October 19, 2017
Notre Dame means, “Our Lady of Paris”.
Inside the cathedral it was huge. Bishop Maurice de Sully in 1163 laid the first stone. There were pictures showing all the stages of the building. It took 200 years to complete the cathedral and it was biggest in Europe for a long time. Like some of the other churches in Spain it has gothic architecture. The cathedral has UNESCO World Heritage listing. It had massive windows with stained glass.
There were lots of areas you could light candles. I lit a candle and said a prayer.
Grace found blessing water and gave us all a cross on our heads.
Inside the church Paul said there were not high pillars like in the cathedrals we seen in Spain. He said the outside had flying buttresses and these hold the church up. Without the pillars there was a lot more room for more church pews.
We got tickets to go up the spiral steps to the bell towers. It was a long way up the steps. We walked up the top of one tower, across the top of the cathedral to the other bell tower.
The cathedral has two bells, the biggest bell was added in 1681 and weighs 17 tonne. They are both rung on major catholic feasts days, and on the hour of the day. The 8 other smaller bells are rung also on the hour. When we were there at 12-noon the bells were rung, it was very loud.
Up the top I could see lots of gargoyles. Gargoyles were used as gutters to move the rain off the building to protect them from wearing away. Mum took a photo of a gargoyle and you can see the water spout area.
There are other sculptures that look like gargoyles but do not have a water spout. These are called grotesques or chimera, they are stone carvings. They are used a protection and decoration on buildings. There were monster looking like ones, dog and birds ones.
Outside the cathedral is the Zero Marker Point. We had a boot photo at it. All the distances in France are marked from this point.
By Finn and Mum
