20 April 2006

For some reason, in a city which has so much, internet cafes in the area in which we are staying are few and far between. So please accept my apologies for updating this several days at a time. I mention this because after fronting up nice and early to the nearest internet cafe it was closed! So, instead of getting all of my stuff off I went gallerying again.

Back to the Louvre to spend a bit of time looking at the remains of the Palace of Darius I. Just from the remnants, it must have been incredible. The artifacts are huge and the remains of the friezes are stunningly beautiful.

From the Louvre I wandered over toward Notre Dame, stopping at the Conciergerie. Here, during the revolution, over 4,000 were housed. Among them was Marie Antoinette who went from here to her execution. In an ironic twist, Robspierre spent his last nights here as well. In the building is a magnificent Gothic hall where the guards of the royal household lived. Although renovated in the nineteenth century it still retains many of its earlier features.

Frome the Conciergerie I walked over to Notre Dame where I decided against climbing to the towers since there was a long line. I'll probably come back and do that in a couple of weeks. Instead I wandered through the church and then went to the Crypte Archeologique where the remains of the site before the present church are visible. Some of the remains are 2,000 years old.