Pyrenees : Part 6 - Day 3 Afternoon : Cathedral of Notre Dame

Day 3 (Afternoon) of Pyrenees Drive

Costs :

(1) Cathedral of Notre Dame Tower - EUR8.50

(2) Metro Train - EUR5.40 (a single journey ticket costs EUR1.80)

The Story

030915: Once we have set up our tent in Bois de Boulogne, we headed out for a walk. Our intention is to see Cathedral of Notre Dame and Eiffel Tower. Now, the difficult part for tourists - to get out of Bois de Boulogne. It is a huge maze! This second largest park in Paris has 2 hippodrome and at that time, I did not know a hippodrome is a track for horse racing. During the initial part of the walk, I was enjoying the blue skies, puffy clouds, sunrays, and green trees. Then, we walked around and around and I felt I was walking in circles because everything looked the same to me. Trees. Trees. Cars. Main road. More trees. My friend, Prof Sweet Tooth, on the other hand was pretty cool about it and kept walking. I was pestering him to ask the locals for directions.

Finally, after 2 hours of endless walks and being guided by a local, we finally saw Paris town. Bois de Boulogne is actually pretty far from town. We took the metro train to the stop which is closest to Cathedral of Notre Dame. We had to take the metro because we were running out of time as the Cathedral closes by 6.45pm. Once we stepped out from the metro, we were just a 5 minutes' walk from the Cathedral! Yay! And there was a long queue to enter inside the Cathedral.

Presenting Cathedral of Notre Dame. Free entry! The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, and it is among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world. If you need an audio guide, you pay EUR2. For me, I enjoyed and absorbed the architecture, the sculpture, the painting and the stained glasses.

 

My friend commented about going up the Tower as he saw a sign to the Tower, and there were a few other tourists looking for the Tower. So, we went out from the Cathedral and stepped out to the right to see another long queue to go up the Tower. This time, it is not free. EUR8.50. I was willing to pay since I am already here and I want to see what is this Tower. While waiting for the long queue, I got us a ciabatta from across the street. I did hope it was a French food but my friend tells me it is an Italian food. It is anyway, a long bread with fillings of ham, tomato and cheese in the middle. EUR6.

And when it is described a Tower, please be prepared to walk up some stairs. Specifically 387 stairs. It was winding up and it felt like a never ending walk. We bought our tickets at the top of the Tower. You can also buy souvenirs at the top of the Tower. A guide brought us to the Top. The view was magnificent - view of Paris! The walkway was netted to prevent people from jumping off to commit suicide. There was a small partition or opening at some parts of net which allows us to take some nice views of the panaroma without the net being part of the photograph. We did go up to see the bell too. While we were at the top, I heard the bell chimed many times. I peeked through an opening and saw the bell swinging. It was unbelievable to be so close.

 

Me at the Tower. It was a bad move to only wear my thin jacket because I was really cold walking in Paris Town. I thought it was going to be sunny because it was warm when we left Bois de Boulogne. I was shivering badly and that attire lasted till the night.