... I hope. I suddenly realized yesterday that it was 10 years ago this summer that I climbed up to the top of the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris to take in the views and take photos. This
gothic-style bell tower is all that's left of a 12th century church that used to stand on the site before it was torn down during the Révolution of 1789. The bell tower itself was built in the early 1500s.
The Tour Saint-Jacques stands 54 meters tall (that's 177 feet) at approximately the geographical center of the city of Paris, so the views are spectacular. The tower is owned by the city of Paris, and was opened to the public for the first time in many decades in the summer of 2013 after a ten-year restoration project.
I must have walked past the Tour Saint-Jacques hundreds of times between 1970 and 2013, when I first got a chance to climb to the top. I lived just a 15-minute walk from it for three years, 40 years ago. Over the next few days I'm going to post some re-edited photos that I took from the top of the tower in July 2013.
The tower of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie might have been saved because on top of it was a relay of the Chappe’s Telegraph/Semaphore.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was saved because God wanted it to be saved.
DeleteGosh...I remember when you wrote about going up in the tower. Hard to believe it has been 10 years already. I put it on my list then. It was unknown to me before you informed us about that magnificent structure.
ReplyDeleteTen years go by so fast these days.
DeleteI remember when you went up it for the first time!
ReplyDeleteJudy
I do too, but I was surprised to see that it was 10 years ago. We had been in Saint-Aignan for 10 years at that point. I'm really enjoying looking at the photos again. It's a virtual visit to Paris for me.
ReplyDelete