Spring Break 2018, Day 5: Paris

Tuesday, April 3

Today I slept in because I woke up every hour all night long.  I do that when my body clock is messed up.  But then I got up, took a shower (I have my own shower which is in a room that is separate from the room where the toilet is, which is in another area of the apartment), and ate breakfast.  Antoine provided a big body sheet, so that was nice to dry off with from my shower.

Trees with green leaves!  (Minneapolis got 2-5 inches of snow today)

After muesli and an orange, I was ready to go!  I was thinking of possibly going to the catacombs, which I've never seen.  I got them mixed up with the crypt, which is at Notre Dame, so I headed there.  I knew that Notre Dame was south of where I was, so (using my compass app) I headed south and eventually ended up there.  I realized my mistake, then walked around the Île de la Cité (the island that Notre Dame is on) for awhile.  The city itself was founded on the island.  I have been reading a book series and part of it talks about Paris in the late 1500s and how residential it was.  It even mentioned barns in addition to the two-story shop/apartment combos (shop downstairs, shop owners live upstairs) and small houses.  I didn't know if it was still residential, so I set out to check it out and did, indeed, find some tall buildings with apartments (alas, no barns, though).  Wikipedia says that the population of the island is 981 (2013).   Heretofore, the only parts of the island I had seen were Notre Dame, the Jewish WWII memorial, and Sainte-Chapelle (and a little playground behind Notre Dame).  And I learned in the afternoon that Notre Dame is built of high-quality limestone (called Parisian Stone--"pierre de Paris")  that was quarried in Paris.  Lots of photos today, just to warn you (making an already blog post longer).

Saint-Eustache, near Des Halles.

Detail photo of Saint-Eustache

Detail photo of Saint-Eustache

Des Halles with flowering crabapple trees.

Looking across the gardens of Les Halles.

Les Halles with those beautiful trees!

Saint-Eustache again.

Les Halles (which currently disappointingly appears to be a large shopping mall)

A band playing.

They had CDs for sale and the sign said that they were medical students!

Some choreography.  The drummer wearing orange in the front was super intense!

St. Jacques Tower

Flowers in the tower gardens.

Details from the tower.

Details from the tower.

The pigeons walked right under those little garden wickets like they were archways for them!

The tower

Île de la Cité

The Seine

The palace on the island

People place locks on the railings of the bridges.  They were all removed, but now are returning.

I love the Art Nouveau entrances to most of the older Metro stations!

Notre Dame

The Palace of Justice

I then google mapped Catacombs and it was only about 45 minutes away, so I walked there too.  (I had been continuously walking by this time for about 4 hours.  I got to where the Catacombs where and saw a long line.  I went to the front to make sure that it was the line for what I wanted, then walked and walked to find the end.  It wound around the block and up a pathway in the park.  So, I got in, hoping it was like the security line from a few days ago, only to find that it was waaaaaay worse than any other line I've been in.  A few steps at a time with long stops (about 10 minutes) in between.  The line became much longer after I joined it.  Up until now, the day had been cloudy, but pleasant, in the 50s.  It began to mist, so I put my rain jacket on (it had been tied around my waist for just this eventuality).  Then it began to sprinkle, so I put my hood up.  Then it began to rain, then pour.  This rainy line lasted for three hours.  Yes, 3 hours!  My jacket kept most of me dry and my little knit mittens kept my hands warm, but my bag isn't rainproof and I hadn't thought to put it under my rain jacket when it first started raining. It funneled water onto my leg, so one leg was soaked and the bag and it's contents: my camera, phone, extra battery charger, headphones, money, credit cards, passport, metro and NY subway cards, and a map were soaked.  I pulled out my camera and was going to dry it off with my hankie, but that had been in my pocked and was also soaked.  So I used my sweatshirt sleeve, pulled out of my jacket sleeve, and dried it.  I turned it on to take a picture of the entrance to the catacombs--yes, we were finally there--but it did not work.   It told me that the lens wasn't attached right.  I tried to remove it and reattach it, but that didn't work either.  So, since I was buying my ticket by this point, I used my phone camera.  But more about my camera later.

