Day Seven: Chartres (finally!)

Friday dawned bright and sunny, or so I heard. By the time we were up, a bit earlier than usual, around 10:30am local time, the day looked great and plans to spend it indoors at the Louvre were scrapped (again). Instead, we decided to hop on a train and travel across the French countryside to the village of Chartres. Now, it might have been a village at one point, but Chartres is a big damn town now. Getting off the train and exiting the station, it was not as simple as looking up and obviously seeing the cathedral. Google maps has been invaluable on this trip to find things and once again we got walking directions to our destination. The cathedral was only a few minutes away, but it was obscured by a number of crappy buildings in front of the station.



Pictures do not convey a fraction of the experience of walking into the cathedral and seeing the massive transepts, stained glass windows and choir. When the organ starts to play, it is truly an amazing experience. We wandered around, through the choir, the various side chapels, and the main altar. There is a major renovation effort underway, as the structure, both inside and out, has blackened over the 800 years or so it has been standing. The sections already restored look incredible next to the dark sooty portions.





No flash photography in the cathedral and most of it is very dark, which makes for interesting photo challenges. That did not stop us from taking a ton of pictures that will need to be processed to see which might be decent.

One of the areas that has minimal light is the labyrinth. Quite famous, this twisted route in a 40 foot circular area is supposed to recreate a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for those who could not afford to do it. I walked the path, interesting because others who were doing it would get lost or confused as to which line they were on or perhaps would treat it as a real pilgrimage and walk slowly so it would take the same amount of time as walking to Jerusalem. This last group of people was not very popular and a large line would queue up behind them, grumbling about having a train to catch.



There are only so many hours you can spend inside a darkened cathedral and eventually we came outside. The "old" section of Chartres is just as you'd envision an old French village, twisty winding streets, most narrow enough that cars have difficulty getting through (and they have gates that restrict access). We found a place with friendly people who sold us ham and cheese croissants and warmed them and we walked to have lunch in the nearest square.







After lunch, we poked around the outside of the cathedral compound. The cathedral sits up on a hill and has a nice view of the town that has grown up around it since medieval times.







In a city that grew up catering to travelers, there is an amazing amount of... Shopping! So we window shopped quite a bit as well, but were required to actually go into one shop...





We bought a bear, of course. Ah, well, another cute bear for the collection. :)

By this time it had turned colder and we needed to warm up. We decided (after a long involved inspection of every bistro in our section of town, or so we thought) to have a bit of wine at Le Parvis. It was nice, inexpensive, and right across from the cathedral. Perfect to warm up in and enjoy our purchase.