May 9th Friday (photo album)

I was glad that I didn’t go to bed as late as I had been lately because I had an early morning. I got up at 6:30am in order to get ready to go to the train station. I had my chocolate muesli cereal for breakfast and then got ready to go. Adrienne and I left the apartment at about 7:30am.

We took the metro line 12 down to Montparnasse. We tried calling Jeannette to see where she was. She was stuck in the ticket line. We found her there and waited for her. The line was going very slow. Eventually she got her ticket and we ran to the train.

We managed to get on and find our seats without fuss. The train left at 8:15am. The ride was pleasant. We kept passing fields of bright yellow flowers. I think they were the canola flowers that the tour guide in Tours told us about. I tried getting pictures of them but the moving train made this quite difficult.

We finally arrived in Chartres at 9:27 am. It was only about 45 minutes from Paris to Chartres. We left the train station and made our way to the tourism office. It was a little hard finding it since I wasn’t able to print out my map of Chartres. We made it though. There was a very nice guy working there. He set us up with maps and made suggestions of what we could do. We decided to do a walking tour of the town that was drawn out on the map.

We set out from the tourism office and picked a direction of the large circle. The town was very enchanting. The streets were narrow and buildings were made of a combination of brick, stone, and wood.

Our first stop on the tour was the St. Aignan church at 10:00am. The information pamphlet said that it had to be completely reconstructed in the 16th century following a fire. There was only the front doorway that survived from the 14th century. St. Aignan was a small church completely deserted inside except for one woman who looked like she worked there. I’d never been in a church so quiet. It seemed like every small sound was magnified ten times. When I walked on the wooden floors they gave out a loud groaning creak. I also was wearing shoes with rubber soles that squeaked on the tile path in the center of the floor. I opted to walk on the wooden parts and tried my hardest to keep my camera from making sounds. The silence felt as though it had weight to it and with it I thought I could feel the weight of belief. In most of the larger churches or cathedrals it feels like a big empty building. This one had no people in it but it felt far from empty. It was one of the smallest churches I had been in but it was the most impressive. The ceiling’s wooden beams were painted with intricate gold and green designs. The walls were also painted in rich colors.

I was deeply impressed by this church and felt like I should still whisper even as we stepped back onto the street. We continued our walking tour down the hilly and narrow streets of Chartres. Our next church that we saw was St. Pierre. It was more impressive on the outside than St. Aignan but it was closed. We didn’t get to compare the insides.

The walking tour took us down some streets with very funny names. The one we came up to next was called Rue de l’Ane-Rez. This can be translated to “Street of the Shaved Ass” (okay well it means ass as in donkey but that would hardly be as funny). The information on the street sign, complete with a painted donkey, said that it was the site of an inn with a sign showing a shaved donkey tonsured in the same way as the monks in the Saint Père Abbey. Many of the street names in Chartres came from the ancient businesses or people that lived there.

We continued walking until we came to a bridge. This crossed a canal that turns out to be part of the Eure River. It made for a beautiful scene. The buildings hugged the water as the river reflected the bridges arching across it. Trees and vines with colorful flowers dipped their leaves into the water. The town itself was becoming more charming with each step. We even came up to a street called Rue de la Grenouillère (frog pond). It had a picture of a little frog holding onto the street sign.

We walked on the street parallel to the opposite bank for a short time. Then we came across another bridge and crossed it. We were now on a street called Rue de la Planche aux Carpes (Carp Plank Street). There weren’t that many people out yet. It was still early. I did run into a black cat however. It reminded me of my cat Isis. It was very friendly.

We saw the escalier de la Reine Berthe. It appeared to be the outside of a spiral staircase jutting out from the side of a building. It was built in 1500. It was in the style of some of the surrounding buildings with dark wooden beams held together with white material.

Our next sighting was two swans in some tall grass on the canal bank. We went to look at them and discovered that they were guarding a nest full of at least seven eggs. They had used the tall thick grass to make the nest.

We left the swans and made it to Eglise Saint André. It looked like another large church but it wasn’t opened at the moment either. We were now on the west bank of the canal and we continued uphill through the winding streets. We made our way up and came to the gardens that stretched out on the hill below the cathedral. The cathedral looked like a castle sitting up on a hill. As we looked away from the cathedral we looked out upon the rooftops and treetops of Chartres. We were pretty exhausted from the walking tour so we rested on some benches for a little. The hills offered an amazing view.

We continued past the cathedral toward the center of town for lunch. On the way, though, we came to a stained glass museum that showed off different styles of stained glass. It also had areas where they could demonstrate making stained glass. There was an underground gallery with some impressive pieces. There were also some sculptures that were geometric shapes made from wire and glass. We had to rush through the museum and gallery a little because it was going too close for lunch. But it turned out they didn’t have very much to look at.

We finally went to the Place du Cygne (Swan) where most of the restaurants were. One place in particular caught our eye. It was called the Crêperie du Cygne. They had a lunch menu that looked like a pretty good deal. We wanted to sit outside under the trees but the tables were all full. We decided to just go ahead and sit inside. I ended up ordering the 11€ menu. It started off with a cup of cider. French cider is slightly alcoholic and bubbly. It’s like having a light beer with lunch. Then I had a galette sarrasin (buckwheat crêpe) with an egg and bleu cheese. It tasted very good but didn’t look that great. The mold from the cheese kind of sat on top of the galette. I was still getting used to eating bleu cheese. So far, I liked all the bleu cheese I’d had in France. This taste didn’t disappoint. Then for dessert, I got a buttered crêpe with a scoop of pistachio ice cream on top. That was definitely delicious.

