I recently spent the weekend in Paris. Two very important people in my life were celebrating leur 25^{e 1}In French, ordinal numbers are abbreviated using a superscript e to represent the suffix ième. Here, the word vingt-cinquième is abbreviated. Premier/première (first) are an exception and are abbreviated 1^er and 1^re respectively. anniversaire de mariage (25th wedding anniversary) and since I had been at their wedding 25 years ago, it seemed only fitting to go back for the party! While I (happily!) spent most of my time visiting with loved ones, I also took advantage of my time in the city to make a couple of side visits.

Notre-Dame six mois après

L’incendie (the fire) that destroyed the roof of the great cathedral was over six months ago, but the days when Notre-Dame will be back to her full splendor and open to the world is still many years away. That didn’t stop me (or crowds of tourists ²It seemed like just as many people were coming to see Notre-Dame as ever) from making a trip to see one of my favorite monuments in the city. From the front, it’s almost hard to tell anything is wrong. Except for the fact that the parvis (esplanade) is fenced off, the facade of the church and the great towers looks just about the same as always.

As you make your way around to the back and sides, though, you can see both the extent of the damage and the great efforts that are going into keeping the body of the church standing. Notre-Dame was carefully constructed so that all the pieces work together to keep the massive structure standing.

Without the weight of the roof, the famous flying buttresses have to be reinforced and supported so they don’t collapse. Seeing the church in its current state was both heartbreaking and a little cathartic. Seeing it live made the tragedy more real, but also gave me great hope to see how much of the church survived.

A suivre …

La semaine prochaine (next week) I’ll take you to my newest discovery in Paris. Un petit coin de provence à deux pas de Notre-Dame (A little slice of the country just steps from Notre-Dame).

• 1
  In French, ordinal numbers are abbreviated using a superscript e to represent the suffix ième. Here, the word vingt-cinquième is abbreviated. Premier/première (first) are an exception and are abbreviated 1^er and 1^re respectively.
• 2
  It seemed like just as many people were coming to see Notre-Dame as ever