PARIS (AP) — After more than five years of frenetic, but sometimes interrupted, reconstruction work, Notre Dame Cathedral showed itself anew to the world Friday, with rebuilt soaring ceilings and creamy good-as-new stonework erasing somber memories of its devastating fire in 2019.
Images broadcast live of a site visit by French President Emmanuel Macron showed the inside of the iconic cathedral as worshippers might have experienced it in previous centuries, its wide, open spaces filled with bright light on a crisp and sunny winter’s day that lit up the vibrant colors of the stained glass windows.
Outside, the monument is still a construction site, with scaffolding and cranes. But the renovated interior — shown in its full glory Friday for the first time before the public is allowed back in on Dec. 8 — proved to be breathtaking.
