The first time I saw the Notre Dame Cathedral (or really anything outside the western United States) was as a Mormon missionary in 1992. There was a tourist shop nearby that gave screamin’ deals to missionaries and I bought pretty much my favorite souvenir ever, a replica of the Rongeur gargoyle.
Le Rongeur – the coolest of the gargoyles
I imagined him chomping on a stretched-out rabbit that’s using its front paws to brace itself on the gargoyle’s mouth, but maybe it’s a chicken. I displayed it proudly in my cubicle at Delta Air Lines until my last day when it met an untimely death in the stairwell. I still regret not taking the elevator.
Here are a few photos of Notre Dame and/or Parisian gargoyles.
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Le Rongeur – my favorite gargoyle
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Tour Saint-Jacques to the left of the gargoyle, Sacre Coeur on the hill in the center.
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Sacre Coeur on the left, Tour Saint-Jacques on the left
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral – Final Judgment
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame Cathedral
Tour Saint-Jacques
These lion-dog gargoyles atop Tour Saint-Jacques make me think of the end of Ghostbusters
As you pass under Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge on the Seine River in Paris, you see a variety of grimacing stone faces. They’re called mascarons and there are 381 of them. They might be satyrs, sylvans and other forest deities. Or they might be caricatures of friends and enemies of Henry IV. Here are my favorites:
Pompidou Center performer. 20 francs to throw darts at his belly.
In 1993, I was a Mormon missionary, wandering the streets of Paris, France, to spread the Good News. A favorite place to go for a break when knocking doors wasn’t working (which was most of the time) was Place Georges Pompidou, an open concrete square in front of a modern art museum where street performers, hawkers, caricature artists, pickpockets, and tourists gather.
The sights and sounds of this place are sticky in my otherwise-faded memory. A fat Portuguese caveman breathed fire and let you throw darts at his stomach for 20 francs. A drummer rocked out on a spare-parts set that featured a dangling banana – every so often he would scream “BANANA!” and hit it with his drumstick, flinging fruit flesh into the audience. We didn’t listen to much popular music as missionaries and it was a guilty pleasure to hear bands covering pagan tunes by The Smiths and The Beatles on guitars, violins, clarinets, and the occasional didgeridoo.
Street musicians at the Pompidou Center circa 1993
Sketch artist at the Pompidou Center
Pompidou Center performer. 20 francs to throw darts at his belly.
Caveman street performer at Pompidou Center in Paris
Street musicians at the Pompidou Center circa 1993
Drummer who would hit bananas with a drumstick
Street performer, balancing while playing the clarinet
Pompidou Center countdown of seconds to the year 2000. (7 years to go here.)
One rainy day, probably in May, only the die-hards were out performing. We stood under umbrellas and listened to this guy sing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Have You Ever Seen the Rain? His accent was strong – “I waaaNOOO ha-ye-evah seen da rain?” Sticking with the weather theme, he moved next to The Beatles’ Here Comes The Sun. The small audience laughed and gasped as the sun really did come out on the chorus! I don’t think I was particularly down at the time, but the coincidence brightened my day and has stuck in my aging brain all these 22 years.
“Here Comes the Sun”
In 2008, 15 years after my mission days, I had a business trip in Paris and scheduled some tourist time to visit a few of my old haunts. I went to the Pompidou Center and guess who was performing.
I learned from another YouTube video that his name is Yama Nico. I hope he’s there next time I visit. We need to talk.
On the way back from India last week, I had a 7.5-hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. I arrived at 6am and then rushed through passport control to the train station (which is conveniently attached to the airport). I took a train to Gare du Nord and walked to Sacré Coeur to take a quick tour and snap some pictures. I had planned to make this my only stop, wandering around Montmartre a bit until I found a grocery store where I could get a stash of Cruesli au Chocolat cereal. But before long it turned into a challenge to see how many sights I could see before I needed to head back to the airport. I didn’t want to spend more money on a subway pass, so this was all on foot and took about three hours. I mapped it out on mappedometer.com and it looks like it was about 5 1/2 miles.
Paris at 6am
Along Boulevard de la Chapelle
On the steps leading to La Basilique du Sacré Cœur de Montmartre
Ceiling of Sacré-Coeur – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (dove in the middle)
Peter and the keys
Rue du Mont Cenis
The poster says “Making love is good. With me it’s better”
Spooky lamp – Montmartre
Graffiti along Rue du Calvaire in Montmartre area
Pirate at La Taverne de Montmartre
Opéra (as in Phantom of the)
Cute little Poste mobile
Place Vendome
Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel, between the Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries
The Louvre Pyramid and Cruesli
Tuileries Garden – Eiffel Tower in the distance
Cruesli and the Eiffel Tower
Place de la Concorde
On the subway – accordion player in the distance
I was already kind of cutting it close to get back to the airport by the time I heard this band performing in the Chatelet train station, but I had to stop and get a quick video. I tracked down the band name later, which is Les Musiciens de Lviv, a Ukrainian band that has been playing Paris metro stations for years.
In the Orsay Museum in Paris, there’s a smallish painting by Eugène Burnand that really stands out for me. It’s Les Disciples Pierre et Jean courant au sépulcre le matin de la Résurrection (The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Tomb On The Morning of the Resurrection).
I love the look of hope, and maybe a tiny bit of worry, on the faces of the apostles.
So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. – John 20:4