Another day in Paris - Sainte Chapelle

In the morning, early before 7, I left the boat heading for Sainte Chapelle on the Ile de la Cité.  This is the oldest church in the city, dating from the 13th century (1242-1248) and used to be part of the Royal Chateau and seat of power from the 10th century, so it was the church that the kings and queens of France frequented.  It is just stunning.
First of all, a precursor to the chapel:

Pont Neuf

Detail of Pont Neuf

The clock on the Clock Tower of the Concierge 

Sainte Chapelle

The chapel has two floors: a lower chapel and an upper chapel.  The building was badly damaged during the Revolution and well restored in the mid 19th century.
The lower chapel:

This fresco painting on the wall is original from the 13th century

The upper chapel is almost all windows with stone columns in between supporting the roof.  Truly amazing.  Half of the windows, including the Rose window have recently been restored.

The ceiling

The spiral stone staircase going from the lower to the upper chapel, steep and narrow.  There are two of them.

The balcony of the upper chapel

In the afternoon Ian and I took a taxi (I had to give my weary bones a rest) to a huge fabric shop in Montmartre, the Marché Saint Pierre, to buy new curtaining material for the boat.  This store has four floors with every kind of fabric you could possible imagine, but amazingly the whole area, a few streets, are just full of fabric stores.