Ile de la Cité -The Island of Paris

“A hangover suggests a great night, jet lag suggests a great adventure.”

J.D. Andrews

Sites/Topics covered in this post:

•  Ile de la Cité Walking Tour
• Sainte Chapelle
• Musee De Cluny
• Meet John Robinson

Go-Date: Day 126, Tuesday, May 28

Lesson Learned: Search engine fare trap. Airlines are devious bastards. Does anybody really enjoy air travel or the business practices of any airline? They are as bad as banks, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and stock brokers.

Have you ever searched for a low fare for a trip and found a good price? Then while you were verifying dates, and other stuff and then you go back and the fare has increased? Well, that may not be a coincidence. Just as a product search on Amazon leads to targeted marketing ads for you when browsing other sites, so do the airlines know you are searching for tickets to particular destinations.

Only, airlines carry it a bit further. They bump their rates just to make a little more money off you. I don’t have proof of this, but I’ve seen it happen over and over. We are looking for flights at least once a week since we’ve been traveling and that is a common occurence.

My suggestion is to use one computer (account/IP address, etc.) to find your flight, and then book it under another account. We’ve found tickets may run from $12 to over $100 lower using this method. Maybe its just a conspiracy theory on my part, but I don’t think so. Try it for yourself.

Ile de la Cité Walking Tour

Visiting Paris for the first time is sort of like losing your virginity.
Let me explain. Seeing Paris, is much like first-time sex because 1) You’ve always wanted to do it. 2) You were a bit nervous at the beginning (or maybe much more). 3) You weren’t exactly sure what to do, how to do it, or when. 4) You can read all about it, talk to your friends, or do research online, but it’s just not the same as being there. 5) Things move along much more quickly than you really are comfortable with. 6) You know you aren’t doing everything right. 7) Did you miss something or forget to try something? 8) You sometimes end up all turned around. 9) You end up asking “Is this right?” 10) You’d better bring an umbrella. 11) It’s over much more quickly than you expected. 12) In retrospect, it sure was a lot of fun, even if it wasn’t perfect. 13) And then, you have to decide “Do I really want to do this again?” Or is it just me?

If you’re headed to Paris for the first, second or one hundredth time, then you’ll probably find yourself on Ile de la Cite. Which simply means “The Island of the city” or something sorta like that. It’s one of two natural islands in the center of the River Seine, it’s in this district where you’ll find Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, and plenty of history from the Middle Ages.
Allegedly, it’s also on Ile de la Cité where the fated lovers, Heloise and Abelard met. Similarly, it’s there where the love story of the doves took place during the 13th-century. Or, if you aren’t up on your classical literature (like me), it’s the island in the middle of Paris with lots of magnificent buildings surrounded by water, and swarming with tourists. Other highlights of this area of Paris include quaint old coffee shops, fabulous people watching, as well as one of the best places to see cherry blossoms in the late spring (which we missed by about a month).

Walking time: 19 minutes (be sure to allocate at least 3 hours in order to see all of the attractions)
Distance covered: 1.5 km

Points of interest:

• Square Jean XXIII
• Paris Point Zero – Point from which all distances in Paris are measured
• Notre Dame Cathedral
• Sainte Chapelle
• Conciergerie
• Cluny Museum
• Church Saint-Séverin
• Rue Chanoinesse – one of the oldest streets in Paris
• Gravestone Courtyard (26 Rue Chanoinesse) paved with gravestones
• Rue des Chantres – One of the narrowest roads in Paris

Historians say the city of Paris began in the 3rd century BCE when a Celtic tribe called the Parisii built a fortified settlement on the Ile de la Cite. To me, Parisii kind of sounds like something from Game of Thrones, but I’ll take their word for it.

But, going further back than that, the oldest traces of human occupation in Paris, was discovered in 2008 near the Rue Henri-Farman in the 15th arrondissement, with ancient human bones and evidence of an encampment of hunter-gatherers dating from about 8000 BCE, during the Mesolithic period.

In 52 BCE happy Parisii times changed as Julius Caesar decided he liked the real estate here and moved the Roman legions into the neighborhood. The island may have been a fortified crossing point held by the Parisii as the island was known as an accessible place to cross the Seine and a strategic refuge in times of invasion. The Parisii didn’t appreciate the new neighbors moving in and asked Julius to leave. Romans don’t take kindly to being asked to leave, and went all Vesuvius all over them. After the conquest of the Celts, the Romans decided to redevelop the place in their own image and remove all traces of the Parisii. It would help property values, you see. They established a settlement on the slopes above the Left Bank, where Roman Lutetia was established (that’s what the Romans called Paris).

Later Romans under Saint Genevieve took refuge on the island when they were attacked by Huns. It was OK for a while, but that didn’t last long and the Romans were booted from Paris in the 3^rd century CE. The island remained an important military and political center throughout the Middle Ages. Odo (Earl of Kent and Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror) used the island as a defensive position to fend off Viking attacks at the Siege of Paris in 885-86, and in the 10th century, a cathedral (the predecessor of Notre-Dame) was built on the island.

OK, this place is old, the buildings spectacular, the food expensive, and wine intoxicating. What else do you need to know?

