On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
That photo of the ferris wheel at dusk seems almost magical to me, oh how I wish I could be there. ~WaterGirl
randy khan
I thought I ought to contribute to the Paris photos. My wife has been going to Paris every year for decades because she has a close friend who lives there. (Some years, between my frequent flyer miles and her sleeping on Colette’s sofa, the trip practically was free.) The last several years, though, I’ve been going with her, and this year’s visit was part of our last real trip before the pandemic shut things down. We usually go in the winter, when it’s cheap and there aren’t a lot of tourists.
This selection is over several years, hitting some of my favorites.
I’ll start with my absolute favorite place in Paris, Sainte-Chappelle, for centuries the church of French royalty. It’s the first place my wife (then girlfriend) took me in Paris on my first trip there, and it’s a wonder. We go back regularly when we’re there just to bask in it, and it’s even better since they restored the windows maybe 10 years ago. Part of the reason it’s so amazing is that you enter on the lower level, which is nice but nothing special. Then you walk up a tiny stone spiral staircase and emerge into a room where you’re surrounded by stained glass. It’s mind blowing. This is the rose window, which is marvelously detailed. (If you zoom your browser, you should be able to see some that.)
One more Sainte-Chappelle image, from one of the tall windows, which cover three walls of the upper level.
Père-Lachaise is one of the most famous cemeteries in Paris, filled with famous people (and there’s a brochure to help you find them). This is the grave of Abelard and Heloise. Maybe.
The cemetery opened centuries after Abelard and Heloise died, but the proprietors, looking for a way to make it attractive to prospective patrons, moved the remains from their earlier resting places to the cemetery and built this monument. Inside, there are individual graves with appropriate medieval grave sculptures (and, by the way, medieval grave sculptures are great). However, it’s not clear that the remains actually belong to Abelard and Heloise, and I believe there’s at least one other place that claims to have one of them.
This is a part of Paris with a lot of street art and a lot of antique markets. I thought this piece was fun.
St. Denis is where most of the kings and queens are buried – including Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who were moved there. The tombs are fascinating, but I thought the stained glass windows in the crypt (yes – the church is built on a hill, and the back end of the crypt gets sunlight) were great. I really love stained glass, in case you hadn’t guessed.
If you go to Paris and don’t go to a bakery, I’m not sure what the point is. The reason for the gold crown sitting on top of the cakes at the bottom is that they are King Cakes, sort of like the ones that you can get for Mardi Gras, but really more of a New Year’s thing in France. Each one has a little ceramic something in it, usually, but not always, a baby. This bakery had little busts of its founder.
Just a view from, roughly speaking, the Orangerie towards the Cenotaph and the big Ferris Wheel at dusk.
In honor of some of the front-pagers, I’ll finish with a big foot.
It’s actually a reliquary in the Cluny, which is awfully cluttered, but has a room with fantastic tapestries that is worth the visit just by itself. Sadly, my photos of the tapestries aren’t worthy, but the foot also was a highlight.
An afterword:
I think about Ste.-Chapelle a lot, particularly after the Notre Dame fire. As mind-blowing as it is today, I remember that it had to be even more incredible when it was first built. I’ve been in plenty of cathedrals with great windows, but nothing like the wraparound blast of light you get there, and combined with the reveal when you come out of the dark spiral staircase, it must have seemed like a miracle to people who lived without electric lights or picture windows.
And the other miracle is that it’s still with us. Notre Dame will be restored, but if something like that had happened to Ste.-Chapelle, well, I don’t even want to think about it.
On a totally different note, if you go to Paris, definitely check out as much medieval grave statuary as you can, just for the animals at their feet. There’s a good selection at the Louvre and at St. Denis. Or if you’re in London, the V&A has some, too.
Lapassionara
The foot rocks! Do you think Adalhard is related to Abelard? Love the photos. I too like going in the winter.
Laura Too
Oh my, the bakery! I can only imagine…and the bread…Some day!!! Thanks you, these are delightful!
Amir Khalid
Is it me, or is there something Terry Gilliam-ish about that golden foot?
Emma
In the last pic, my brain automatically added the squishing sound from Monty Python’s opening XD I love me some pastries, and I wish French bakeries in the US (or at least in my western WA suburb) did things besides macarons and croissants. Those king cakes look good… Edit: I see Amir beat me to the MP reference
Wag
I love your photos of the stained glass. I, too, am enamored of the light. Great photos!
Wag
@Amir Khalid: It isn’t just you. I agree wholeheartedly.
WaterGirl
I would definitely stop at the bakery on the way to the ferris wheel.
@randy khan
I want you to know that I renamed your golden foot photo so that I can easily search for it in the media library so I can insert it in the comments when appropriate.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
My fondest food memories of Paris are the street food from my first trip there in 2000. I discovered the amazing sandwich called the Croque Monsieur, which as I recall was about the same price as a cup of that amazing French coffee (both around 10 francs, and yes they were still on the franc then).
