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  Western Europe III  
       
  The church of Sainte Madeleine at Vézelay is considered a gem of Romanesque art and architecture. This twelfth-century tympanum, or sculptured panel above the entrance, combined with the numerous stone carvings decorating the columns in the interior, visually told the stories of the Christian Gospels to the illiterate faithful of the times.  
       
  The interior of the Vézelay church, shown here, witnessed the famous sermon by St. Bernard of Clairvaux as he blessed the Crusaders on their departure for the Second Crusade in 1146 Note the pre-Gothic Romanesque vaulted ceiling with its rounded arches reminiscent of Byzantine architecture.  
       
  The church of Sainte Chapelle was built in 1243 by Louis IX of France to house Jesus's Crown of Thorns, which Louis reputedly brought back from the Holy Land after the Sixth Crusade. The upper chapel, with its soaring vaulted ceiling, resembles a luminous jeweled reliquary, with more than three-quarters of its exterior walls composed of stained glass windows. After being damaged during the French Revolution, the windows were restored in the nineteenth century.  
       
  Begun in 1163 and completed 200 years later, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was built with the skill and religious ardor of the common people: stonemasons, iron workers, sculptors, glass workers, and carpenters. Notre Dame has witnessed many major religious and political occasions, and represents the soul of Paris. During the French Revolution, it was rededicated to the "Cult of Reason" and used for storage. Like many of the historical buildings of Paris, it has just been cleaned of centuries of grime.  
       
  The Bayeux Cathedral in northern France, with its soaring vaulted ceiling and somber grey stone, is an excellent example of Norman Gothic architecture. Like all European cathedrals, it has undergone numerous architectural modifications over the centuries.  
       
  The fortified medieval bridge at Cahors in central France.  
       
  The bridge at Avignon, on the Rhone River in southern France, is known for the round "Sur le Pont d'Avignon," sung by children all over the world.  
       
  The castles on the Loire River in France are considered among the architectural gems of the Renaissance. Like cathedrals, such castles were not static constructs but were modified over the centuries. Here we see the unusual exterior staircase of the sixteenth-century late Gothic castle of Blois, which was the residence of both Louis XII and Francis I of France.  
       
  Another Renaissance gem in the Loire Valley is the Castle of Chenonceaux. The long galleries over the river witnessed gala dinners and balls given by the Queen Catherine de Medici.  
       
  The immense Palace of Versailles radiates the glory that was the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV. The greatest architectural enterprise of the seventeenth century, Versailles is reputed to have housed 20,000 people, including nobles, soldiers, servants, merchants, and staff, all in less than ideal hygienic conditions. The palace became the hermetically sealed bastion within which Louis XIV could centralize his royal authority.  
       
  Louis XIV's canopy bed with gold brocade drapes. As the result of the creation of such opulent surroundings, it is little wonder that the state's coffers were emptying. Nonetheless, Versailles became the envy and model for the palaces of subsequent European rulers.  
       
  Every room at Versailles boasted ceiling and wall decorations, parquet floors, marble fireplace mantels, mirrors, brocade drapes, paintings, and statues. Here we see one of Marie Antoinette's salons in the Queen's vast apartments.  
       
  In 1806 Napoleon commissioned the construction of the Arch of Triumph in Paris to honor the soldiers who had earned French military victories throughout Europe. It is patterned on the victory arches of ancient Rome.  
       
  Wine cultivation was brought to Gaul by the ancient Greeks; thenceforth, vineyards such as these have been covering French hills for the past two millennia. Here we see a winery, which is most often located in a castle, because the thick walls keep the temperature constant.  
       
  This view of the Pointe du Hoc along the Atlantic Coast of Normandy shows the forbidding cliffs that were stormed by Allied troops at the beginning of the D-Day Invasion on June 19  
       
  The church in Sainte Mère Eglise on the Normandy peninsula became famous when, on the night before D-Day, several of the first American airborne troops who arrived to reinforce the Allied offensive perished on its steeple.  
       
  This building outside of Paris, constructed by the famed French architect Le Corbusier, epitomizes the modernist style of "function over form" and shows the characteristic unadorned simple lines and white color preferred by the internationalists.  
       
  Built over the medieval marketplace of Paris, the Pompidou Center towers as a monument to contemporary architecture. With its elevators and pipes on the exterior, it frees the interior of the building for more space to house the libraries and art collections that make this one of the most popular sites in Paris today.  
       
  The Rock of Gibraltar looms as a rocky promontory at the extreme southwestern tip of Europe. To the Greeks it represented the end of the known world. Taking its name from the Moorish commander Tarik (Jebel Tarik, or "the Mount of Tarik") it eventually shifted from Moorish to Spanish rule. It became a British colony in 1830.  
       
  The twentieth-century Holy Family Cathedral in Barcelona, still under construction, is still identified with its initial architect, the famous Antonio Gaudi.  
       
   
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