September 20, 2018

The best view of Paris

Sometimes a discovery is so amazing you just need to repeat it over and over... the view from the top of the tower St.Jacques must be one of the most spectacular ones in all of Paris... and I just can't get enough of it... therefore with the excuse of a dear friend visiting from abroad I booked ourselves two tickets and ascended the 300 steps for the third time this year!

It’s not for the short of breath or weak-kneed, but the dizzying 360-degree vista of Paris from the Tour Saint-Jacques is one of the best-kept secrets of the French capital if you ask me, not least because tickets are not easy to find due to the lack of a permanent license to receive public visitors. But, of course, the French have found a way around that minor inconvenience!

After more than a decade of restauration, it reopened to the public for the first time in 2012, during France’s annual Heritage weekend when visitors are invited inside public buildings of cultural and historical significance.

The tower stands alone in the middle of a little garden of the same name. A tower in the flamboyant Gothic style, built between 1509 and 1523 and the only remaining vestige of the Eglise Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie destroyed in 1797. Few know that this sanctuary was the meeting point on the Via Toronensis (Tours route) of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

The million dollar questions is... how does one get tickets? The answers is: des mots et des arts.com


Stepping out onto a glorious view of Paris


The Tour St.Jacques from down below


The 2nd floor is a flashback in history where the ceiling is the actual top of the tower. 


The tower housed a carillon with 12 bells when it was the bell-tower of the church.


A 360 degree view makes the monuments and landmarks of Paris so close and offers unexpected perspectives.


The Seine running along the Notre-Dame cathedral. 


The district of Les Halles with Saint-Eustache church and the hill of Montmartre.
 

A huge anti-pollution manifestation is gathering beneath our eyes.


Famous Parisian roof tops 


The statue of St. Jacques facing the church


View onto the gardens from 54 meters above.

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