March 1994
A chambre de bonne is a type of French apartment consisting of a single room in a middle-class house or apartment building. It is generally found on the top floor and only accessible by a staircase, sometimes a separate "service staircase".
(Wikipedia)
If MAP had been thrilled to meet Brian and I because we lived in Manhattan, I felt equally the same when he announced that he was doing a one-year stint at IBM Paris. He found a "chambre de bonne" (maid's quarters) in the very fashionable Marais and messaged me he loved living in Paris. I didn't even ask if he wanted a guest - I bought a ticket to visit. I had never been to Paris and now a good friend was living in the heart of it! I was already over 30 and had NOT visited. Not knowing Paris in spite of all my travels was a huge gap that I was desperate to fill.
M's room was small, but not "Tokyo small" [see: Lumbini to Tokyo] as in Brian and my visit to Tomoko's place. Still it was cramped enough that MAP had to be more than tolerant to put up with a guest for a week's visit. Luckily, I broke my stay into two long weekends. On the weekdays in between (since M had to work) I took the night train to Venice and hung out with Piotr Chelkowksi, long time NYU colleague, who was doing some research in one of its medieval libraries.
Everyone loves Paris just like everyone loves San Francisco and other beautifully iconic cities world-wide. Now it was my turn to see. My expectations were simply off the chart. This was a city I had heard about since junior high school French class. I already knew the names of all the famous places - I only needed to verify they existed. It was one of the most anticipated trips of my life. Surely a set up for disaster, right?
In short, it wasn't a disaster. In fact, I loved Paris afterwards just like everyone else.
MAP gave me the best tour of Paris I could have asked for. I think he had a sense of what I would like after getting to know me in New Zealand and then on my subsequent trips to Germany. I was lucky to have someone show me some of the best parts of Paris along with the normal tourist stuff.
Arc de Triomphe
The Grands Boulevards are the quintessence of the Parisian boulevards. Their origin is a plan initiated by Louis XIV's minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the late 1660s, of comprehensive reforms and remodeling of Paris. Aside of the demilitarization of the former city walls and their replacement with a ring of Grands Boulevards, started in 1670,the plan included the establishment of the Lieutenant général de police in 1667; the destruction of all gates of the ancient Wall of Philip II Augustus on the left bank, started in 1673 and completed in 1783
(Wikipedia)
One of the first stops on "MAP's Most Excellent Tour of Paris" was the Arc de Triomphe. M insisted that the iconic structure was not only beautiful in its own right, but also a great way to view the boulevards of Paris. Truer words were never spoken. The view from the Eiffel Tower is, of course, lovely, but the view from the the top of the Arc de Triomphe gives a real feel for the layout of Paris.
looking down the Champs Elysees
Avenue de la Grande Armee toward La Defense
Avenue des Champs-Élysées
I was in love with everything about Paris. I don't think I disliked anything EXCEPT the Champs-Élysées. That grand avenue which I expected to be tree-shaded, bucolic, and lined with cafes was in a fact a very busy thoroughfare with rather scraggly looking trees and completely uninspiring cafes (all the same, one after another). I thought it was a colossal joke. I remember saying to M, "This is it?" Apparently, we were both of the same opinion. I suggested we take a coffee just for the experience and he told me that the prices were twice what they were elsewhere. That was it for me. M took the following photo on a traffic island as a bit of irony and we moved on. That famous avenue was only a few drops of rain on my parade of good experiences in Paris - soon forgotten.
Eiffel Tower
On MAP's tour of Paris, viewing the Eiffel Tower was a curated experience. How to visit such an iconic landmark and have it not be "this looks just like all the photos"? We took the metro to a nearby stop and M insisted we walk in a certain direction and then come upon the most famous landmark of Paris suddenly. We exited the train, walked, and turned a corner and there it was - the Eiffel Tower. The effect was dramatic. I was happy to walk around the base and enjoy this quintessential Paris moment. We even queued and took the elevator to the top, but it was an overcast day so the views were not that amazing. Actually, M seized the moment to point out other famous landmarks in Paris that we would eventually visit.
For a temporary structure that Parisians hated initially, it certainly is loved (over-loved?) now. I had visited the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but many more wonders waited that would impress me even more.
