Sainte-Chapelle, Cour de Commerce Saint-André and Saint-Sulpice

It was a sunny day on Monday so Kate thought it would be a good day to try for a shorter line at Sainte-Chapelle. We had a hard time figuring out how to go.  We thought we could take the 86 bus and walk a short way from Boulevard Saint-Germain. But when we got to the bus stop, it said the next bus was in 96 minutes. So we tried the 28 bus in front of the apartment and it said it wasn't in service. We decided to go back up to the apartment and WiFi to replan. This strike is making things complicated!

We did end up on the 86 bus in 12 minutes, not 96, and walked over to Île de la Cité from Boulevard Saint-Germain with a view of Nôtre Dame.

Nôtre Dame

The line was much shorter this time at Sainte-Chapelleand it was not too crowded inside.

Sainte-Chapelle

It is so nice to see the chapel with the stained glass restored and the scaffolding gone.  We looked at an app that explained each scene in the rose window in the back of the church. It depicts Revelations in the New Testament.

Sainte-Chapelle Rose Window

Louis IX, or Saint Louis, built the chapel in seven years to house the relics he bought from the Emperor of Constantinople, including the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the cross. He actually paid the Venetians for the relics because they had been pawned to them. I guess even Emperors in the 1200s had need of cash flow. The relics cost 135,000 livres and the elaborate silver chest in which they were stored cost another 100,000 livres. The cost to build the chapel was only 40,000 livres.

Crown of Thorns Carved at the Top of the Arch below the Altar

The relics arrived in Paris in 1239, carried from Venice by two Dominican friars. The King, barefoot and dressed as a penitent, carried the relics for the final stage, and the scene is depicted in one of the windows. The chapel was dedicated in 1248. Saint Louis would bring the relics out to display to the public during Easter. Today the relics are in the Treasury of Nôtre Dame and survived the fire last spring. The relics had continued to be brought out and displayed in Nôtre Dame to the public at Easter until the fire.

Downstairs is the chapel where the palace staff worshiped. It was restored along with the upper chapel in the 1800s by Viollet le Duc. There were no historic drawings for the lower chapel so he imagined what it may have looked like.

Lower Chapel

Statue of Saint Louis

We exited out around the chapel toward the Palais de Justice where the Supreme Court meets. Notice the bright blue sky, unusual for Paris in the winter.

Chapel Exterior

Obviously, the area around the courts is well guarded.

Guard by the Exit from Sainte Chapelle

We headed back to left bank and passed some Gendarmes on horses. The police always travel in threes in Paris. 

We noticed one was a woman. We understood why one Gendarme was a woman as we followed him over to la rive gauche.  The Gendarmes noticed two gypsy women hanging out at a bus stop. One was about 5 or 6 months pregnant. They searched them and the female Gendarme patted them down. We imagined they were looking for stolen wallets or something, but seemed to find nothing of worth.

Les Gendarmes

We continued down cute curving old streets to the Cour de Commerce Saint-André. It is a passageway that links the rue Saint-André-des-Arts to Boulevard Saint-Germain. In 2018 we would pass by this on the bus all the time and I finally checked it out near the end of our stay last time but had not been able to see it with anyone else.

Entrance to the Passageway from Boulevard Saint-Germain

There were cute shops and cafés along the passageway.  It was paved in the original cobblestones. On this street, the doctors Guillotin and Louis tried out their invention, the Guillotine, on sheep to make sure it worked well.

Kate by Le Procope

Le Procope café was founded in Paris is 1686. It is the first café in Paris. Literary figures and the theater troupe of the late Molière met there. In the 18th century, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot (who wrote the first dictionary) and Benjamin Franklin frequented Le Procope.

Le Procope

Another famous café on the street is the Relais-Odéon (or the Bistro 1900). It is very Art Noveau.

Relais-Odéon

We would like to go back and try one of these cafés. But our main destination yesterday was our favorite crêpe stand in the middle of Boulevard Saint-Germain just through the passageway. We were happy to see the same guy there from two years ago. He makes wonderful fresh crêpes.  I tried a lemon sugar one and Kate had a crêpe with Speculoos cookie butter.

Kate and her crêpe

Walking towards Saint Sulpice

We wandered from there, eating our crêpes, towards Saint-Sulpice.  

Approaching Saint-Sulpice from the back

This was one of our favorite churches on our 1980 study abroad that was in our neighborhood. It was later made famous by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. It has wonderful paintings by Delacroix and the fountain outside is delightful when the weather warms up.  It was about 4 pm or so and the sun was low as we went inside. It lit up the façade beautifully.

Kate at Saint-Sulpice

Saint-Sulpice in Evening Light

We had trouble finding a way to get home from there. The métros weren't quite running yet and the bus was erratic again. But we know if we can just find a large department store, we can get free WiFi inside and transit information.  So Bon Marché to the rescue again and we ended up getting home on an overcrowded métro.