In which we climb stairs

Sunday being the first Sunday of the month, it was free museum day in Paris. Of course, not all museums are free on the first Sunday, but many are, and more are free in the winter than are in the summer. With that in mind, I suggested (note who made the suggestion here, since I pretty much never come up with things to do) that we visit the Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle, both of which are free only in the winter, and that afterwards, if we had time, we could walk over to the Orangerie, which is a small art museum in the Tuileries. Blaise countered by observing that the Orangerie was free on first Sundays year round, but the tower at Notre Dame was only free in the winter, and that there was a special Lutecia (Paris in the Roman era) exhibit at the Archaeological Crypte (sorry, no good links). I acquiesced and we set off.

We started with Sainte Chapelle, which shares an entrance with the Palais de Justice. That meant, of course, full out security screening, complete with x-ray machines and metal detectors. At least we were allowed to leave our shoes on, and they didn't seem to be too bothered by my bottles of water. (They did make me open my backpack and show them the bottles though.) Then we were in the courtyard of the cathedral, where we picked up our free tickets, and guide/activity books for the kids. We spent some time downstairs in the lower chapel, and then headed up the stairs to the upper chapel, where we found seats and looked at all the stained glass. At one point Blaise and I ended up in seats on opposite sides of the chapel, and Cherry trotted back and forth between us, pointing out things as she went.

Next, we went next door (literally) to the Conciergerie, where the security screening involved opening one of the zippers in my backpack and deciding that peanut butter sandwiches were unlikely to be used as a violent weapon. We went down into the basement, and admired all of the gothic arching, then through the gift shop to the jailer's office, and the room used to prepare the condemned for execution. (Wouldn't want long hair interfering with the workings of the guillotine.) Then upstairs, where we saw samples of various types of cells, the type in which one was housed depending on one's ability to pay. If you were poor, you got crammed in a room with straw and a bunch of other people. If you were sufficiently rich, you might have your own room, with a bed and a desk. A room off to the side had a list of all the people that had been guillotined. On the way back down, we saw Marie Antoinette's cell, complete with her own private guards. We stopped at the bathroom (always use the bathroom in Paris, for they are few and far between) which was fittingly labeled with silhouettes of a man and woman that were missing their heads.

Next, we headed over to Notre Dame, and found a spot in the sun to eat our sandwiches and fruit. We headed over to the foot of the north tower, and down the road, almost to the back corner of the cathedral, to get in line to climb the tower. Unfortunately, that side of the church was not in the sun, and it was not a particularly warm day, so we spent a rather chilly 90 minutes inching our way up to the front of the line. At last we reached it, and climbed up and up and up in a circle until we reached the gift shop. Then, up and up and up some more, in a somewhat tighter circle, until we reached the walkway on the top of the cathedral. (If you look at a picture of Notre Dame, the walkway goes along the top of the roof between the two towers, so not quite all the way to the top.) We inched along the walkway, through a couple of rather tight spots, and then up a wooden staircase to see one of the big bells of Notre Dame. Then we waited at the entrance to the south tower while they cleared out all the people who were at the top of the tower. We went through the door and headed down the steps (choosing to skip the trip all the way to the tippy top), down and down and down, then down and down and down some more, and out of the towers.

Finally, we headed over to the Archaeological Crypte of Notre Dame, which wasn't free, to see the ruins there. Halfway through Cherry decided that she needed to go to the bathroom, and I discovered that in order to do so we'd have to leave the museum and use the bathroom outside, and then come back in. (We will have achieved true gender equality when fathers get this job.) There were lots of artists' renditions of what the buildings (especially the arena and baths) might have looked like in Asterix' time. We saw lots of foundations of various ages, from around the second century A.D. up to the 18th century. (The parvis in front of Notre Dame had been undisturbed for centuries, and so the foundations had remained intact in a way that they hadn't in the rest of Paris. Much of what is in that museum was discovered onsite.) By the end, the kids were all pretty worn out, and Cherry was becoming increasing upset that she wasn't allowed to go into the ruins (she kept thinking that the people on the other side of the museum were in there, and wanted to join them), so we headed home.