Hotel de Ville
In 1533, King Francis I decided to endow the city with a city hall which would be worthy of Paris, then the largest city of Europe and Christendom. He appointed two architects: Italian Dominique de Cortone, nicknamed Boccador because of his red beard, and Frenchman Pierre Chambiges. The House of Pillars was torn down and Boccador, steeped in the spirit of the Renaissance, drew up the plans of a building which was at the same time tall, spacious, full of light and refined. Building work was not finished until 1628 during the reign of Louis XIII.
...
In 1835, on the initiative of Rambuteau, préfet of the Seine département, two wings were added to the main building and were linked to the facade by a gallery, to provide more space for the expanded city government.
...
The Hôtel de Ville had been the headquarters of the French Revolution, and likewise, it was the headquarters of the Paris Commune. When defeat became increasingly imminent and the French army approached the building, the Communards set fire to the Hôtel de Ville, along with other government buildings, destroying the building and almost all of the city archives.
...
Reconstruction of City Hall lasted from 1873 through 1892 ... the architects rebuilt the interior of the Hôtel de Ville within the stone shell that had survived the fire. While the rebuilt Hôtel de Ville from the outside appeared to be a copy of the 16th-century French Renaissance building that stood before 1871, the new interior was based on an entirely new design, with ceremonial rooms lavishly decorated in the 1880s style.
(Wikipedia)
Hands down, my favorite exterior in all of Paris, the City Hall was just an amazing piece of art cum architecture. Even more amazing for me was that in spite of all my years of French study, it had never figured prominently other than as a venue in French history. I never recall anyone writing of its beauty. The idea that it had actually been gutted by fire once and rebuilt inside the stone shell was just shocking to me. Then again, the Tuileries Palace, the missing piece of the Louvre, was totally demolished after its burning, much to the chagrin of fine architecture lovers. The Paris City Hall at least merited being rebuilt, even if the interior was nothing like the original. It might be the finest city hall in all of Europe.
La Defense
From the Arc de Triomphe, in the distance, a collection of modern buildings is visible. The Parisians, thank God, kept the modern part of Paris far from the historic center. Nonetheless, it is still centered on Paris' historic axis. Even if I wasn't into seeing modern architecture in the city, the great arch of La Defense did call out to me. MAP and I hopped an RER train and in a few minutes we were in the largest purpose-built business district in Europe.
Why "La Defense"? How odd that an entire section of the city had been named after a statue that commemorated a great French defeat. During the Franco-Prussian war after Paris held out against the Germans for months, in a desperate attempt to break through the blockade, the French failed and the Prussians took Paris. Outside of the city, but along its historic axis, a monument was built to commemorate the event:
In 1879, the Republicans came to power after years of royalist government. To commemorate the heroic defense of Paris against the Prussians, the Prefecture of the Seine (former department of Paris) decided to erect a statue on the historical axis of Paris, where the National Guard had gathered before the battle of Buzenval. Nearly a hundred sculptors, including Rodin and Bartholdi, presented their project. It is finally the statue of Louis-Ernest Barrias, La Défense de Paris, that was chose. This statue, originally located in the center of a large roundabout in the perspective of the Arc de Triomphe, gave its name to the district of la Défense. Relocated several times, it is since January 2017 on the esplanade, halfway between the Grande Arche and the Seine.
I have no recollection that M and I ever saw the statue namesake of the modern business district of Paris. We did, however, walk around the "Grande Arche" which was aligned on Paris' axis and I marveled at the city planning. Paris really was a place of broad vistas and long views like no other. No wonder people were always trying to copy it (like Washington, DC).
Les Invalides
Les Invalides and the surrounding complex are old. They are 17th century dating back to Louis XIV. The whole place is chock full of history, e.g., the arms the citizens took to storm the Bastille in 1789 were taken from Les Invalides. The architecture is stunning and the layout and gardens amazing. However, there really is only one reason to go to les Invalides:
Because of its location and significance, the Invalides served as the scene for several key events in French history. On 14 July 1789 it was stormed by Parisian rioters who seized the cannons and muskets stored in its cellars to use against the Bastille later the same day. Napoleon was entombed under the Dome of the Invalides with great ceremony in 1840.
(Wikipedia)
France's famous "bad boy" whom they love and the rest of the continent feels conflicted about - Napoleon - is buried there in a tomb on a pedestal in the center of the dome. No king of France is so honored, but Napoleon, who almost made all of Europe French, is entombed with a god-like status. M and I came as well to pay our respects.
