A Swiss/German Visit

 May 12, 2025

We attended another free organ concert at the local parish church St. Eustache late yesterday afternoon. Though built in the 1500s the original chapel dates back to 1213 as witnessed by the list of curates from that time inscribed in marble on one of the pillars.  The organists are masters students and they fill the pews with eager listeners.

Our Swiss nephew Arian and his charming spouse Tina from Wuppertal Germany visited last evening and today.   We were lucky to get tickets to Notre Dame and arrived relatively early.  Ed and I were last here in 1998 with our kids.  At that time, one could climb up as high as the bells and the gargoyles - no longer the case.

The cathedral has been lovingly and carefully restored since the fire in 2019 that came close to completely destroying it.  The aroma of fire lingers - it appears to be emanating from the stone as you can smell in in the pillars- but the building is amazingly clean.  Interestingly, all 4 of us found it odd to have such an old building look so bright and clean.  It felt strangely inauthentic and quite sterile.

Most of the side chapels have works of art that survived but many do not.

At the very top of the spire atop the cathedral sat a coq - a rooster- with religious artifacts. It was feared to have been devoured by the flames but a worker found it a few streets away while cleaning up debris.  Here  he is:

He’s quite beat up but amazingly the religious relics (relics of St. Denys, Ste. Geneviève & a fragment of the Crown of Thorns) inside were intact and now reside in the brand new coq atop the cathedral. I imagine that look on his face occurred when he saw the cathedral burning?

My personal favorite female warrior saint has a place here though much less adorned than the other saints. Certainly it can’t be that she’s female so doesn’t warrant a fancy corner of the cathedral? 

Joan of Arc

The altar before and after:

We mugged for the camera with Tina and Ari then went for some brunch nearby followed by a long walk before bidding them farewell.

Tomorrow: Versailles!