For those who don't know already, I'll go ahead and spoil the surprise right off the bat – there was no Hunchback. Ever. I'm not suggesting people didn't suffer from spinal malformations or ugliness in French history, there just wasn't a particular case localised within the Notre Dame bell tower. He was nothing more than an author's work of fiction. No singing gargoyles either. Damn you, Disney.
Making our way into the courtyard, once again we found ourselves swimming in a sea of tourists, some of them looking like they were doing their best to convince me that maybe the Hunchback did exist, he just spent his wandering around the front of the cathedral staring vacantly at a map. I was starting to sense that these tourists were becoming a theme, and that Paris wasn't the secluded corner of the world that a lifetime of wishful thinking and travelling ignorance had led me to believe.
If the cathedral itself had set out to impress me – which I like to think it had – it was doing its job rather well. Being that it was a house of God, it would appear that God likes to live extravagantly. It was a stone bohemoth, accessorising itself with a number of statues and intricate carvings. The two towers rose up, ears listening to the sounds of the city, hearing nothing but the irritating twang of foreigners and the seductive arrogance of locals. Ah, Paris. Nestled in between the towers was a large, ornate glass window; a cyclopic eye staring out across the city, locked in a perpetual staring contest with the Eiffel Tower for monument superiority. I'm not sure who was winning, nor did I have the stature to risk getting involved.
Being that I was a gothic cathedral virgin, I was altogether impressed with the sheer stature of the building, considering most of the churches I'd seen back home bore a striking resemblance toa high school assembly hall. Having two and a half months of European travel on me, Brendan and Rob were a little less impressed, having traversed a continent where gothic cathedrals plagued the countryside like a far more visually appealing smallpox, but they still oohed, aahed and gained erections at the appropriate moments.
Entering the monument, and thereby breaking myself in – please be gentle, Notre Dame – I craned my neck to take in the expanse of space that God required to kick back and relax. It was quite the pad – a giant organ for music, enough seating to satisfy any religious or social engagement and spacious enough that sound would carry so you could have a conversation with someone on the other side of the building without having to move. Around the walls there was a series a glass windows more stained than the bedsheets at a bordello; cross-sections of a kaleidoscope that someone had decided to insert into the architecture.
I wandered the pews, stared up at the ceiling that was so far above me that I could only assume it existed and – ever the peer pressure victim – eventually joined everyone else in flagrantly disregarding the no photography signs. I feel a bonded with several hundred strangers in our act of rebellion.
Without Jesus and his Apostles performing some kind of cabaret musical up front – Hunchback on percussion, a chorus line of nuns providing entertainment during the intermission – there was only so much of the inside of the cathedral that you could see before you got the idea and began to wish some of the sculptures were little more crude. It was time to head outside, to the top of the towers. Maybe that's where all the dirty carvings would be, where they couldn't corrupt young choir boys and girls. After all, that was a job for members of the clergy.
Just as I'm sure history had intended, access to the top of the Notre Damn towers was overseen by the time-honoured traditions of lines and admission fees. So we took up our rightful place in the queue, making sure we took the time every five minutes to shuffle forward a few feet. With a line hardly being the best vantage point for sightseeing, I could instead spend my time being slightly unnerved by the the 10-year-old kids next to me who appeared to be toying with a flick knife. Turns out it was a flick comb. Seems you can't walk down the street at night in Paris without fear of having your hair styled by a gang of wayward youths. Sure, they may leave you with all your money, but say goodbye to all of your toiletries.
After managing to get away with paying student entry prices by using the cunning ruse of saying, 'Yes, I am a student,' while providing absolutely no evidence, we made our way up the the spiral staircase. Undeniable proof that tourism is not a pastime intended for the obese, the staircase was determined to never end and narrow enough to create quite the human landslide if the person at the front decided that keeping there balance was a thing of the past. If I had been the person at the front, with a crowd of people behind me who would love nothing more than to cushion my fall, I wouldn't have been so concerned about this. Unfortunately I was much closer to the back, and I didn't want the last thing I saw before I died to be Rob's ass hurtling towards my face.
Just in time for my legs not to give out on me, we found ourselves ourselves at the top. This discovery was hardly a revelation, considering it's where we were heading the entire time. Despite my relative unfamiliarity with 17th Century architecture, I was fairly certain that the criss-crossing metal wires that barricaded the tower railings were not part of the original design. Exactly how many instances of people falling off had there been before they decided that a shield to prevent human stupidity was required? There was no tally etched into the stone walls, I checked.
The view itself was rather spectacular. The stone gargoyles-that-technically-weren't-gargoyles may have been sick of staring out at it over several hundred years – honestly they weren't that forthcoming with their opinions – but considering I was new to all of this, I believe I was filled with the appropriate sense of wonder. The Eiffel Tower was pointing up at the sun, which in turn was shining back down to reflect off the solid gold roof of Napoleon's tomb – I really wish I could overcompensate for lack of height in the same extravagant manner he enjoyed. Somehow, over the years, some modern buildings had managed to insert themselves into the scenery, grouping together to form there own clique. But as hard as they might have tried, they still couldn't tarnish the sight of this cultural metropolis sprawled out before me; an expanse of buildings that I already knew my legs would never find to time to carry me entirely through. The time I had was simply too little, as was the length of my steps. Curse these tiny, inefficient limbs.
My eyes were trying to make up for where my legs would inevitably let me down, traversing as much of the landscape as possible in the time that the tower guides seemed unwilling to be generous with. At the same time, staring out into the distance, no matter what that distance may contain. is a form of entertainment with something of a limited lifespan, so I had soon finished my grand production of Oohs and Ahs – soon to be a broadway musical – and impressing people with all of the buildings I couldn't name. It seems that 'Geoffry' doesn't count.
Making the way back down the stairs in the opposite tower I wondered if the guides would implement my suggestion of providing people with a toboggan to make the journey a whole lot more exhilarating. It was hard to tell which side of deranged genius they thought I was leaning more towards. They did appear to be backing away slowly though. In awe, I think it's safe to assume. Instead, I had to begrudgingly settle for the old-fashion way, one foot in front of the other and not remotely using gravity to its fullest advantage. Issac Newton would be spinning in his grave, albeit at the same speed and following the exact same path that the Earth seemed to be.
Hitting the bottom step, everyone in the group could all breathe a sigh of relief and let our minds wander from the incredible mental and physical strain of a vertical climb. After all, those stairs can be tough to navigate – up, down, the options are endless. There was now nothing left for me to do but start to ponder if there was anyone gullible enough to be coaxed into giving me a foot massage. Outside of my travelling companions that is. Brendan's hands didn't seem soft enough and I suspected Rob would enjoy it a little too much.
Though there was one final thing that intrigued me as I passed through a small cemetery to exit the grounds. Did these graves belong to significant figures in the cathedral's history, or tourists who had come to grief on the staircase I had just braved? Did my survival make me some kind of hero?
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