Flame of Liberty
It was offered to Paris in 1989 by the International Herald Tribune on behalf of donors who had contributed approximately $400,000 for its fabrication. It represented the culmination of that newspaper's 1987 celebration of its hundredth anniversary of publishing an English-language daily newspaper in Paris. More importantly, the Flame was a token of thanks for the restoration work on the Statue of Liberty accomplished three years earlier by two French businesses that did artisanal work on the project, namely Métalliers Champenois, which did the bronze work, and the Gohard Studios, which applied the gold leaf. While the gift to France was prompted by the centennial of the newspaper, the Flame of Liberty, more broadly, is a lasting symbol of the friendship uniting the two countries, just as the statue itself was when it was given to the United States by France.
(Wikipedia)
The Flame is just one of many monuments or street names in Paris that serve to remind Americans of the deep and important historical connection between France and America. France may have popularized the concept of individual liberty, but Americans ended up living it (for good or ill). Little did we know that years later, in the underpass beneath the torch, Princess Diana would meet her fate.
Louvre
When I was in high school, we watched a documentary (several times) about the construction of the Louvre. I was fascinated even when I was young about the development of the palace and later museum. My visit to the Louvre was one of the most anticipated ingredients of that first taste of Paris.
The Pei Pyramid was already accepted and iconic by the time I visited. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but upon seeing it live and looking out from the interior, I was a fast convert. I loved the exterior of the Louvre and was astounded at its size. I mourned the loss of the Tuileries Palace which truly is a "missing piece" of Paris that should one day be restored to realign the axis and to complete the grand interior courtyard. The Parisians deride the "trop grand Louvre", but I disagree. In my opinion, it can only get better.
Then I went inside. I devoted an entire day to the museum. Even viewing it at much too brisk a pace, I was barely able to walk through the entire museum - and that was with a short lunch break taken on site. I was in historical and cultural overload. When I got tired of art I looked at the building. When the palace got too "samey", I refocused on the art. When I got tired of the Renaissance, I saw the splendors of the ancient world - art looted from Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. The Persian and Assyrian Empires came alive. I saw the actual "Code of Hammurabi". When that all got dull, a visit to Napoleon's apartments broke the monotony (if I were Napoleon I would have lived in the Louvre, too).
As I have often mentioned, superlatives do wreak havoc with anyone's future. For me, no museum, with the exception of the Vatican Museum, has remotely come close to the Louvre. At the end of the day I was zombified. Perhaps if I lived in Paris I would explore the Louvre weekly, bit by bit. Maybe I could finish in a year?
It was the best museum visit EVER.
Arc du Carrousel
The at the time recently opened Richelieu Wing.
Napo's apartments
Venus de Milo
Notre Dame
Notre Dame de Paris is not only a beautiful gothic cathedral, it is THE gothic cathedral that exists as an icon worldwide. Only Westminster Abbey comes close in international recognition (and that is not a cathedral). We approached Notre Dame from Pont d'Arcole and came to the tourist crush in front of the church. This was Paris and, of course, there were tourists, but for some reason Notre Dame appeared mobbed more than any other place we had visited to that point. M said, "this is normal". I was momentarily disappointed, but we pushed our way inside the church to marvel at its medieval splendor and its famous rose window.
Notre Dame was not my first gothic cathedral, but it was the gothic cathedral. We wandered all around it inside and out and I felt only slightly miffed to be sharing the experience with hundreds of others.
La Sainte Chapelle
When I was in high school, my French teacher Doris Ritter, who had done a study tour in Paris (maybe one of the highlights of her life), often spoke about places she had visited in Paris. Her absolute favorite was La Sainte Chapelle which shared the historic center of Paris, Île de la Cité, with Notre Dame. This small church (compared to Notre Dame) was famous for its stained glass windows. M and I entered and I was absolutely silenced by the sea of purple and blue walls surrounding us. Miss Ritter had not oversold the place. La Sainte Chapelle remains some of the best stained glass I have ever seen anywhere. Part of the beauty of the chapel is that the windows literally ARE the walls. Most churches' stained glass punctuates ornate stone gloom, but La Sainte Chapelle is riot of light and colors. It was heavenly and far less crowded, especially after jostling with the crowds to enjoy Notre Dame.
