Visit to Sainte Chapelle
After a good night’s kip at Hutopia campsite, we went in a somewhat tortuous way (due to a rail strike) to the magnificent Sainte-Chapelle cathedral. Ethereal and magical, Sainte Chapelle has been hailed as one of the greatest architectural masterpieces of the Western world. In the Middle Ages, the devout likened the church to a “gateway to heaven”. Today, no visitor can fail to be transported by the blaze of light created by the 15 magnificent stained glass windows, separated by the narrowest of columns, that soar 50 feet to the star-studded vaulted roof. The windows portray over 1,000 religious scenes in a kaleidoscope of red, green, gold, blue and mauve. Th chapel was built in 1248 by Louis IX to house Christ’s purported Crown of Thorns (now in the Notre Dame) and other relics. Louis acquired the Crown in 1241 from the Emperor of Constantinople and it cost three times as much as the construction of the Church. The last pic shows the reliquary which was built to hold the crown of thorns.
