LA MADELEINE

Today was a vacation from the vacation. We’ve been walking our legs off for ten days now checking out everything that was on our list of things to see and do. We woke up this morning to a heavy cloud cover and the promise of rain. The French Open has been interrupted many times with the rain and so have us tourists been hobbled by periodic cloudbursts. But we do march on.

But after a long and luxurious morning of coffee and bread, butter and jam we set out once again to explore the streets. We went to La Madeleine Square. There is a church in the square dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, and the square is located at the junction of the boulevards with an artery from place de la Concorde. The history of this building if a bit too complex to go into here, but the structure was initially started by St-Louis-des-Invalides in 1764 but through many political and complicated times the structure was not consecrated until 1842.

The back of the Church shows how austere the structure appears with its strong lines of columns.



The stair at the front entrance is lined with hundreds of flower boxes.

The interior is exquisite and powerful.


All along the outside of the building there are larger than life size statues of saints. Here is St. Cabrial. All of these statues are very dirty and the entire place looks as though it is in the process of getting a cleaning with scaffolding around the entire building.



A real find. A toilet underground in the La Madeleine area. There are two female attendants waiting to hand you a towel after you have washed your hand. The walls are rich wood paneling with a stained glass window on each door of the stalls.





This is the entrance for the ladies!!



And for the gentlemen there is a Urinoir. Just follow the arrow.


From the steps of La Madeleine you get a full view of rue Royale, the obelisk at the heart of the place de Concord and beyond that you can see to the Palaise-Bourbon and the Invalids dome.