Rick Steves Paris 2015 by Rick Steves & Steve Smith & Gene Openshaw

Author:Rick Steves & Steve Smith & Gene Openshaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avalon Travel
Published: 2014-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

• Start shuffling clockwise around the church. Near the entrance, find the white...

Statue of St. Thérèse: Follow Thérèse’s gaze to a pillar with a plaque (“L’an 1944...”). The plaque’s map shows where, on April 21, 1944, 13 bombs fell on Montmartre in an Allied air raid during World War II—all in a line, all near the church—killing no one. This fueled local devotion to the Sacred Heart and to this church.

• Continue up the side aisles, and find a...

Scale Model of the Church: It shows the church from the long side (you’d enter at left). This early-version model doesn’t accurately reflect the finished product, but it’s close. You see its central dome surrounded by smaller domes, and the tower. The “Byzantine” style is clear in the onion domes and in the arches—heavy horseshoe arches atop slender columns. The church is built of large rectangular blocks (just look around you), with no attempt to plaster over the cracks/lines in between.

• Continue along, looking to the right at...

Colorful Mosaics of the Stations of the Cross: Pause to rub St. Peter’s bronze foot and look up to the heavens.

• Continue your circuit around the church.

Stained-Glass Windows: Because the church’s original stained-glass windows were broken by the concussion of WWII bombs, all the glass you see is post-1945.

• As you approach the entrance you’ll walk straight toward three stained-glass windows dedicated to...

Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc, 1412-1431): See the teenage girl as she hears the voice of the Archangel Michael (right panel, at bottom) and later (above) as she takes up the Archangel’s sword. Next, she kneels to take communion (central panel, bottom), then kneels before the bishop to tell him she’s been sent by God to rally France’s soldiers and save Orléans from English invaders (central panel, top). However, French forces allied with England arrest her, and she’s burned at the stake as a heretic (left panel), dying with her eyes fixed on a crucifix and chanting, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...”

• Exit the church. A public WC is to your left, down 50 steps. To your right is the entrance to the church’s...

Dome and Crypt: For an unobstructed panoramic view of Paris, climb 260 feet (300 steps) up the tight and claustrophobic spiral stairs to the top of the dome (especially worthwhile if you have kids with excess energy). The crypt is just a big, empty basement.

• Leaving the church, turn right and walk west along the ridge, following tree-lined Rue Azaïs. At Rue St. Eleuthère, turn right and walk uphill a block to the Church of St. Pierre-de-Montmartre (at top on right). The small square in front of the church has a convenient taxi stand and a bus stop for the Montmartrobus to and from Place Pigalle (bus costs one Métro ticket).

You’re in the heart of Montmartre, by Place du Tertre. A sign for the Cabaret de la Bohème reminds visitors that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this was the world capital of bohemian life. But before we plunge into

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