In the distance is the University of Paris (the one with the tower)

Each of the windows of the original building are labeled with an area taught in the university.
This one says Geometry.

University of Paris

I found more of the University in another area (it must have spread, like many urban universities
in the US whose buildings can be found spread all over the city)

Forsythia is growing everywhere!

Along my walk.  It was a military hospital of some sort.

The words on this building say "School Primary for Young Boys and Young Girls", no guesswork there!

The area under Paris is filled with limestone formed during the Lutetia stage (Lutetia was the Roman name for Paris).  It is a high-quality cut stone.  The areas around what was then Paris were mined and the stone was used to build many buildings of Paris including Notre Dame.  Eventually the quarry tunnels began to collapse as they were built and lived upon.  The city of Paris had another problem as well, the cemeteries were affecting the health of the people around them (that was never expounded upon).  So, in the interest of public safety, the bones from the worst of the cemeteries were dug up (some of them pits with hundreds of people from plagues, etc).  But there was no where to put them.   So in the 1700s, to solve both of the problems, they began to house the bones from eventually all of the cemeteries in central Paris in the catacombs--those old quarry tunnels.  And as they began to dig for housing projects, roads, and subways, they found more bones from those cemetaries that had shifted (or not been found the first time) and those were added to the ossuary in the tunnels.   The catacombs were opened to the public beginning in the early 19th century.  (The old cemetaries were used to build upon).

A lion across the street from the entrance to the catacombs.

You begin by walking down 130 spiral steps then enter the first of the tunnels.  Many of them are marked to tell when and who started this area.  Some are marked with the streets they are under (some of which do not exist anymore), and some are marked for the aquaduct that was built through there in the 1600s to bring fresh water into Paris, but collapsed in 1781.   Eventually, you enter the lower catacombs which contains the ossuary.  Above the doorway it states (in French), "Stop, this is death's empire!".  It wasn't creepy at all.  There is a sign to not touch the bones and I didn't see anyone do that.  People took pictures, but the overall tone was respect.  Some of the bones form shapes and some surround plaques with sayings.

Scientists are examining the bones for signs about the person--sex, age, disease, cause of death, etc.   The walls of bones are very deep, though and they don't want to go past the front layer.  They discovered that the climate of the catacombs was causing the bones to deteriorate, so some walls (hagues) had a stone base and did not contain mortar because that was also found to be harmful to the bones.

Well, 1.5 km later, you emerge near a gift shop and in another area of Paris.  I checked out my camera --no change, but I decided to wear it around my neck to possibly dry it out.  I found the correct metro station and 25 minutes plus a 5 minute walk later, I was in my neighborhood.  I wanted to get home soon to dry myself and my belongings out, but I hadn't eaten anything since my breakfast that morning (it was now after 9:00).  The only cafes that were open were also bars and I didn't want to go into that, so I checked out the one grocery store I found open but would have had to buy too many ingredients just to make a simple meal (and they didn't even have all of the ingredients).  So, I saw a pizza hut.  Yeah, I know, another American chain, but it was the best choice and I was hungry.  So, I had a personal pan pizza (they call it a Junior) and tried my camera again.  Still, no luck.  I tried removing the SD card and battery and replacing them, still no luck, so I texted Randy.  He suggested doing what I had planned to do:  taking it apart and letting it dry.  He said to see if the apartment had a hair dryer to help the process.

So, I took it apart, looked for a hair dryer (no luck), changed into dry pants, and went to the kitchen to do yesterday's blog.  Antoine came home after I started today's blog and said that he didn't have a hair dryer either. We joked about the hair dryer and some wine glasses he bought, then he went to bed.  After I add photos and publish this, I'm going to do the same.