If you want to climb...

If you want to climb to the top of the “Tour-Saint-Jacques”, it’s now or - perhaps - never.

The tower is normally closed to visitors, but exceptionally it’s now open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays until September 15 – only 8  visits per day, max 17 persons = 136 visitors per day. You must queue up the very day of the visit and if you wish to be sure to get a place, I recommend being there before 8 in the morning. You can then book for a visit at an hour of the day which suits you, as long as there is place.

I already wrote about the rather recently renovated tower – all that remains of the church Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie - in this post, so I’m not repeating its five centuries history. I could possibly add that it actually was used as a meteorological station until as late as 2000 and that the little square that surrounds it was the first official green space that was created in Paris – during the 19^th century… and that although you can find the statue of Blasie Pascal under the arches, it’s not sure that he actually did some experiments here.  

The stairs are narrow, there are some 300 steps…

There is not much to see inside, the restoration has obviously been concentrated to the outside. Do the stained glass windows show the signature of Nicolas Flamel and his wife Pernelle (see previous post), who had their tomb in the disappeared church?

Once on the top you are on a altitude which is similar to the top of the Notre Dame towers and this was for centuries as high as you could get to get some good views of Paris. You can of course look down, notice some very ancient “tags”…

… but I guess you will especially admire what you can see of Paris. 

Tour Saint-Jacques

This beautiful tower is all that remains of the ancient late-gothic church Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie (Saint James of the Butchery), built 1509-23. This was obviously a butchery area some centuries ago. The church building was demolished in 1797 – during the revolutionary years - and the stones were used as building material elsewhere, but fortunately the tower was saved.

It has been restored recently and has been under tarpaulins for years, completely visible again since a couple of months.

The 17th century physicist - and philosopher - Blaise Pascal is supposed to have used the tower for some studies on barometrical variations here, the reason why his statue can now be found under the lower arches of the tower. It was later also used for other physical experiments, measuring speed of falling objects etc.

Queen Victoria passed under the lower arches during a visit and one of the adjacent streets bears her name.

The church was (the tower still is) one of the major starting points of the pilgrim walk St. James’ Way (Camino de Santiago, Chemin de St. Jacques, Jakobsweg....) to Santiago-de-Compostella, where the apostle St. James is supposed to have been buried.