Chartes and Home

We had had enough of the heat and museums of Paris. We agreed to go to Chartes on our final day in France.

We took a subway to the Montparnasse train station, and then spent a few minutes wandering around the train station, trying to buy tickets to Chartes. Finally we realized that the ticket machines would not take our credit cards, because they do not have chips. We were able to buy round trip tickets from a human being.

The train ride to Chartes was about one hour, some of it through graffiti areas in Paris, and some thrugh the french countryside, until we arrived at Chartes. A stroll through the town brought us to the famous Cathedral.

The Chartes Cathedral is huge, with  gorgeous medieval stained glass, approximately 800 years old.    Even after seeing so many other French churches, our jaws were dropping.  The cathedral was built around 1200 AD, and is the best preserved medieval cathedral in Europe. It survived the Wars of Religion, the French Revolution, and two World Wars.  During the French Revolution, it was going to be dismantled, and the stone sold, but the council in Paris said no.  As we walked around, we saw not just the stained glass, but also the very fine and detailed stonework inside and out. This is the fifth cathedral built on this site, each bigger and more impressive than the previous cathedral, although they reused parts of the foundations of the previous cathedral. It was built in around 30 years, an unusually short time for a cathedral, after the previous cathedral burned. It reportedly has the veil of Mary, which is why it has been a pilgrimage place for a very long time.

Both of my guidebooks talked about the English language tour from Malcolm. He has been giving tours there for fifty years, and is still learning more about the cathedral. In his tour, he showed us how both the stained glass and the stonework tell the bible story, from beginning to end.

Malcolm is the gray haired man facing the camera.

After the tour, we strolled around the quiet and tidy town, and visited another local church, this one with painted designs covering the walls.

We took the train and subway back to our hotel room, and started packing for the trip. We had another pleasant dinner at the Via Italia, where the waiter shook our hand when we arrived, and when we left.

Wednesday morning had us getting up earlier than we wanted, and heading out the door. We took a taxi to the Roisseybus, and the bus to the airport. It all went very smoothly.

In the airport, we saw a steady stream of men and women in long robes.  Many of the robes were richly decorated;  although most were black, the people were also a range of skin colors.  While we had seen some long robes on the streets of Paris, here we saw a steady stream of them.  We believe that these people were Muslims immigrants on their way to their home country.

We got to the Paris airport early, but spent too much time outside security, so we ended up rushing. We were the last ones on the plane. Our flight to Charlotte NC was routine. We flew US Air, who took good care of us, fed us better than average food, and frequently offered us water and drinks. US Air won points with us.  Our flight to Denver was delayed by a weather detour, and also by a go-around, but we were home. James picked us up.