Saint Chapelle

As part of the cultural segment of our program, we went to Saint Chapelle for a quick tour before the opera. The rest of the group went to Notre Dame first, but since you can just pretty much walk in, and we were planning on going there on Sunday anyway, we skipped that part and went to a long lunch instead.

The lines at Saint Chapelle though are always super long, so I was glad to get in with the group instead of having to queue outside for hours.

The church is in the Ile de la Cite and was built in the 1200s. It's surrounded by government buildings, so that from the outside, one can only see the main gothic spire. Inside, it's split into two levels: the bottom chapel for the poor people (and the gift shop), and the top for the nobility, and man, the nobility had it good.

The bottom chapel was way too hot. Maybe they were trying to remind people that they'd go to hell or something, but in these modern times of ours, would a fan kill anyone? The upstairs was five times taller, five times cooler, and had the most amazing stained glass windows all around the room.

The church also houses relics- the bones of martyrs and saints, the crown of thorns, a vial of Mary's breast milk etc. So it was little weird when the girls in the program started taking school-dance-type group pictures with boxes containing the remains of Saint Alphonse and stuff. Unless you're in a goth band, you really shouldn't be striking sexy poses with holy remains, and in a church no less. They were so loud, a little nun had to keep walking up to them to sush them. Aaahhh, nuns!