Just as I was about to exit the Luxembourg garden on the west side (rue Guynemer), I turned and saw the dome of the Panthéon through the trees. From where I was standing, the dome is about 700 meters (just over a third of a mile) away.
The picture is taken into the morning sun which accounts for the misty quality, but I like it. The zoom lens makes the dome loom large in the photo.
The Panthéon was built as a church in the eighteenth century atop the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, a high spot on the left bank named for the city's patron saint. The church was intended to receive the relics of Sainte-Geneviève, but before the building was consecrated as a church, the French government decided it would be used as the final resting place of great men of the Republic (post revolution).
The only time I had been inside that "church" was to have a look at the Foucault's pendulum.
ReplyDeleteLove the morning mist.
ReplyDeleteNow that's a building! That monstrosity tower from 1972 could take a lesson or two from this one.
ReplyDeletem.
Love the Pantheon in the fog. I like looking at the Eiffel tower from the steps of the Pantheon. There is so much magic to be seen walking in the 5th arrondisment.
ReplyDeleteThere is something about the Panthéon that excites me every time I catch a glimpse of it. More so than la Tour Eiffel, Sacre Coeur or Notre Dame.
ReplyDeletechm, me too! Many years ago.
ReplyDeleterick, and it wasn't cold!
mark, I'll be posting another shot of the "monstrosity" soon... stay tuned!
evelyn, true!
starman, interesting!
what happened to Geneivieve?
ReplyDelete