Seine River
The Seine is another part of Paris that is just as iconic as Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower. Most notably the river around Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis with the famous bateaux-mouches tour boats are the stuff of tourist brochures and travel programs. Like any other urban river in Europe it runs brown and smells bad, but its riverside quays were still the stuff of poetry. Paris on that sunny day was just getting better and better.
Île Saint-Louis
While returning to the Marais we cut across Île Saint-Louis and I was immediately captivated by the place. If "regular" rich people lived in the center of Paris, then the ultra rich lived on Île Saint-Louis. The island was the urban twin of Île de la Cité. If ever I won the lottery, that was the place I was going to live in Paris (or maybe, as I would soon discover, Place des Vosges).
Place des Vosges
In a second "flair for the dramatic" visit recommended by MAP, we walked to the nearby Place des Vosges. He only told me that it was a really wonderful place to see in the Marais. As far as I was concerned, we were in Paris and everything was wonderful. I was game. We walked down a rather non-descript street and through an archway and then.....wow, Place des Vosges!
Originally known as Place Royale, Place des Vosges was built by Henri IV from 1605 to 1612. A true square (140 m × 140 m), it embodied one of the first European programs of royal city planning (The Plaza Mayor in Madrid, begun in 1590, precedes it). It was built on the site of the Hôtel des Tournelles and its gardens: At a tournament at the Tournelles, a royal residence, Henri II was wounded and died. Catherine de' Medici had the Gothic complex demolished, and she moved to the Louvre Palace.
Place des Vosges, inaugurated in 1612 with a grand carrousel to celebrate the engagement of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, is a prototype of the residential squares of European cities that were to come. What was new about the Place Royale in 1612, was that the housefronts were all built to the same design, probably by Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau[1] of red brick with strips of stone quoins over vaulted arcades that stand on square pillars. The steeply-pitched blue slate roofs are pierced with discreet small-paned dormers above the pedimented dormers that stand upon the cornices.
(Wikipedia)
The beauty of the square, its symmetry, and its "out of nowhere" appearance all combined to make it one of my favorite urban spaces in the world. Only Plaza Mayor in Madrid competes with it (and they were built around the same time). M had not undersold it. If I ever lived in Paris it will have to be in Place des Vosges or Île Saint-Louis. Nothing in London, Rome, Berlin, or Amsterdam comes close for me.
Cardinal Richelieu had an equestrian bronze of Louis XIII erected in the center.
Opera
The Palais Garnier, also known as Opéra Garnier, Garnier Opera), is a 1,979-seat opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from 1861 to 1875 at the behest of Emperor Napoleon III. Initially referred to as le nouvel Opéra de Paris (the new Paris Opera), it soon became known as the Palais Garnier, "in acknowledgment of its extraordinary opulence" and the architect Charles Garnier's plans and designs, which are representative of the Napoleon III style.
(Wikipedia)
The Place de l'Opéra is an iconic location in Paris and the opera house one of the grandest in Europe. I didn't go inside (no time really), but the Opera House was another big check mark on my "Paris List". Who could NOT love the Paris Opera?
Phantom of the Opera was mythically set there.
The Opera houses of Manaus [see: Amazon Theatre, Manaus] and Hanoi were based on it.
The Library of Congress [see: Library of Congress] is modeled after it (amazingly so!)
The opera "William Tell" premiered there (with its world-famous overture)
Paris seemingly did everything extremely well!
Rodin Museum
The National Gallery in Washington, DC has a small, but good collection of Rodin. While I was at Georgetown, there was a Rodin exhibit where pieces were brought on loan from around the world. I was an instant fan. I don't know why, but Rodin's sculptures have always spoken to me. After that exhibit, I was on the lookout for Rodin's sculptures in museums everywhere. The Met in New York has a decent collection, but in the USA the place to see Rodin is the small, but "chock full of art", Rodin Museum in Philadelphia near the Museum of Art. Luckily in the the Japan years, I also stopped off at Tokyo's Museum of Western Art which also has one of the best collections of Rodin outside of Paris. I was finally in Paris and the Musée Rodin was just as high on my list as the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame.
