.