Historical April 1997 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Just a block from the Louvre at the Intersections of the Rue Saint-Honors and the Rue St. Roch we found Paris’s version of our local parish church.
On our trip there this past February, we made a special point of stopping by this church to take some pictures. Ours did not turn out as well as those of our daughter, Lynn, who is studying there for this school year. Hers are those shown on this page.
The church is hemmed in on all sides by buildings of equal or greater height, so it is virtually impossible to capture the entire facade in one picture because one cannot stand back far enough. Hence the split display.
According to Frommer’s “Paris From $65 A Day” (“from” is right), “A battle around this church is what secured Bonaparte’s ascent to power on October 5, 1795.
The church contains several important sculptures, including a bust of the gardener Le Notre by Coysevox, the Monument to Mignard (a painter) by Girardon, and works by Coustou and Delorme. Among the famous buried here are Corneille and Diderot.” Despite the off-season weather, we had a wonderful time, with constant reminders of St. Louis. Our city’s patron saint is memorialized there in many ways, as could be expected, but other names echoed as well. Sainte Genevieve is the patron (matron? patroness?) saint of Paris; ChMllion is the name of a metro line, etc. Across the Seine and a block or two from King Louis IX’s beautiful Sainte Chapelle (Holy Chapel), is the Hotel de Ville, Paris’s city hall, which inspired the design of our own City Hall.
The investment made (whether willingly or not) by the citizens of Paris over the centuries is nothing short of astonishing, and their pride in their city is well-founded and inspiring. (Further editorial comparisons with St. Louis are left to the reader.) We eagerly await our next opportunity to return and would encourage those like us, who had thought this kind of trip too expensive, to watch for the special rates on flights to the major cities of Europe.
The off-season is a bargain, both in flight costs and in hotel rates.
If you don’t require luxury in your accommodations and have a sense of humor, you don’t have to spend more than you would at a Motel 6 in this country.
There won’t be washcloths, however! Take half the clothes you think you’ll need.
We didn’t find we needed to take twice the money, as the wry advice goes, but we didn’t shop much!
Original photograph caption
Upper facade of St.Roch in Paris. Photo by Lynn,as credited in the article.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1997.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1997_04.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.