By the time I saw the works in France, I had already seen most of them in the the USA and Japan. It didn't matter though, I loved Rodin and could view his work countless times. There was a specialness in viewing them in Paris in the very place he requested the French state to display his work after his demise:
Hotel Biron was built in the Rue de Varenne, between 1727 and 1732. ......Awaiting a buyer, tenants were allowed to occupy the building; among them were Jean Cocteau, Henri Matisse, Isadora Duncan and Rainer Maria Rilke, whose future wife Clara Westhoff was living in the Hôtel and was the first to tell Rodin about the estate. In 1908, the sculptor rented four ground-floor rooms to use as his studios. From 1911 onwards, he occupied the whole building. In 1911, as the French state had committed itself to purchasing the Hôtel Biron, Rodin started to negotiate with it. The artist announced officially his intention to donate all his works to the French state, as well as his drawings and his collection of antiquities in the condition that the State keeps all these collections at the Hôtel Biron, which will become the Musée Rodin in exchange of the right to reside there all his life.
(Wikipedia)
Rodin must be unique among artists to have negotiated with the state about his own collection before his passing. It remains one of my favorite small museums in world (along with its twin in Philly).
Musee d'Orsay
The former Gare d'Orsay was built as a "post-modern" building for the Paris Exhibition of 1900 which also gave us a bevy of futuristic inventions:
Many technological innovations were displayed at the Fair, including the Grande Roue de Paris ferris wheel, the Rue de l'Avenir moving sidewalk, the first ever regular passenger trolleybus line, escalators, diesel engines, electric cars, dry cell batteries, electric fire engines, talking films, the telegraphone (the first magnetic audio recorder), the galalith and the matryoshka dolls. It also brought international attention to the Art Nouveau style.
(Wikipedia)
In the 1970's the venerable old building was almost demolished for a new RER station and hotel, but was saved by cooler heads who understood its significance. After discussion, it was decided that the "gap" in French museum art between the Louvre and the Centre George Pompidou (modern art) could be bridged by the new museum. Most embarrassingly for France, the great collections of the impressionists were scattered here and there across the capital (and the world). The new museum would finally provide a home for some of France's once-rejected and now famous impressionist artworks.
I loved the Musée d'Orsay for a multitude of reasons. It held the world's greatest collection of impressionist art under one roof - a title most likely previously held by museums in the USA whose American founders had snapped up impressionist art as it was painted and rejected by the French art establishment. All those vulgar, new-moneyed Americans bought France's cultural heritage because no one wanted it. Washington, New York, and Chicago now probably collectively hold just as many (and as important) impressionist artworks as Musée d'Orsay. Nonetheless, the cavernous interior of the Orsay was also an amazing space, unparalleled by few other museums in the world. And, my favorite bit of the museum, and always recommended to visitors to Paris by me, the cafe behind the huge exterior clockface. Taking a meal there in the shadow of that huge timepiece felt so "retro" for some reason. It may well have been my favorite cafe in Paris.
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Even cemeteries in Paris were famous. MAP and I were sure to include a stopover at Père Lachaise which holds an amazing agglomeration of grave markers in the middle of Paris. It is not that large yet it entombs many famous people. I was amazed that people still flocked to Jim Morrison's grave when they could also visit Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, or Frederic Chopin. I chose to be photographed by Oscar Wilde's tomb. The epitaph was haunting:
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
Oscar Wilde's tomb
La Sorbonne
The English-speaking world might be all about Oxford and Cambridge, but for Francophones, it is only the Sorbonne. I had to have a walk about its buildings. The campus was extremely urban and very Parisian. It followed the George Washington University in DC model - cut out a chunk of the city and claim it. I was thrilled to walk around the neighborhood, but slightly disappointed that it didn't feel more like a university.
On those wanderings, just out of the university zone proper, by chance I glimpsed the street sign Rue de l'Abbé-de-L'Épée. For a moment, I was blasted back to Washington and my Gallaudet University years. The venerable Abbé de L'Épée of Paris had created a series of hand shapes to represent the alphabet in order to teach "deaf mutes". That system caught on and the local deaf community not only adopted it with gusto, but started to add their own "signs" to this form of communication. A standardized "Sign Language" was born (French Sign Language) which was later carried to the New World by one promising young, deaf Frenchman, Laurent Clerc. He was brought to Connecticut to help teach the deaf daughter of Thomas Gallaudet. Gallaudet founded the "Connecticut Asylum (at Hartford) for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons" and the rest is history for the American Deaf community.
