Notre Dame de Paris
Monday, 15th August 2005 by Alex Turnbull
This is the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, France. More commonly known simply as "Notre Dame" (Wikipedia page), it's a gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, surrounded by the river Seine. Construction began in 1163, but wasn't finished until 1345!
Notre Dame is probably most famous as the location of Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which raised awareness of the cathedral enough to help save it from being demolished in the early 19th Century. In our thumbnail you can clearly see the south tower which houses the cathedral's famous bell, "Emmanuel", which weighs 13 metric tons!
Arrggh, the bells, the bells!
Thanks: Salinga, Baudouin Raoult, John Riggs, George Armhold, Bennet Langlotz, Paul C., Thom van Vreeswijk, UnjourenOz and Carl-Uno Ohlsson.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
For a look inside the place, check out one of the most interesting bits of freeware ever released… the Unreal-engine powered Virtual Notre Dame Cathedral project.
I’ve seen the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame.I know why Notre Dame took so long to build:There were invasions from France’s enemies invaded Paris while Notre Dame was built.