Sacre Coeur

Joan of Arc was the bomb. Can we talk about that for a second? She fought and helped beat the English in some battles in the Hundred Years' War before being captured and sold to the English, who tried her for heresy and executed her. WHEN SHE WAS 19. I can't even understand. I feel shamed just reading about her. And I was going to talk about her when I talked about Notre-Dame but I got distracted. The things I would have liked to achieved by the time I was nineteen.

What does this have to do with Sacre Coeur? Oh. Well, there's a statue of her outside. Here, be distracted from my lack of photo by another one of those virtual tours. She's the one on the right.

You can't take pictures inside of Sacre Coeur, the Romanesque-Byzantine basilica on top of the highest hill in Paris, Montmartre, where St. Denis is said to have walked after being beheaded. The doors into the church are flanked by a king and Joan of Arc. That's how awesome Joan of Arc is. She's on par with a king. The church was built in the 19th century, paid for by the people of France and built in reparation for the sins of the country in the recent war.

I wish I could show you the inside so I could make a Katy Perry Firework joke. It's a basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, depicting the Savior as caring and loving, as opposed to the one who comes in terrible glory on the Day of Judgement, which is what you normally see on the outside of churches. Really, I've seen so many Day of Judgement depictions. They're pretty easy 'cause then you get to put both angels and demons, virtues and vices, the saved and the condemned, in one place. Anyway. Sacre Coeur focuses on Jesus' heart, which is outlined with big golden rays of light. I can the Byzantine influence best if not in the domes, in the golden mosaics inside. (You should actually click on this link if you want to see the inside of the church.)

But really, I just wanted to be around the church. I wanted to be by the stairs that climbed La Butte, the hill that Sacre Coeur sits on and I only wanted to be there because I've listened to this song ad nauseam. Even though it's a love song, it talks about the stairways and how they're hard on the miserable. And I love that line- I have a bad habit of putting it in French as my Facebook status. I don't know what it is.

But then I actually went to Sacre Coeur and have added people selling things to tourists on my list of least favorite things in the world, coming in above Duke fans. Yes, those intrepid salesmen who shove cheap souvenirs in your face regardless of your preference in buying said souvenirs actually make the list above the Cameron Crazies. Now I hate for things to be ruined for me. It's like finding out that Han shot first and realizing that your life is a lie. This wasn't precisely on this scale, but I would love for a village of Bohemian writers at the turn of the century to retake Montmartre. And I would like for there never to be another tourist again. Ever. EVER.

I have these dumb noble thoughts about how the heart of Jesus is helping people and how He would be distraught to see the people on His hillside. Then again, maybe the people He'd like to help are already on His hillside. Maybe the tourists and the salesmen alike belong to the Sacred Heart.

But really?

Tourists?

You know, He could always care about people for whom I couldn't care. I've got a lot of learning to do.

Paris Partie Un

Editor's Note: I started thinking about what I was going to say about Paris almost as soon as I left the city. So even though my post about Avignon references Glasgow, this was actually written in London. In an attempt to preserve continuity, I have actually created a lack of continuity. Can you ever forgive me? No? Ah well. Such is life.


Oh mon dieu.

Paris.

To give you an indication of my love for this city, allow me to inform you that it rained most days, I walked around with soaking wet socks in the cold and I had upwards of fifty euro stolen from me and I can still count Paris among my favorite, if not my absolute favorite palces in Europe. (I can say this without a guilty conscience as I write it in London because the UK, as we all know, is not part of Europe. [Sarcasm, sarcasm!])

I've thought a bit about how best to write about Paris. Should I detail each day, should I flow between a series of stories placed across the visit, should I merely wow you with pictures and tell my stories through captions? I decided yesterday, walking down the Mall from Buckingham Palace, that I would 1) express my love for this beautiful city, 2) regale you with the tale of Bastille Day and, 3) give you a feel for the rest of the trip by enumerating my metro passes on my last full day. And, as it's quite a walk back to my hostel, I had a decent amount of time to decide that this is, in fact, my best course of action.

So, my love for Paris translated into a top ten list for you:
1) Notre-Dame-de-Paris

2) The Eiffel Tower

3) Men in Military Uniforms Singing

4) Montmartre

5) Baguettes (sorry, no picture- but we all know what a baguette looks like. Here's a video, if you don't. Skip to 0:47 if you don't enjoy Flight of the Conchords to get the joke)
6) The Seine

7) The Champs Elysees

8) Pont Neuf/Pont au Change/The walk by the Seine around Notre Dame (no picture again! French the Llama!)
9) La Madeline

10) It's a toss up between Notre Dame's gargoyles and Sainte Chapelle

Yes, in fact, most of my love for Paris cetners around Notre Dame: walking around on Pont Neuf, along the Pont au Change, leaving a lock on the Pont Notre Dame, glancing at the Seine between book vendors on a walk by the Isle de la Cite, surveying the scene from the top of Notre Dame, remembering phrases and ideas from the book that led to movies and musicals. More about that later. But I also loved wandering the streets of Paris, walking with the crowds to a concert before Bastille Day, seeing the windmills in Montmartre, walking by the graves in Pere Lachaise. Paris brings me to a city I know from high school French lessons, from the writings of Victor Hugo, from the history I've learned and the movies I've seen. A week is not enough to see everything, so I will be back. Everyone needs an excuse to visit Paris again.