Howitzer

Paris Day 4: Cathedrals and Architecture

This was a pretty cool day. We saw a lot of cathedral architecture, which is probably my favorite thing to do here. Today we saw the Eglise Sacre Coeur, and the Eglise St. Eustache. Sacre Coeur, or Sacred Heart (Jesus’), is a cathedral built upon a tall hill overlooking Paris. From the front of the cathedral, we could see the entire city beneath us. Both of the cathedrals are freaking huge. As in, the ceilings towered over our heads, and made us feel small. I think this is an intended effect of cathedrals, to make people feel the immense power of god, while feeling the helplessness of themselves. After seeing the churches, we walked around looking for Bar Point, a highly recommended restaurant. We couldn’t find it, and ended up discovering the most awesome eating experience I’ve ever had.

At the Sacre Coeur, I could immediately tell upon seeing the stained glass that the cathedral was newly built. The stained glass had elements of modern art in it, most notably the random quadrangles of primary colors that resemble Mondre’s work. Second, the faces in the glass scenes had very stylized cheek bones and shadows. From my amateurish exposure to art, I was able to pick out this much. I was pretty proud to discover that the cathedral was indeed modern, having been built around the turn of the 20th century. Another interesting thing I discovered in the church was a blend of Romanesque and Gothic styles. From the façade and front half of the church, only semi-circular Romanesque arches were present. However, I discovered that in the back of the church there were what I thought were point arches, sort of like a half-almond shape. Pointed arches were pioneered in Gothic architecture, and allowed cathedrals to be built higher while staying narrow. Strangely, Sacre Coeur blended two styles of architecture together, Romanesque and Gothic. Well actually, it turns out that the “Gothic” part is actually Byzantine. Which makes sense in retrospect. The pointed arches inside Eglise St. Eustache are much more pointed and raking, compared to the ones inside Sacre Coeur.


The Eglise St. Eustache is similar to the Sacre Coeur, in that it uses a mix of architectural styles. St. Eustache is strictly a Gothic style church…on the inside. However, the outside façade showed a mix of Romanesque arches (half circles), and flying buttresses, which are another invention of the Gothic period. The strangeness continues. The inside of the church was again, very high. Very, very high. I successfully felt the insignificance of my existence. The pointed arches here were more sharp, which made them look more brooding and dark, in my opinion. The inside walls of Eustache were painted, and extremely faded, which gave the whole cathedral a very timeless feeling. Eglise St. Eustache was built from 1532 to 1642. One thing I did notice about the stained glass here was that, the artwork looked relatively new, compared to the construction date of the cathedral. I think it’s possible that stained glass was replaced at some point after construction.

After visiting these two churches, we set off to look for Bar Point. We discovered a secluded square with a multitude of restaurants, but could not locate Bar Point. So we split off to look at each restaurant’s menu, ambiance, and customers. I happened upon this small unassuming restaurant, but it had a window full of stickers from restaurant publications. This restaurant had the largest collection that I had ever seen, which probably meant that it was good. So we ended up trying it out. Oh man…we hit the jackpot with this one. I won’t give the name here for fear of other people discovering this hidden gem. The ambiance? Classically old France. The food? Burgundy region. The waitress? Super impressive…Suffice to say, we had grins on our faces the whole night. I started the meal with a terrine, which is some sort of ground pork sausage-pate. I followed with a tender veal in an exquisite sauce that I can’t even describe properly. By that point we were stuffed and ready to roll Phil down the sidewalk back home, but still had more to come. A plate of Burgundy region cheeses followed, which gave us enough time to settle our stomachs, and digest. The wine we chose for our meal was a red Saint Amour (2007), which was very light and slightly sweet. Good for both the hearty meat and the creamy cheeses. The hazelnut ice cream for dessert was average, but who’s to complain? By that time, we had already experienced the best meal of at least a few years, and there was really nowhere higher to climb.



Thus ended a perfectly awesome day in Paris.

- Howitzer