Notre-Dame’s famous bells are rung for services and festivals. Once rung by hand, they are now powered by electric motors. The North Tower contains four bells, while the fifth and most famous, the Emmanuel, hangs in the South Tower.
Located to the rear of the cathedral is Square Jean XXIII.
Named in honour of the pope, this pleasant little square overlooking the river was created in 1844 after rioters ransacked the archbishop’s palace in 1831. A palace had stood there since the 17th century. The prefect of Paris, Rambuteau, ordered this square to be built, and the Gothic-style fountain at its heart was put in place a year after it opened. It is possible to enter the square from the cathedral via the St Stephen’s door (porte St-Etienne).
Across the road from Square Jean XXIII is the Mémorial de la Déportation. Accessed from Square de l’Ile de France, this small triangular park juts out into the Seine. A simple memorial designed by French architect Georges-Henri Pingusson in 1962, it commemorates the 200,000 French men, women and children who were deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps in World War II. Built on the site of a former morgue, the designer’s long, narrow subterranean space was intended to convey a feeling of claustrophobia. Fragments of poems by French poet Robert Desnos (a member of the French Resistance) are inscribed on the walls.
Notre-Dame de Paris
Opening times: 8am–6.45pm daily
Towers: 10am–6.30pm Apr–Sept (until 11pm Sat and Sun Jun–Aug);
10am–5.30pm Oct–Mar
Services: Mon–Sat: 8am, 9am (not in Jul and Aug), noon, 5.45pm, 6.15pm;
Sun: 8.30am, 10am, 11.30am, 12.45pm, 6.30pm
Services in English: 2pm Wed, Thur and Sat
Website:
www.notredamedeparis.frTel: 01. 42 34 56 10
Mémorial de la Déportation
Opening times: 10am–6pm Tue–Sun
Tel: 01. 42 77 44 72
Did You Know?
The square in front of the cathedral is Point Zéro, the point from which all distances to Paris are measured.
Did You Know?
Most of the statues on Notre-Dame are not called gargoyles but grotesques. A gargoyle is a specific type of gutter spout, the rest of the cathedral’s ornamentation are just imaginatively decorated statues.
The Islands
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