My love for stained glass windows

The first time I saw amazing stained glass windows was in a Church somewhere in the Ohio/Kentucky border when I went to present something as a grad student in Cincinatti. We had half a day and I was on a package tour as a grad student and remember going to a magnificent church with stained glass windows. 

After traveling a lot more, have seen many more churches and stained glass panes, but the ones in the Notre Dame cathedral are by far the best I have seen.. Mind blowing large and intricate pieces that bring on a light show as the sun moves across..

The previous post on this series is here... Yes, we are still on Day 9 part 3 and it was a packed day! 

We went from the Eiffel tower with smiles all around back on the boat to the cathedral. The views of the place from the boat gave us a sense of grandeur that was to follow. 

There was no "jump the line" tickets at Notre Dame and the tour guide told is it was free and therefore everyone had to go stand in the line. There were a 1000 people in the line in front of us and the line went to the other side of the yard in front of the church which was the size of a football stadium.

We were walking slowly listening to the guide on the headphones about the history of the place, how many times it was built and rebuilt and extended, etc. etc. and before we realized were at the entrance. 

There was a wedding photo shoot going on and we watched it for a few minutes

and it was our turn to enter.. 

This is one beautiful place of worship! You see hundreds of people sitting in silence and that silence has a power. Whatever can hold that many people to silence commands respect!

The slide shows hopefully do justice to the views we got.. but it will not reflect the sense of awe felt inside the halls.

We sat there for a while and walked out with the group. Most of the folks were very silent. We had not got this introspective even at the Vatican!

The tourguide told us that the guided part of the tour was over and we could use the boat ticket to hop and off on any side and keep seeing Paris.. 

The girls who had so far been giggly and happy were tired at that point. It was almost 5PM. We had to find dinner and go to my next planned stop.. 

The next blog post might come under heavy editing by the Censor board of Traveling Narayanans, so I will choose my words carefully..

Day 9 was not over..