Tamed Musings: My Paris Trip - More sightseeing (4/7)

**click on any picture to see a gallery of the complete post**

(part of a tower at Notre-Dame)

Previous posts: PART 1; PART 2; PART 3
and so our walk continues... thank you for coming along, by the way. You're totally awesome.

Day 5 started with the Bastille (not particularly picture worthy), and from there we walked to Place des Vosges, obviously grabbing a treat along the way to be savored later.

Place des Vosges is the oldest planned square in Paris, and is a very Parisian place. Locals playing with their kids, running in the square and sitting in the shade (for some crazy reason, because it was cold and the sunshine was heavenly). The shape is a perfect square and all the buildings surrounding it are... well, sorta the same. But in a good, charming, way.

We walked to Notre-Dame and after some ice-cream (more on that next week) and we could see the towers peeking through the trees.

Now here's the thing about this basilica... it´s 850 years old. It was built in Gothic style. It´s huge. It sorta takes your breath away.

The level and amount of detail is simply stunning. And when we arrived at the front I literally stared at it for a few minutes. There's always another detail to look at.

The other thing about it is that it tricks you... you know it´s going to be massive. After all, you've seen it from the outside, you're standing right next to it and if you arrived from where we arrived, you walked around it to reach the front - so you know the inside will be huge.

Well, it's bigger. When inside the sheer size of the stained glass windows, the columns, the chandeliers... it's huge! And quite beautiful - I really like Gothic architecture, so if you don't, you might disagree with my taste.

The climb up the towers is cool, and we had fun looking at the steps and seeing where most people have stepped in the last 850 years, and where the steps have hardly been stepped on at all.

The gargoyles are creepy.

We stumbled upon Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore I wanted to visit but didn't really commit to planning that, so it was a nice surprise.

We walked a lot more, and passed through a very narrow street closed to cars, where the oldest (or one of the oldest) restaurants in Paris is still in full speed.

See that bag in my hand? That's yummy, yummy chocolate.

Now, day 6. This was the crowning glory of the trip for me. After this place, nothing else I had seen seemed as wonderful, and nothing I saw later reached the mark.

This place... goodness... it's perfect. Château de Chantilly is beyond words. The house is perfection, the grounds are stunning, the stables are massive, the library... I have no words.

It was the high point for me. And next time I go to Paris, I want to stay in Chantilly (the city, you can't actually stay in the Château...).

You may or may not know that I love historical romance novels and this place was like walking into most of those books. The picture below is one of the many old maps of Paris, with our very new map of Paris...

The estate was designed in 1560, went through different families through the centuries, until the duc d'Aumale (Henri d'Orleans), who died in 1897. Quite a while before dying he did extensive repairs and detailed in his will how the property, house and art should be maintained, and bequeathed the property to the Institut de France upon his death.

All artwork is displayed as was during his time, the library is still organized as he left it and after reading a bunch of stuff I thought the place was awesome - besides being gorgeous.

I have a low capacity of retaining interesting facts, but one that I remember is that in his dining room there is a balcony for the orchestra... the balcony was carved from one single piece of stone. Is that super cool or what?

Here's an overload of pictures from there...

When I say stables I bet this isn't the first thing that crosses your mind. The inside, by the way, is gorgeous. Each horse has more space in there than our Paris bathroom and kitchen combined. Not so shabby if you ask me...