France - Summer 2023

Tuesday, June 13th. We had breakfast at the hotel and then packed up and left our bags downstairs. Today we moved to another hotel.

We had the St Chapelle tour, but the wrong address. We thought we had the right one and no one was there! We were even early and stopped to take photos of the Olympic rings. They are having the Olympics in Paris in 2024 and are frantically cleaning the city. There is scaffolding everywhere and we were excited to see the Olympic rings were already on display.

So we had the wrong address and had to run through the streets of Paris. We went to the Chapel to catch them there. We met them at the door so it worked out perfectly. We had a private tour before the Chapel opened in the morning. We learned so much history and enjoyed the beauty of the stained glass depicting the stories of the Bible.

The Sainte-Chapelle (Holy Chapel) is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France.

Construction began sometime after 1238 and the chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248. The Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of Gothic architecture. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns – one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom. This was later held in the nearby Notre Dame Cathedral until the 2019 fire, which it survived.

Along with the Conciergerie, Sainte-Chapelle is one of the earliest surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Although damaged during the French Revolution and restored in the 19th century, it has one of the most extensive 13th-century stained glass collections anywhere in the world.

The guide showed us bullet holes in the buildings from WWII. He told us quite a few Catherine de' Medici stories as well. We went to Marie Antoinette's prison - The Conciergerie. We also went to Notre Dame. It is still under reconstruction and they hope to have it finished by December 2024.

We went to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and had coffee. It was a really hot day. It's been in the 80's but that is warm for this time of the year. We also spent time in the bookstore. The bookstore continues to serve as a purveyor of new and second-hand books, as an antiquarian bookseller, and as a free reading library open to the public. The shop houses aspiring writers and artists in exchange for helping out around the bookstore. Since the shop opened in 1951, more than 30,000 people have slept in the beds found tucked between bookshelves. The shop's motto, "Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise", is written above the entrance to the reading library.

We walked to Le Soufflé and had lunch and dessert. Ham and Cheese for lunch and Creme Brulé for dessert for Cindy. Goat Cheese and Rosemary for lunch and then Pistachio Chocolate as dessert for Anya. We called our driver because we were tired of walking. He kept telling us he was close but we waited on him for almost an hour. We just chilled outside the cafe - in the heat. We had him take us to the Holiday Inn to get our bags and then drop us at the Intercontinental. Our room wasn't quite ready so we were given champagne while we waited. After I told them we were celebrating Anya's graduation, they delivered more champagne, cookies, macarons, and apricots - along with a card - to our room. It was a special treat and became part of our picnics in the room. Mikel's points covered the first two hotels - Thank you Mikel!

Anya did an interview from the bathroom of our room for a job at OSU!

We had dinner in the room - a bed picnic. We walked about 7 miles today!Read more