Notre-Dame Cathedral from the East

first      previous      next      last     

This is Notre-Dame Cathedral as seen from the Left Bank of the Seine River, on the pont de la Tournelle (Tournelle Bridge) slightly east of the cathedral, which is about 300 metres away. This wide-angle shot shows a lot of the surrounding area, although it makes the cathedral look more distant than it really is.

Nearly in the center of this photograph, you can see the cathedral itself. The front of the cathedral is facing away from you (towards the west). The flying buttresses are very visible from here.

In front of the cathedral as you see it here is the Square Jean XXIII, a park awash with large trees; you can just barely see the tiny tower-like sculpture in the park that is in the foreground of my other photo of this park.

In front of the park (actually across the street from it, although the street is not visible here) is the Mémorial de la Déportation, a memorial to Jews deported by the French during the Nazi occupation of World War II. The memorial is mostly underground and is only open during certain hours. The opening you see in the stone embankment just above the river level is part of the memorial, a barred window through which visitors inside the memorial can see the river. The rest of the monument is beneath the concrete tip of the island that you see here. Needless to say, the memorial is flooded when the river is running unusually high. (I have a photograph taken from this same point while the Seine River is flooding, if you are interested.)

Off to the right of the Square Jean XXIII is a residential area of the Île de la Cité. It is very expensive, and some of the buildings are several hundred years old. At the time following the construction of the cathedral, this was already prime real estate, and most of the homes at this point had elaborate gardens. The gardens are gone, for the most part, at least the ones that used to be right on the river.

Still further off to the right you can see the modern Sully bridge (pont de Sully), which links the Île de la Cité to the Île Saint-Louis. The latter island extends off to the right of the frame; you can see part of it sunlit on the extreme right.

Back to the left of the cathedral, the first bridge you see is the Pont de l’Archevêché, from which my main photo of the cathedral was taken (I was standing at the leftmost end of the bridge as you see it here, and on the far side). The street passing over this bridge continues to the right across the island as the quai de l’Archevêché, between the park and the memorial.

The large area in the foreground on the left is the port de la Tournelle, a wide space along the river that is appreciated by strollers, and people who just want to sit and relax.

Behind and to the left of the camera, though not visible in this photograph, is the world-famous Tour d’Argent restaurant, which sits almost directly on the river at this point.

The boat in the foreground is one of the many excursion boats that constantly move up and down the river, loaded with tourists.

Since you are looking west, in the direction of the river’s flow, the left side of the photo is the Left Bank, and the right side of the photo (behind the islands, at least) is the Right Bank.

Photographed on May 23, 2000.