The Most Beautiful....

...church I have ever been in, is a chapel in Paris called Sainte-Chapelle. This is a medieval gothic chapel located in the heart of Paris on the ille de la Cite.

Sainte-Chapelle was built as a royal palace and consecrated in 1248. It was commissioned by King Louis IV to house the Passion Relics of Christ - including part of the Crown of Thrones. Sainte-Chapelle has a lower and an upper chapel.

You enter through the lower chapel and you immediately marvel at the beauty of the architecture. It surrounds you in a cocoon of beauty as you realize that you are standing in the home of the Passion Relics. Now, of course, the Relics are not on constant display - you would have to visit Sainte-Chapelle during Holy Week to see them.

After taking in the serenity of the lower chapel, you climb a spiral stone staircase to the upper chapel... and immediately feel your breathe catch in your chest. The beauty of the upper chapel cannot adequately be described with mere words. The upper chapel is most famous for its incredible stained glass windows. The entire chapel is surrounded by floor to ceiling stained glass arches that tell the story of various books of the bible. Fifteen huge windows, dating back to the 13th century, circle the chapel culminating in a massive rose window depicting the book of Revelations.

There isn't much I can say to explain the beauty of this chapel to you ... so I will let the pictures do their best to speak for me. (The pictures, of course, do not even begin to do this justice.)

The rose window tells the story of Revelations. 

This is from the window that tells the Passion Story. You can see Jesus with the crown of thrones in this small portion of the window. 

I always thought that my church was a beautiful building with lovely stained glass. But after having spent time taking in the gorgeousness of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris ... it all seems too, well, new and perfect. And nowhere near as beautiful. If you ever have the chance to visit Paris be sure to stop into Sainte-Chapelle. You will not regret it. 

The Eiffel Tower

I may be jumping out of order in the Fabulous France trip I took ... but as cliche as it is, the Eiffel Tower was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The Eiffel Tower is one of the most iconic landmarks in Paris. Even the most naive person in the world can identify the Eiffel Tower. Any film that is set in Paris includes at least one romantic shot of the tower ... any photograph series set in France will have at least one beautiful photo of the tower ... it is so iconic that even my three year old nephew knew that I was at "Eiffel" but could not tell you I was in France.

I honestly cannot even describe how I felt when I first saw the Eiffel Tower as I flew into Paris. Our plane turned slightly and there is suddenly appeared towering over the rest of Paris through the small window of the plane. I craned my neck and stood up as best I could in my seat barring removing my seat belt and just smiled. My heart swelled and I knew I would love Paris. Even my awake-for-36-hours-sleep-deprived-brain knew that I would forever leave a piece of my heart behind.

The Eiffel Tower is massive, and that is an understatement. The Eiffel Tower was originally built for the World's Fair in 1889. Once the exposition was over, the Parisians wanted it removed but Gustav Eiffel, of course, wanted it to stay. He was so proud of his tower that he decided to add an antennae to the top so that the Parisians would want it to stay to improve radio frequencies (of course this is the high abridged version of the tower's long history). The millennium brought a sparkling light show that would allow the tower to sparkle every hour after dark. It was only meant to last that year but the people fell in love with it and it remains to this day.

I was lucky enough to stay in a hotel that had a roof top terrace where I could watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle in the evening - and I have to say this is one of my favorite views of Paris. We came up here every night we were able and enjoyed a glass of wine and soaked in the view. The Eiffel Tower to one side and Sacre-Coeur to the other. Then at nine-fifty-nine pm we all would jump up and hold onto the railings as we eagerly awaited the show to being. The tower would light up and start to sparkle at ten on the dot and the show would last for five minutes. It would be nearly impossible to drag your eyes away from the glorious twinkling tower in the distance.

While there, we were fortunate enough to eat dinner at 86 Eiffel, which is a restaurant located on the first floor of the tower. It is a completely surreal feeling to know that you are eating dinner ON the Eiffel Tower. Following quite possibly one of the most delicious meals I have ever had ... we climbed the 340+ steps to the second floor of the tower and enjoyed the views there before making our final trek to the top.

I couldn't even believe that I was standing on top of the Eiffel Tower. On top of all that, it was sparkling as we reached the top and I knew that I was part of the beautiful spectacle that I enjoyed nightly. My heart swelled as I walked around the top and I knew in that moment that I would always hold a special place in my heart for Paris ... because Paris is truly always a good idea.

Normandy

Our second day of the trip was incredibly busy and was spent in Normandy. This day was spent exploring the areas of Normandy that were involved in the D-Day invasion.

We started by going to Caen to visit the Mémorial de Caen - the Peace Memorial. This  museum was created to look at the the time leading up to World War II, World War II and the time afterwards including the Cold War. You start your visit here looking at the time leading up to the second world war. In order to understand why WWII happened, you must understand what was happening before it. From here you journey through attempting to understand genocide, the D-Day Battles and the recreation of a world post war. It was an incredibly moving museum to visit albeit it hard to walk through due to such heavy topics. 

Then we stopped and had lunch in a small town called Arromanches. Our tour guides described it as the Wisconsin Dells of Normandy - full of tourist shops. This town is a historic place of the Normandy landings because an artificial port was built here so that allied troops could unload heavy materials without waiting for the conquest of deeper, permanent ports. 

From here, we headed to the Normandy American cemetery. This is an American cemetery on American soil in France overlooking Omaha Beach. The people of France gifted the Americans this land to bury our soldiers who gave their lives at the D-Day battles. There are thousands of grave stones marking the tombs of these soldiers, over 1,500 who were never identified. Next of kin were given the option to permanently bury their dead at home, but those men would still have a grave marker here.  This is the cemetery that is seen at the start of the movie, Saving Private Ryan, and two of the brothers that movie is based on are buried here. 

Our last stop of the day was at Pointe-du-Hoc. This is where the US Army Rangers scaled the cliff walls in order to attack the Germans. Unfortunately, they were running late and lost the element of surprise. The Germans had fortified this area with casements and gun pits. Despite this, the Rangers did capture this point. Pointe-du-Hoc has been left as it was during the D-day invasions. Visitors can see holes in the ground from dropped bombs, casements still standing and barbed wire from World War II still in its original location.