Musee de Cluny

The Cluny Museum also known as Musée national du Moyen (“National Museum of the Middle Ages), is a museum located in the 5th arrondissement. The museum is built atop the ancient Thermes de Cluny, baths from the Roman era of Gaul.

Among the principal holdings of the museum are the six The Lady and the Unicorn (La Dame à la licorne) tapestries. Five of the tapestries are commonly interpreted as depicting the five senses – taste, hearing, sight, smell, and touch. The sixth displays the words “À mon seul désir”. Which has been interpreted as representing love or understanding. I thought these were interesting, but they really showed how impressed these lords of the middle ages were with themselves as the presentation was all about the family of Antoine II Le Viste (1470–1534).

We really enjoyed the ruins of the Roman baths, and some of the art from the old Notre Dame Cathedral. Parts of the museum were closed for renovation, but even so, it was a nice boutique museum that wasn’t strangled by gaggles of visitors like the Louvre.

Sainte Chapelle Cathedral

The Sainte-Chapelle 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.

The chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248.The Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period 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, later hosted in the nearby Notre-Dame Cathedral until the 2019 fire, which it survived.

Along with the Conciergerie, the Sainte-Chapelle is one of the earliest surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace. 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 Conciergerie is a building, formerly a prison but presently used mostly for law courts. It was part of the former royal palace, the Palais de la Cité, which consisted of the Conciergerie, Palais de Justice and the Sainte-Chapelle. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were taken from the Conciergerie to be executed by guillotine at a number of locations around Paris.

The Conciergerie was built by Clovis, King of the Franks (which I’m assuming was the origin of the name for Clovis, New Mexico) in the 6^th century. In the 13^th century the complex was expanded to include the Sainte-Chapelle. When the king moved his palace out, they converted the Conciergerie into a prison, which is a strangely consistent theme here in Paris. The most famous prisoner of the Conciergerie was Marie-Antoinette. Of course, from what I’ve seen here in Paris, saying “Marie-Antoinette was a prisoner here.” is somewhat akin to saying “George Washington slept here.” In the US. Oh well, let them eat cake.

Visit Tip: The line for Sainte-Chapelle normally stretches a couple of hundred feet down the street to get in. The Cathedral is the only church in town that charges an admission to enter (10 Euros). The Conciergerie also charges a 10 Euro admission fee, but there is no line. If you buy a 15 Euro Conciergerie ticket you get to visit both sites and you get to skip the line for Sainte-Chapelle. Not a bad bargain.

Church Saint-Séverin

The church of Saint-Séverin is in the Latin Quarter. Ok, so its not on the island, but its real close by. The Latin Quarter got its name from students of the Sorbonne who chose only to speak in Latin in and around the University during the Middle Ages.

The church of Saint-Séverin is the only church in Paris in which has preserved almost intact the site of its cemetery and its charnel house. This cemetery, opened around 1250, was surrounded on three sides by a gallery, similar to that of a cloister, built around 1430, which was used both as a mass grave and as a residence for the priests of the parish.

It is unusual in that most of the other cemeteries in Paris were eliminated and the bones from the graves moved to the Paris Catacombs in 1780 due to over-crowding, graves collapsing into other structures and the spread of disease. More on the catacombs later.

John Robinson

After all the fun we had on the island we walked back to our apartment. On the way we wandered over to the Gare du Nord station to look at hotels, so we might pick one for our last night in Paris before we catch the train to London.

While sitting in a café across from the station, discussing the sights of the day a young guy at the next table asked if we were Americans. A long conversation followed and he introduced himself as John. Well, his name is John Robinson, and it turns out he and his wife are actors.

John Robinson, of Portland, Oregon now living in Paris (An American in Paris). He portrayed John McFarland in Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and Stacy Peralta in the skateboarding film Lords of Dogtown along with Heath Ledger. He is a 2005 graduate of the Oregon Episcopal School.

He’s married to a French actress Lizzie (I can’t recall her last name) and they have a brand new baby boy (about 1 week old at the time we met). A list of performances he’s done includes:

• 2003  Elephant     
• 2004  The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things     
• 2005  Lords of Dogtown           
• 2006  Seraphim Falls                
• 2007  Transformers         
• 2007  Remember the Daze        
• 2008  Wendy and Lucy   as Andy the dick grocery store clerk
• 2011  Between the Wish and the Thing        
• 2011  Homecoming        
• 2012  186 Dollars To Freedom          
• 2012  The Napkin 
• 2012  Something Wicked
• 2013  Big Sur       
• 2013  She Loves Me Not
• 2014  Forbidden Kiss     
• 2014  Boys of Abu Ghraib        
• 2015  She’s Funny That Way    
• 2016  Hot Bot       
• 2016  Intruder       
• 2019  Amityville Murders

You can see he’s had almost as many jobs as me over the years. He’s really a nice guy (because he agreed with us on politics, I suppose) and it was nice to talk to an American after four months on the road. He’s living in Paris, but says he goes back to LA every year to visit. So, now Ellen and I are having drinks with movie stars. We should have taken a selfie with him, but the thought never even crossed my mind, must be a Baby Boomer thing. He had to get back to his lovely wife and brand new baby, but we had an enjoyable afternoon. Good Luck John.