We had a pleasant lunch with fun conversation and felt refueled for the next half of our day. We made our way back toward the main cathedral. There was a crypt tour at 2:15 so we got tickets to that first. We were led into the underground crypt by a French guide. He gave the information in French and a German tour guide translated it into German for part of the group. There wasn’t a lot to see under there. We looked into some of the empty hallways and made our way under the main area of the cathedral. There was a small chapel set up under the altar of the upper cathedral. They said they sometimes have service down there. I was glad I didn’t have to go to service underground. One of the interesting sights on the crypt tour was a relic holding a piece of Mary’s veil. We finished the tour and made our way back out of the crypt.

Jeannette, Adrienne, and I then headed to the entrance of the cathedral. This cathedral is called La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres. The cathedral was standing on the site of many cathedrals before it. They were either lost to time or fires. The current cathedral dates from the late 1100s to the early 1200s. We were drawn to this cathedral for one very specific detail. My father had read a book in which they mentioned the labyrinth of Chartres. A labyrinth, unlike a maze, has only one path that winds around to create an intricate design. Monks used it to meditate and bring themselves closer to God. Since Chartres was so close to Paris we decided to make the trip and see this labyrinth. We’d traveled on a Friday because that was when they removed the chairs from the labyrinth to allow people to walk it. This labyrinth is 12.88 meters in diameter and the path is a total of 261.50 meters. This particular design was in a large circle and was made by black stone set into the more earthy colored stone. There were many people there. I’d researched it a little and knew I was supposed to walk from the outside toward the middle. This was made difficult because other tourists were going from the inside out. The path was only about a foot wide so it meant one of us had to step out of the path of the other. I wound my way into the center. It was a lot of fun and I would have enjoyed trying it with fewer people around. The information pamphlet for the labyrinth wanted to point out that it was a spiritual practice for Christians and that it is not a site of earthly powers.

Once we’d finished our walk around the labyrinth we continued around the cathedral. There were some beautiful stained glass windows. Some of the windows still date from the 1200s. This cathedral was, much like the others we’d seen, rather dim and cold. It was illuminated in some areas by the candles lit by the members of the church. In the center of the cathedral, there was a large stone wall surrounding the altar. It had very intricate carvings on the outside depicting the life of Jesus and other bible stories. On one side of this inner wall was an astronomical clock with the different zodiac symbols on it. I didn’t quite understand how to read it though. We also found another piece of Mary’s veil. This was also in a reliquary and it was a much larger piece.

The cathedral was very interesting. We stopped by the gift shop for some postcards before heading back outside. We discussed what to do next and decided to go back to the tourism office to get information on the Maison Picassiette. The nice guy in the office helped us figure out how to get there. We took a bus and then had to walk up a few streets to reach the Maison Picassiette. This place was very interesting and had a strange story. A man born in 1900 named Raymond Isidore created this house. It’s a very small house with just a few rooms but that’s probably a very good thing. Isidore started creating mosaics on the walls from broken pieces of glass and porcelain. The entire house is now covered in colorful designs made from broken plates. Isidore said that a spirit came to him in his dreams and inspired him to make this house. The designs spread from not only the house but out into the surrounding garden and grounds. He died in September 1964.

We toured the little house and grounds. We were not allowed to take pictures and there were security cameras everywhere. Of course, since it was so amazing, I disobeyed and took a few pictures for myself. One of them was taken from the high window in the ladies room that faced the front of the house. I also bought some postcards at the end though. The entire grounds were an amazing work of art. Even every surface in the kitchen (such as the stove and table) was covered in tiles.

We left the Maison Picassiette and took the bus back into town. Our next stop was the Musée des Beaux Arts next to the cathedral. This was an art museum. We had to hurry through because it was near closing time. There were some interesting exhibits there. There were some modern artists as well as an exhibit on Egypt.

We left and went to the outdoor labyrinth design in one of the garden areas of the cathedral. We walked around it and sat in the grass for a little while. It was such beautiful weather out. After a while we decided we were getting hungry again and it was close to dinner time. We went to a nearby Monoprix (grocery store) and bought some snacks. I got a baguette, goat cheese babybels, ham, and raspberry water. We went outside and ate on some benches in one of the main squares. The sun was beginning to head toward the horizon and we were getting slightly chilly. We also needed to find somewhere with a bathroom. We ended up going to the McDonalds near us in order to use the bathroom. I bought a dessert called chocoglace. It was a chocolate brownie with ice cream, peanuts, and hot fudge on top. We were able to use the restrooms and sit for a little bit inside before wandering back to the train station.

We got on the train and headed back to Paris. We were in our own private compartment so that was fun. We finally arrived in Paris at 10pm. We’d gotten some calls from some of our friends who were celebrating Europe Day in Paris. Europe Day celebrates peace and unity in Europe. We took the metro to the Hôtel de Ville where there was a large group of people watching a movie on a large screen. We watched the very end of the movie and met up with our friends Luis, Manu, Anna, and Tobias. Since the movie was over we decided to head somewhere else.

We ended up at the Pont des Arts. It’s a pedestrian bridge that is often full of bohemian singers, dancers, and drinkers. We found a spot on the crowded bridge and drank some wine. It was fun sitting there in the dark talking. Eventually, Anna and I walked toward home. Adrienne and Jeannette had left a little earlier. I was feeling tired from our big day.

I made it to the apartment around 12am. I talked to my parents on Skype for a while and then headed to bed after 2:30am.