Notre Dame

Talk about more than the eyes can take in. All around us on our way to Notre Dame were statues, gold, bridges, Arcs, strange buildings, stone carvings.

We finally arrived at Notre Dame. I will never ever forget how I slowed my pace in awe of just the outside of this building. How no matter where one looked at this work of art there were carvings of saints I assumed or gargoyles looming overhead and how our guide told us there was a story behind all of them.

How on earth could someone have the patience and/or the ability to create something so amazingly precise with such small detail in a stone? I am a terrible history buff, know nothing about France history but how I wanted to learn more right then and there. To stand there and understand what our guides were explaining...but their English and our French was so broken up we couldn't understand what they were trying to tell us. Yes, it was very frustrating not only for us but for them as well.

We must have spent about a half hour outside the Cathedral. I snapped many pictures of gargoyles and what truly struck me was the doorways into the church. They are arched, but that isn't the amazing thing. Within the stone of these arches are very intricate carvings of what appeared to be saints or angels on both sides of the arch one on top of another on top of another all the way to the peak on both sides. I just could not take it all in enough.

Every which way I turned my head, there was something intriguing to ogle and ogle we did. Running my fingers down the pillars, touching the walls, the doors, it was all so surreal. The funny part was was I had no idea what lay ahead of us.

Pat and I stood side by side or walked side by side during this whole....examination of sorts.....but I don't think we spoke all that much. We were both so wrapped up in the moment that nothing around us seemed to really matter.

And I know all to well how, as a mom of two, I was oblivious to my surroundings but the children somehow managed to stay within reach of me all the same. Funny how the instinct kicks in but the mind is elsewhere. Again, the girls had absolutely no idea what they were seeing, to them it was just a building with lots of scary monsters hanging off of it and people all over the walls.

I remember just before we were going to enter the Cathedral I just had to stop one more time to look up. Perhaps I am just one who is easily awed by such things but I could not seem to get enough of the arch ways. I was so amazed by the details and all the years it must have taken to create such a beautiful structure. And the era, what it must have been like to actually hand carve all of these people....but that was all QUICKLY forgotten the minute we stepped inside.