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Well here we are, ladies and gentlemen, the chapel of Sainte-Chapelle. Difficult to take
any kind of photographs from the outside, unless you're in a helicopter, because it's
in the middle of another palace, as we see. If I come down, and here's the entrance where
you'll go in, you'll see we're completely surrounded by the Palais de Justice, and the
Conciergerie, of course, which is part of it.
Now here you'll see the two levels of La Sainte-Chapelle. You go in the lower level, and there are some
winding staircases, one person wide, that you go up onto that second level, and the
second level is beautiful, in fact, stunning is the only word you can use for it. You really
wouldn't guess what it was like from the outside. Let's go and get started.
Well, that's the sight that you get after you come out of the stairs, climbing upwards,
into the Haute Chapelle. I hope you're getting these windows. There's quite a lot of noise
here in the chapel, because it tends to echo. On the left-hand side, unfortunately for us,
we've got some restoration work being done on several of the windows.
Let's have a look at the roof here, standing at one end.
The windows soar upwards, tremendous. I've never seen such original icons.
Here's a close-up of some of the windows to give you an idea. Good details and colour,
isn't it? I think what really strikes you is the height of the individual windows. Just
a tremendous achievement.
Let's just walk through, and I'll shut up and let you have a look at it.
Not quite so many people as there used to be a few minutes ago.
Sorry it's a bit shaky, but I'm having to dodge people as we go.
Now here we are, coming to the front of the chapel, and this is the reliquary.
Originally - and very cleverly - the king bought the Crown of Thorns and some other
relics of Christ, and this chapel was actually built in the middle of another palace, which
is why except for the roof you can't see it from the outside. So within this palace was
the reliquary with the sacred relics of Christ (which everyone believed in at the time),
and thus you had religious power, which was tremendously important in the Middle Ages,
and physical power, military power, combined into one.
Well they've just shouted out that there are five minutes before Sainte-Chapelle closes,
so I've just got time to give you a last sweep around and a view of the famous Apocalypse
Window.
These are the massive rear gates at the back at Sainte-Chapelle, and we move up we see
the famous Apocalypse Window.
The Apocalypse rose window: if you come here they have twenty different panels of explanation
to tell you what's going on.
In the middle, St John with his feet on the seven churches of Asia, so I'm told, and I
notice - you can look at the close-up in our photo gallery - that he's actually got a sword
in his teeth. I'm not sure about the relevance of that.
But just have a look at this window: it's huge.
And with the statues of the saints and the colour - we can't give you the proper colour
here, it looks sort of an orangey colour, but in fact it's very.. reds and blues and
golds. It's very distinct when you come and see it, but it's faded, I found that some
of my shots, the still shots, bring up the colour better than in real life.
Well, there we are: Sainte-Chapelle, certainly worth it, with the windows right up to heaven,
let's have a look at the roof, and then I think it's time to say goodbye.