Notre Dame de Paris

The art of Paris

Dear readers,

Every city has its unique monuments by which it can be identified.

If many French people and foreigners think that Paris and France can be identified by the Eiffel Tower, I think that there is one monument that outperforms the two others.

This monument hosts about 20 millions of visitors each year, which makes it one of the most visited in France and Europe: it is the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

A rich and complex creation, in spite of its immeasurable details. The Cathedral is located in the East of the Ile de la Cité which is the historical center of Paris. Its construction lasted for more than two centuries and we have celebrated its 850^th anniversary in 2013, which naturally makes it one of the most emblematic monuments in Paris.

An iconic place

On the square in front of the Cathedral, there is the “ground zero” which is the starting point of all the roads of France.

Notre Dame de Paris was given a new significance when Victor Hugo has published the eponymous work, one of greatest creations in the history of French literature. 

The Cathedral is characteristic of the Gothic culture, similarly to the Cathedral of Amiens or Chartres, it has become over time a symbol of Paris for diverse reasons.

Its structure is today one of the most ancient of the city and is still in perfect shape after centuries of life, and what about its gargoyles and chimeras? All of them are puzzling and terrifying.

And the sensational roses that decorate its façade? They represent the will of making of Paris a great city of Art and Beauty, in period when the city that we loved was counting 25 000 inhabitants. 

Dear readers, Victor Hugo wrote in his work a sentence that I find particularly adequate to his creation: “Architecture is the great book of humanity, the principal expression of man in his different stages of development, either as a force or as an intelligence.”

See you soon!