I loved this day. I have always wanted to go to the roof of the Notre Dame, but the line is super long. I knew there was no way I wanted to wait in that line with four kids who are on a vacation sleep schedule, so I searched the internet and found a skip-the-line tour of the Notre Dame. I contacted the company, Blue Fox Travel, about the price and they gave me a really good price for the two older kids and allowed the younger two to come for free! As part of the tour we also got to tour the Sainte Chappelle, which a friend of mine said she actually enjoyed more than the Notre Dame.
To start off the day, Chris bought some baguettes so we could make the kids sandwiches and also came home with these weird marzipan pigs. The breakfast of champions!
This was our first day riding the trains in the city and the kids loved these weird chairs in the metro station. Oliver was so excited to finally ride the metro.
While waiting for the tour guide the kids ran around chasing pigeons. Always a favorite activity for our kids.
Our guided tour started off with a short walking tour of the island that Sainte Chappelle and the Notre Dame are on. When we went in Sainte Chappelle, the upstairs is just breathtaking. Such beautiful stained glass everywhere! The pictures don’t do it justice at all. It was built as a place where the King would display the most cherished relics of the kingdom – the crown of thorns and a nail from Jesus’ cross. The relics are not housed here anymore, and the kids were disappointed. They really wanted to see them. They are in the Notre Dame, but you have to pay to go in the area where they are kept.
Chris took some pictures of the walls just outside on a small balcony. There are biblical stories depicted all over the walls. The kids really liked this section and spent a little while figuring out which stories were shown. These are all of the story of Adam and Eve. I wish we could have stayed here a little longer, but we only stopped for 20 minutes and all the kids needed to use the bathroom…
On our walking tour we learned about the Wallace fountains that can be found all over the city that provide drinking water from different sources outside the city. After the siege of Paris in 1871 where the city had gone without fresh water, a Scottish philanthropist donated the money to create a set of secret tunnels that provided drinking water to the city. That way if there was ever another siege, the Parisians would have water and no one knew exactly where the tunnels were so they would be difficult to cut off from the city. They still provide water today and each fountain has a plaque that tells where the water comes from. My kids loved this story and were excited whenever they found another of these fountains in the city for the rest of our trip.
Our tour ended at the Notre Dame. I loved our tour guide – she was knowledgeable and interesting and the kids loved her stories. It was totally worth paying the money for the tour and to skip the line at the Notre Dame Towers. We got to walk straight in! There are quite a few stairs leading to the towers of Notre Dame, but less than the Eiffel Tower – so anytime the kids got tired we could say, “Hey, you already did the Eiffel Tower, you got this!” There is a little gift shop part way up where you wait with your group because they only let 20 people up at a time. This is actually super cool, because it is the one place we went to where there were not tons of people everywhere. You can really enjoy looking around. The walkways are pretty skinny, so I was glad to not feel crowded. Marion was a little nervous and wouldn’t get in many pictures, but she did really enjoy looking at the statues. Fun fact – the ones standing up are not gargoyles, they are chimera. Gargoyles are specifically the ones sticking out from the building that are used as water spouts to drain water off the roof. The make a “gurgling” or “gargling” sound when water comes through their mouths, hence the name gargoyle. While in the gift shop, Elora bought the book, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. I didn’t think she would actually read it, but she read it in three days and tells us all about how sad it is and how it is definitely different than the Disney movie.
Also fun is that you can go inside one of the towers and see some of the bells. The big bell behind me is Emmanuel, the biggest bell. It was named and christened by its godparents – Marie Antoinette and King Louis. All the bells have godparents who name them and ring them the first time. The kids liked the bells a lot other than the really skinny rickety stairs that lead to them.
The views from the top are beautiful, mostly because you are seeing the beautiful cathedral architecture and the city all at the same time. You are inside a cage the whole time, but I still loved it. Once you get to the first level and walk around, you come to another set of stairs which spirals you up to the very top of one of the towers. It is so awesome.
Panorama from the roof.
We had a good time trying to figure out the best angles to take selfies in front of the Notre Dame, and then we headed inside. You have to wait in line to get in, but it doesn’t take too long.
The inside is quite beautiful, mostly because of the rose window with its beautiful stained glass. I love stained glass. Marion also loves stained glass and cathedrals, and she said this was her favorite part of Paris.
But let’s be honest, this was really the girls’ favorite part of Paris. You could see the flocks of birds from the roof of the tower, so when we finished looking at the cathedral, the girls asked to go over and see the birds. Wow – there is a man who puts bird seed in your hands, on your head, on your back – the girls LOVED holding birds and having the birds flock towards them. Chris was freaked out by the germs, the boys had no interest because it looked a little scary, and I tried not to think of “The Birds”.
There is a nice garden and a small playground around the cathedral where we spent a little time playing. Then we did a little souvenir shopping with the kids so they could each pick out a t-shirt and something small they wanted to remind them of Paris. Elora got a purse, Marion picked out a coin purse, and Oliver no matter how long he looked only really wanted a big Eiffel Tower… which was not going to fit in our luggage, so we told him we would do more shopping another day.
One of the hidden treasures of the tour was this awesome little Flower Market that has been here for about 200 years. It had a lot of really cute garden items like these birdhouses and other fun knick knacks. I really enjoyed looking around here. Marion wanted me to buy a cactus to carry home on the plane. I said maybe next time.
