Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Climb the spiral staircase to the
Chapelle Haute.
Fill the place with choral music, crank
upthesunshine,facethetopofthealtar,andreallybelievethattheCrownofThornsisthere,
and this becomes one awesome space.
Fiat lux.
“Let there be light.” From the first page of the Bible, it's clear: Light is divine.
Light shines through stained glass like God's grace shining down to earth. Gothic architects
used their new technology to turn dark stone buildings into lanterns of light. The glory of
Gothic shines brighter here than in any other church.
There are 15 separate panels of
stained glass
(6,500 square feet—two thirds of it 13th-
century original), with more than 1,100 different scenes, mostly from the Bible. These cover
the entire Christian history of the world, from the Creation in Genesis (first window on the
left, as you face the altar), to the coming of Christ (over the altar), to the end of the world
(the round “rose”-shaped window at the rear of the church). Each individual scene is inter-
esting, and the whole effect is overwhelming.
