In the afternoon, we went to Ill de la Cite, an island in the city of Paris. This island is small, but is where some of the major attractions are located; Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie prison (where Marie Antoinette awaited execution in 1793). Because we were out of time, we decided to see Notre Dame first. We quickly walked through the interior of the cathedral so we could have enough time to visit the tower. The line for the tower was extremely long, lined up along the side of the building. Having seen so many churches and cathedrals on the trip, the interior of the cathedral didn’t impress me that much anymore. But it was the exterior architecture that was most striking. Viktor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame was based on this cathedral. Its exterior was covered with sculptures of strange and ferocious creatures. As I look up at them, it gave me the feeling that they guarded the cathedral. Even looking at them gave me a bit of a chill, almost like this place was alive.

We had to climb in a very narrow spiral stone stairs all the way up to the top of the tower, where we got next to these sculptures of creatures that look out the cathedral, over looking the whole city of Paris. It was really beautiful and one of the best part of the trip.

We didn’t have time to visit the rest of Ill de la Cite, which was unfortunately. Both Vickie and I loved Paris, and I think this is definitely a place I would come back again.

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