When we visited Paris in 1999, Gerry made a fairly serious effort to photograph at least the outside of every church in central Paris. He didn't quite succeed. This time we had no such ambitions but did see a lot of churches. Our goal was rather to build on what we already knew and try to get to see those churches that we wished we had not missed last time around. You'll find here the churches that we visited inside which are of greatest "tourist" importance. There are a lot of magnificent buildings that once were but are not now churches. And there are many other small churches of great age or beauty and large churches of lesser age.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame de Paris

How can you not start a visit to Paris with a visit to Notre Dame? Or at least not start our discussion of Parisian churches with what most acclaim as the greatest church of the middle ages and perhaps of all time? If these were not good enough reasons we had another: we actually did visit Notre Dame and attend church services less than a week after our arrival.

Portal with Statues of Saints

Stained Glass Window

Notre Dame Easter Service

Archbishop of Paris

Not usually church-goers, as you all know, we nonetheless stood and sat through two masses on Easter Sunday in Notre Dame, four days after our arrival. We have attended church services at various of the New York City churches, midnight New Years mass in Pueblo, Mexico, and other services in plenty of other baroque Latin American churches but never yet in Paris so Easter was the perfect opportunity.

On Easter Sunday there were masses almost every hour. We arrived just as the Gregorian mass was beginning and the church packed beyond belief; the best we could do was stand in the aisles, far removed from direct contact with the service: we mostly saw it over video monitors, which were widely used. Once the Gregorian mass was over, however, we grabbed a couple of seats on the side of the third row with views of the altar and so got to watch Paris's new archbishop, Jean Vingt-Trois, presiding over the midday mass.

Life of Jesus: Sea of Galilee

Only three days after our Easter visit to Notre Dame we had our first visitors to Paris and of course we were back there with them. The western front of the cathedral looked absolutely stunning with all ofthe grime and other deposits of time removed. (In 1999 the front had been shrouded in scaffolding used in cleaning the grime of ages.) Inside there were hardly any crowds and it was a fine chance to tour at leisure the art in the deambulatory. For the very first time we took the time to look in detail at the fine bas-reliefs of the life of Jesus.

Sacre Coeur

Sacré Coeur

A visitor a week? Then a major church a week. This time it was Paloma and the lovely Sacré Coeur. On a wonderful spring morning we set out from chez nous in Belleville and walked to Montmartre, the home of the church. Along the way we saw some wonderful flowering trees. The last bit of our walk, in distance at least but not in effort, was to go up the hundred steps that lead to Sacré Coeur from the east side.

Sacré Coeur on Monmartre

Steps to Sacré Coeur Belleville on horizon

On this visit we saw the church in a rather different mood than on previous visits. First, the inside lights were lit making it much easier to see the gilded mosaics that decorate the interior and second a group of nuns was continuously reciting prayers for Pope John Paul II who had just died. There was lots of coming and going in the body of the church (rather than just that of tourists who constantly circulate down one aisle and up the other) as church members brought flowers and other donations to honor the dead pope; undoubtedly soon to be sanctified.

The Pope's funeral following so closely on the heels of Eastertide made the start of our life in Paris quite a religious affair. We were most pleased to be able to watch the events surrounding the Pope's death as neither of us had paid much attention when John Paul's predecessor had died. That was in the summer of 1978 when we were just getting settled in the US after our seven-month trip from Iran, much of it overland, through India and then on through the Far East to Los Angeles. This time we were fortunate enough to have no other obligations and to be in a largely Catholic country and so managed to sit down and watch the entire funeral.

Like most people, we imagine, we did end up being thoroughly tired of hearing about the Pope after three days of news bulletins devoted almost entirely to him. And then the news switched to preparations for the funeral and then the aftermath of the funeral. If that was not enough, of course, we then had to undergo all of the commentary surrounding the new Pope's election and enthronement. The satirical French newspaper, Le Canard Enchaine, perhaps said it best, when it asked for separation of Church and Television. Perhaps we should be grateful, since for a time at least the main topic of conversation was not how evil the United States government is!

St Eustache

Saint Eustache, Les Halles

St Eustance is on the northern side of Les Halles, once the food basket of Paris and now a park covering an underground shopping center covering the most maze-like transportation hub. We came close to visiting three times before getting inside. Our first visit was to go to FNAC, a giant department store of books, electronic goods and media where we armed ourselves with two guide books of Paris. Our second visit was with Paloma, when we wandered through in search of a nice restaurant for a Sunday lunch.

It was only on our third visit towards the end of April that we finally found the time to step into Saint-Eustache (1532-1637) and admire its vast grandness. We had visited it very hurriedly in 1999 and hardly knew it. This time, very happily, that was to change for it is wonderful inside, fully deserving it's former place as the church of royalty. We were happy to see it being refurbished, if ever so slowly, and fell in love with a rather special piece of artwork that depicted Les Halles in three dimensions.

The Maryan Chapel, Saint Eustache, Les Halles

Stained Glass and Crucifix

Saint Eustache, Les Halles

The real highpoint of St Eustache is the lovely chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary which is decorated with some quite remarkable oil paintings.

Notwithstanding the lovely Maryan chapel, it was interesting to note a difference between the Catholic churches of France and those of Central and South America. It often seemed to us that Mary was more important by far to the Americans than Christ. Statues of Mary were often in places of prominence sidelining the statues of Christ on the Cross and a church would sometimes have several shrines to Mary, depicting her in various standard poses, each with its 'cult' followers and represented by doll-size statues of the Virgin. The most widespread of course was the Virgen de Guadalupe.

Madeleine

Madeleine Door Element

Madeleine Interior

St. Augustin (from Blvd. Malsherbes)

St. Augustin

St. Augustin Interior

Visible from la Madeleine, we had often admired St. Augustin from afar and were determined to see it close up. Once again it took several visits before we finally made it, but the wait was definitely worth it.