My late grandfather, Ernest, was photographed in the late 1940s, and I am the proud owner of this photograph.
The Seine River is a 777‑km waterway flowing through northern France, but its most iconic stretch runs through central Paris, dividing the city into the Left Bank and Right Bank. It curves past many of the city’s most famous landmarks, making it both a geographic anchor and a cultural symbol.
The cathedral is a national treasure, a masterpiece of French Gothic architecture, and an example of invention, precision, and medieval creativity.
The building, which was constructed without the aid of contemporary technology, has rib vaults, pointed arches, twin 69-meter towers, and the well-known flying buttresses. In 1163, King Louis VII ordered Bishop Maurice de Sully to start building the church.
Due to financial constraints, severe medieval technical issues, the start of wars, and plagues, the construction of this Gothic cathedral took about 200 years, from 1163 to 1345.
Because of a cigarette or an electrical short circuit in the wooden tower, the church had a terrible fire in 2019. The reconstruction cost a lot of money and took away a lot of history and parts of the cathedral that will never be found again.
Thank you for visiting my new website, and please tell your friends about my fine art landscape photography!
Cheers John. Photo © copyright by John Stevenson.