Holy Cathedrals Batman

I went to three cathedrals while in Paris: Notre Dame, St. Sulpice, and Sacre Coeur. They were all pretty different. Notre Dame was HUGE and tourist packed. For spending almost a day on it in one of my intro classes, I don't really know much about it (as I've mentioned, my architectural retention is BAD) but it was still so cool. You could spend days there. I also had no idea that it was in the middle of the Seine. Except there were too many people. I don't really consider myself a tourist--which is really snobby of me--so I get mad when I go places where a lot of tourists are. I don't like looking at things over the heads of so many people. But it was sweet to see the rose window, and I really liked all the different side chapels. I thought the devotional candles (and there were a lot) were cool.

St. Sulpice was farther along our walk and was smaller and less packed, so that was nice. They were doing some outside reconstruction, but there was a neat dome on the inside, which I always like. The panel carvings are from there; they were right outside the door and all over the porch (would that be the right word for it?)

Sacre Coeur was my favorite. It was also crowded with tourists, and I had my backpack and everything with me since we'd checked out of the hotel by that point. But for some reason it was the most serene, maybe because you couldn't take pictures inside. We got there around noon and the nun's were starting their service. We sat in the visitors gallery and listened to them sing. It was so, so pretty.

I have a strange relationship with religious buildings and religious works of art. They normally don't have much spiritual significance for me. If I look at a painting of Jesus, say, I think about the light on his face, and how his eyes look. The way the cuts on his side are drawn. Where he is on the canvas compared to other people, things like that. It doesn't strike me any more than a painting of a field or a bowl of fruit or a courtesan would. Ditto religious buildings. It would never cross my mind to go on a pilgrimage to one for a spiritual reason. I climbed the San Francisco-like hills of Montmartre to Sacre Coeur because 1) it's in Amelie, and I like Amelie, and 2) because the painting on the altar dome is beautiful. It was so weird to me when I saw people crossing themselves and lighting candles and praying before the altar. The fact that they had traveled to these buildings because of devotion and not in search of flying buttresses and interesting carvings seemed so alien to me. However, in Sacre Coeur when the nuns were singing, I could see why people would travel for that. I would, too. It was so peaceful.