PARIS — After more than five years of frenetic reconstruction work, Notre Dame Cathedral showed its new self 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 back in medieval times, 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. The facade of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris, is seen Friday Nov.
29, 2024, ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's final visit to the construction site to see the restored interiors. (Stephane de Sakutin, Pool via AP) Stephane de Sakutin Stonemasons fixed the ripped-open ceilings People are also reading..
. Gone are the gaping holes that the blaze tore into the vaulted ceilings, leaving charred piles of debris. New stonework has been carefully pieced together to repair and fill the wounds that had left the cathedral's insides exposed to the elements.
Delicate golden angels look on from the centerpiece of one of the rebuilt ceilings, soaring again above the transept.