Coffee seems to have gotten homogenized in Europe since the Euro-zone. Everybody’s serving espresso. It’s great espresso, but I miss that uniquely French coffee.
arrieve
I’m suddenly hungry for French pastry. A religeuse, maybe, with puff pastry filled with chocolate creme. Or one of the meringues covered in chocolate icing. Or a perfect fruit tart. And several croissants with butter and jam.
randy khan
@WaterGirl:
It’s an honor.
Laura
King cakes are likely a treat for Epiphany (the day of the 3 Kings) and the baby of course, is the fella they went a’visitin’. The only reason not to go to a bakery in Paris is if you’re gluten-free (as I am), except when you’re fortunate enough to have a spouse you can to drag into bakeries who obliges my wish to let me watch him nom delicious treats on my behalf, or as proxy, or some other (paltry) excuse for indulging in the experience in all ways save eating.
Omnes Omnibus
@Emma: We have a very nice one in Madison. It also doubles as a cafe. Sometimes you can go there and eat authentic French food while watching French rugby (hey, I enjoy it). The owner/baker is from Normandy and trained there as a baker; his wife is also French but her mother came from northern WI which is how they ended up here.
arrieve
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The street food is wonderful. Crepes filled with cheese or chestnut paste. Sausages in a baguette covered with cheese. Berthillon ice cream.
I love croque madames, which is a croquet monsieur with a fried egg on top. You cut the egg open so the yolk runs over the toasted bread and melted cheese and ham and béchamel. It is sublime.
Barbara
Great pictures. You have included three of my favorite Paris haunts. I have pictures taken from the top of that ferris wheel!
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: This really is a full service blog!
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Saturday crepes all day. Sigh.
randy khan
@Lapassionara:
It looks like they’re not related, and there’s about 200 years between them. But Adalhard was a cousin of Charlemange.
Emma
@Omnes Omnibus: oooh, they have croque monsieur, there are few things I wouldn’t do for a good croque monsieur/madame…
Wag
@Laura: My son has celiac, and in Paris we found a gf bakery that was out of this world. All kinds of pastries and tarts. And macaroons everywhere are gf.
https://www.chambelland.com
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Ha! First thing I thought of!
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
That’s hilarious. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of it.
BigJimSlade
@Amir Khalid: (this is the meaning of life) SQUASH!
Benw
Damn these are some great pics
SiubhanDuinne
@BigJimSlade:
The Liberty Bell March in my head is going to keep me from going to sleep tonight.
BigJimSlade
I love the stained glass too (tough to take great pictures of… sigh…), but the bakery (patisserie) and the ferris wheel take the cake, or at least the pain au chocolat.
SiubhanDuinne
@Benw:
Oh, yeah, I was forgetting we were in an OTRAD post. Pictures are terrific.
Auntie Anne
Love the pictures!
Benw
@SiubhanDuinne: stay focussed! :)
Amir Khalid
@BigJimSlade:
You need to work in Eric Idle’s delightfully awful parody of Johnny Halliday’s French accent for extra topicality.
Another Scott
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
frosty
We found the most amazing patisserie in Bayeux, Normandy, on the same trip that I posted our Paris pictures. I, too, took pictures of the display cases. It was one block from our Air BnB and we went there every morning and each came away with 3 or 4 items. It was impossible to choose!
We weren’t in Paris long enough to research more than a couple patisseries, but the one in Bayeux beat every one I saw.
randy khan
An afterword:
I think about Ste.-Chapelle a lot, particularly after the Notre Dame fire. As mind-blowing as it is today, I remember that it had to be even more incredible when it was first built. I’ve been in plenty of cathedrals with great windows, but nothing like the wraparound blast of light you get there, and combined with the reveal when you come out of the dark spiral staircase, it must have seemed like a miracle to people who lived without electric lights or picture windows.
And the other miracle is that it’s still with us. Notre Dame will be restored, but if something like that had happened to Ste.-Chapelle, well, I don’t even want to think about it.
On a totally different note, if you go to Paris, definitely check out as much medieval grave statuary as you can, just for the animals at their feet. There’s a good selection at the Louvre and at St. Denis. Or if you’re in London, the V&A has some, too.
BigJimSlade
@Amir Khalid: I just assumed everyone could hear that automatically. It was certainly in my ears :-)
BigJimSlade
@Another Scott: LOLOL
BigJimSlade
@frosty: Their patisseries should be great — their tapestries are world-renowned! (sorry) (well, kinda)
J R in WV
Love today’s photos!
This is great stuff, well chosen variety, bakery, wow!
When wife was negotiating their union contracts in NYC a couple of years her sub-let was across the street from a great patisserie…fruit tarts … um! Better than a good deli…
Thanks! Now back in bed!
There go two miscreants
Great pictures! I tried to get a decent shot of the ferris wheel lit up at night, but none were really satisfactory. I like yours!
WaterGirl
@randy khan: I just added this up top, after the last photo. I can take it out if you like.
randy khan
@WaterGirl:
Oh, certainly – if I didn’t want people to see it, I wouldn’t have said it in the first place.