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After leaving the tombs of St Denis, to complete the theme we went to the Catacombs. There is an interesting history here - explained inside. Millions of years ago the Paris plains were flooded with sea water and this help in the generation of limestone. In the 12th century they started mining the limestone to use as building materials and they did it mostly by digging a huge network of tunnels. In 1780 some walls next to a cemetery collapsed and they decided to move the bones to somewhere. Conveniently there were these tunnels. They started doing this for other cemeteries - partly to make more land available for building. A consequence of these tunnels is that foundations of building are restricted which is another reason for few tall buildings in Paris. After a few years they decided instead of just stacking the bones haphazardly they would do it more artistically and allow tours through it.

To my recollection when I visited them about 50 years ago you walked through with candles. Now there are electric lights, lots of signs and plenty of tourists but not enough for it to feel at all crowded. It was an interesting place to visit, and as it turns out it was the last official place we visited on this trip.

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On the morning of our last full day we went the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis in a northern section of Paris. It is the burial site for almost all the French Kings from the 10th to 18th century. Scaffolding covered part of the front, but everything else was unobstructed. It was completed in 1144 and some consider it to be the first medieval Gothic building built. It was the site of a Roman cemetery and there were several structures there before this one was built. Like most of these churches there is a whole history book associated with this place.

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And now a tour through the château - with some of its rooms, the huge library, and a lot of the items found everywhere.

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After Notre-Dame and Sainte-Chapelle we went to Place de Rue Mouffetard and Place de la Contrescarpe, another nice busy section of Paris in the Vth. Lots of restaurants of course. We passed an ancient Vespa and then nearby there was a set of electric car charging stations.

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After that we went to the nearby Jardin des Plantes. As in many places in France there were various educational exhibits scattered about - about erosion, and another one about bees - with a sign saying that all wild bees are welcome in the hotel.

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On our next to last full day in Paris we went to the nearest places to our apartment: Notre-Dame and Sainte-Chapelle. Wonderful places to visit; I've been there many times - never missed Notre-Dame on a trip to Paris. So of course, too many pictures. Flying buttresses, statuary, stained glass, gargoyles, garden in rear. The line was too long so we didn't climb the tower this time.

Construction of Notre-Dame started in 1163 and was essentially completed 1240's with some more stuff from 1250-1345. (That's about how it seems that some minor public works projects take to complete these days). I read that new bells designed to replicate the original bells' sound have been installed this year; the largest one which remains from the past is called Emmanuel and weighs 13,271 kg. It tolled in 1944 when French and Allied troops started the retaking of Paris.

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After Vaux le Vicomte it was on to Fontainebleau. This château has over 1500 rooms and 130 acres of parkland. Napoleon supposedly said "The true home of kings, the house of ages". It had almost eight centuries of Royal occupation. It has museums, galleries, apartments, theaters, and chapels. It makes its namesake in Miami seem pretty dull (although it too has 1500 rooms).

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We went off on a day trip by bus to Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainebleau, two magnificent chateaux.The first was Vaux le Vicomte - built in the 17th century - and in addition to several magnificent houses with fantastic furnishings has a huge garden (separate post for that). Near the entrance there was a rack of fancy clothes that you could rent to wear while touring the house. We toured many rooms including the library, the attic, and the kitchen. From various windows you could see the garden.

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On Sunday morning we went off to the flea market in St Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris. It is huge - actually a set of about 14 of them; there's been something there for about 200 years. To me it wassort of going to a museum without signs or captions. We didn't buy anything - since we already have too much stuff.

I did look carefully through a set of old automobile manuals looking for one for a Simca Cinq. I had a 1947 Simca Cinq (actually a French assembled version of the Fiat 500 affectionally called the topolino - little mouse - or Mickey Mouse car). But they had none although there were others of similar vintage.


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As in many cathedrals there is a tower you can climb up on the narrow winding stairs and we did. From the top you can see some of the town itself, and some of the surrounding buildings. There was a Ferris wheel in front that seemed pretty high when seen from the ground but as you can see it is far below where we were is wasn't that high. There was a wedding party assembling below. We got to see the restaurant where we'd eaten lunch. And some statuary and lots of closeups of gargoyles.

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I always enjoy looking in shop and gallery windows and as I pass them in foreign countries. There were lots of them in our neighborhood - selling some pretty weird stuff. Look at the phone cases or those shirts. What I didn't see as we did in Florence when we were there (returning in the spring) were highly priced (>200 Euros) distressed jeans. But there were plenty of expensive clothes and various unpriced items which were surely high.

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