Abbé de L'Épée was beheaded during the French Revolution most sadly. However, Paris remembers his important contribution to the world which led to an unshackling of a group of people who had lived in silence for centuries.
Rue de l'Abbé-de-L'Épée
Montmartre
Montmartre - the place one was to go and see street artists at work - it was another "must see" in Paris. Nothing could have been truer and the streets were lined with people painting away and selling their art. There tourists would go and buy a "typical street scene" of Paris for an inflated price and later hang on a wall back home so the story could be repeated to dinner guests. I confess not to swooning over the art which looked remarkably the same from artist to artist.
The white shape of Sacre Coeur dominated the neighborhood. I don't even recall if M and I walked inside or not. Overall, the neighborhood was the least memorable of Paris for me - not for any bad reason, but simply because nothing stood out to make me remember it. Perhaps my brain was already in overload having seen places I had dreamed of visiting my whole life?
Sacre Coeur
Movie Night in Montparnasse
As very strange luck would have it, Schindler's List had just been released and MAP and I were both interested in seeing it. M got us tickets at a theatre in Montparnasse and we watched the epic film there in a crowded theatre. The movie was long, but I did not feel the passing of time. The audience all remained in their seats until the very last credit was played. We stood up and exited in total silence. I had never seen nor felt an audience reaction to a film like that. Marc and I also walked silently toward the Marais. It was a long time before either of us were ready to speak.
What an impactful film to have seen in Paris. I wondered if the audience reaction was because I was in Paris or if worldwide it had been similar.
Day Trip to Chartres
Chartres is not Paris, but I only had enough time to make one day trip from the city and I had to make a hard choice - Versailles or Chartres. Maybe because I was still on palace/museum overload from the Louvre, I chose Chartres. I got on a local train and headed out of Paris.
The cathedral was easy enough to find as it was even visible from the train station. After a short walk I was there. I had already visited many churches in Europe and many religious structures around the world, but this was Chartres Cathedral. If Notre Dame was the poster-child for Gothic cathedrals, then Chartres was the mother of them all.
Mostly constructed between 1194 and 1220, it stands on the site of at least five cathedrals that have occupied the site since the Diocese of Chartres was formed as an episcopal see in the 4th century. It is in the High Gothic and Romanesque styles, with a Flamboyant north spire. Long renowned as "one of the most beautiful and historically signifcant cathedrals in all of Europe," it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979, which called it "the high point of French Gothic art" and a "masterpiece".
Chartres was one of the cathedrals that many other builders came to use as a reference point. Yet there was more - Chartres was not only renowned for its architecture, it also contained nearly all of its original stained glass windows dating back centuries. One of the most distinctive features of Chartres Cathedral is the stained glass, both for its quantity and quality. There are 167 windows, including rose windows, round oculi, and tall, pointed lancet windows. The architecture of the cathedral, with its innovative combination of rib vaults and flying buttresses, permitted the construction of much higher and thinner walls, particularly at the top clerestory level, allowing more and larger windows. Also, Chartres contains fewer plain or grisaille windows than later cathedrals, and more windows with densely stained glass panels, making the interior of Chartres darker but the colour of the light deeper and richer.
... Although estimates vary (depending on how one counts compound or grouped windows) approximately 152 of the original 176 stained glass windows survive – far more than any other medieval cathedral anywhere in the world. (Wikipedia) To make Chartres even more amazing its relic is no less than the tunic worn by Mary at Christ's birth, the Sancta Camisa. For me, however, the visit really was all about those windows. La Sainte Chapelle in Paris was amazing for its abundance of stained glass "walls", but Chartres was just on a completely different level - an entire world illuminated by a dim purple/blue light. No stained glass experience since has topped walking wondrously through Chartres cathedral silenced by the hundreds of years old stained glass dimly lighting the gloom that famous Gothic church. I was happy I had passed on Versailles. I would return to Paris and see it on another trip when I was less sensorily overwhelmed. Chartres was everything I thought it would be.
P.S.
My first trip to Paris is still one of the best vacations I can remember and I often referenced it on my other travels. Paris was not oversold, at least for me. Sadly, I only ever returned one more time on a very rushed and somewhat stressful visit. I really do need to get back there one day.