tl;dr?! – We were going to blog about Bernie & His Taxes which unironically, would have been more positive than a trip through our France scrapbook for pictures of Notre Dame which we didn’t expect to be under fire yesterday, August 15, 2019, but there it was.
I was stunned with the news and photos and videos of the Notre Dame Cathedral as it burned in Paris yesterday. Almost 14 years ago, Mr. Viva, Frood, and I were tourists in France! And what a trip. We hung out around the cathedral for the better part of a day trip. Digital photo storage being what it is and all now, my France photos are on a disc or memory stick or drive I’m certain to locate somewhere sometime so what follows are photos of my scrapbook with elaborate paper corners which yeah, I don’t scrapbook anymore but I might have to rethink that decision. Enjoy!
Or not.
I purchased the above postcard with the cathedral because the perspective and the light and the point of view were so complete. So perfect. But the photo I took was better because it meant I was there.
The cathedral is not so square with my camera angle. Cameras and lens and point-of-view being all that. It rose and tilted back. Massive. Impressive. And I loved the crowd!
According to The Local, about 14 million people visit the Notre-Dame Cathedral each year. With yesterday’s fire, that number is sure to sink. These are a few of the sights we enjoyed on our day trip.
These musicians stepped onto the Metro a couple stops after us. They played a bit on the train – not the best venue – and exited when we did. And we parted ways and lost them to the crowd, but it caused me a moment of happy recognition when we tripped across their play later in the day. And though this was 14 years ago, I’m burdened with the conceit that they would still be there. They still play.
But I’m sure they’ve moved on.
The cathedral has suffered a burn after all.
Sometime in the afternoon, a small bridge – and based on Googlemaps I’m going to wager it was the Pont Saint-Louis – was blocked off for our enjoyment to be entertained by roller-bladers doing their roller-bladering thing. Just for our enjoyment, sure. A traveler’s conceit.
And what is Paris if not art?
And flying buttresses! In my youth I thought a flying buttress was a turbo-charged piece of equipment to bolster a broom. The Wicked Witch of the East orders her flying monkey to “get me my flying buttress!” as she reaches for her broom.
But no. A flying buttress is an architectural structure. And the witch’s broom burned. But the flying buttresses survived!
And the imperceptibly negligible French I picked up? Mais oui? But yes! Paris is always a good idea.
And we watch stadiums rise and fall and change and morph and based on recent evidence, cathedrals burn. The French will rebuild Notre Dame. It will be different. Things change. But the magic will remain.
Paris is always a good idea.
Peace.
