Tucked into the Palais de Justice on Ile de la Cite, this 13th century church is a gem that many people miss. It was built as a royal chapel for Louis IX to hold various relics he had acquired including Christ's crown of thorns. The chapel has two levels - the lower level was to serve as a parish church for the palace but the upper level was reserved for the royal family. The unknown architect of this Gothic building in the rayonnant style designed the structure as to maximise the size of the windows.

The upper chapel seems to have walls of stained glass held up by fine pillars. The rich colour of the stained glass is magnificent and photos cannot convey its splendour as the colour of light splashes across the chapel. The pictures windows is in depicts scenes from the Bible and there are also carved wooden sculptures of the apostles.

This is such an amazing example of Gothic architecture and stained glass - more stunning than its near neighbour, Notre Dame. It is beautiful and worth taking time to admire the stained glass - there are seats around the edge of the chapel to sit and admire in silence. Unfortunately, its difficult to capture the colour of the glass in your own photos unless you are carrying around amazing camera equipment, so its worth picking up some postcards of the chapel. I have to say I spent quite a bit of time sitting and admiring the detail of the windows, which are incredibly elaborate and simply divine.

The church is within the Palais de Justice complex and consequently there is a security screening, which I had to queue to get through for a few minutes, but there wasn't a huge queue. Tickets cost 6euro (there are also reduced tickets for students, teachers) but is also part of Paris Museum Pass.

Want to find God? This is the place to do it. With a cozily dark lower chapel and a breathtaking upper chapel, St. Chapelle is the place to go to become a believer in the power of the church, or at least in the power of churches.

First off, it's not all that easy to find. If you're expecting it to be out in the open and obvious from wherever you look like Notre Dame, you're out of luck. It's tucked away in the Palais de Justice on Ile de la Cite (Metro stop is Cite). Find Boulevard du Palais (turns into Blvd. St. Michel when it crosses over the river). On this street is the Palais de Justice. St. Chapelle is inside the Palais; there is a door on Blvd de Palais (on the right if you're facing Place St. Michel). You can just see St. Chapelle over the roof if you're looking from the right place.

You'll have to have your bag searched and go through a metal detector on your way in. It's a government building, after all. Once you get into the courtyard, you can actually see the cathedral. The most impressive part is inside, don't worry. Discounted ticket if you're under 25.

St. Chapelle was built in the 1240s by Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the true cross, recently acquired in Constantinople (not Istanbul... sing if you know the words!); the Crown was moved to Notre Dame, where is it trotted out every Friday to see its adoring fans during Lent or something.

You enter into the lower cathedral, a charming little space with groin vaults and fleur de lis painted on the dark blue ceiling. It is only slightly ruined by the souvenir stand in the middle. It is very ruined, however, by the yappy tourists making flattened pennies and calling out to each other about which postcards they should buy. Sadly they're upstairs too. Get used to them.

So the lower chapel is nice and all, but you start wondering what the big deal is, until you realize people are going upstairs, via spiral staircases tucked into the corners on either side of the entrance.

The stair deposits you in a corner of the upper chapel, looking up into a cocoon of pure, colorful light. Now I don't know about you, but the first thing I said upon entering was "God," so obviously it worked. Organized religion 1, Heathens 0.

The upper chapel is almost entirely stained glass in shades of blue, purple, and red. The columns are clustered and appear to be much smaller than they actually are, making the walls look wafer thin and the ceiling seem like it's floating above. Statues of the apostles look down from the walls. 600 square meters of stained glass provide a visual form of the bible, each window representing a book, from Genesis on through the History of Relics.

Find it. Visit it. It's worth it. I promise.

On a rather cold afternoon, we arrived at the stately gates that lead to the Palais de Justice and proceeded to join a small group at the Cour de la Sainte-Chapelle. After showing our Paris Visites, we moved right into the lower chapel, which was for the servants of the palace that the holy chapel was a part of when King and Saint Louis IX had it constructed to hold the pricey but priceless Crown of Thorns he had bought from the Byzantine emperor Beaudoin II, as well as other relics of Christ’s Passion he had assiduously acquired. Up the steep spiral staircase, we went to the glorious upper chapel, realm of the royals and clergy exclusively.

Overwhelming, even on a sunless afternoon, the 15 stained-glass panels before us seemed seamlessly to stretch out in colorful glory, a biblical re-telling in glass. Its rose window sufficiently shines amid glittering arches and columns above elaborately patterned floors. Moving our eyes clockwise from Genesis on our left and ending with the Apocalypse of the rose window on our right, the windows literally dominate the chapel. A stunning achievement of French Gothic, exceptionally unified in design since it was completed so quickly (1246-1248), the chapel has windows composed into a mass of glorious color created with craftsmanship akin to that of Chartres Cathedral, but existing in much less space.

Fortunately or not, a tall cloaked woman approached us and several others, and, after briefly introducing herself and her credentials as a candidate for a doctorate in French history, began to talk about Louis’s reasons for obtaining the Passion relics and building so speedily to enclose them. Politically feeling a need to justify his legitimacy (as king of a new line of royalty) to the aristocratic families, whose support he wanted to be sure of, as well as genuinely religious, Louis knew exactly what this chapel should contain. In a non-literate, pre-Guttenberg society, religious art could illustrate the power of God’s earthly representative, the king; the magnificence of this teaching chapel could provide testimony of the riches at the disposal of that kingly presence.

As she dramatized her story, she frequently queried us at points in good teacher fashion to keep our attention. At one point she DID explain if we wished to give her a gratuity it would be acceptable, but there was no obligation. We agreed: others stayed in the group, but we, unobtrusively as possible, withdrew. We had limited cash with us, our new policy since Barcelona, and had reserved what we had to pay for takeout food.

My attitude towards use of guides, human or audio, varies with the occasion; if I haven’t prepared, I welcome aid. Here, I’d prepared and felt her dramatics were obtrusive. I preferred just drinking in the eloquent magnificence of the mostly original 13th-century art before me.