Day Trip - Chartres

Friday, July 16, 2010 Day 16
I am cathedraled out. This morning we walked to the Gare Montparnasse and caught a train to Chartres, about 60 miles south of Paris. It is famous for its cathedral, which is considered one of the finest examples in all of France of the Gothic style of architecture. The cathedral has lots and lots and lots of stained glass, but much of it is so high up that it is hard to appreciate and harder to take a picture of. Perhaps because I am not Roman Catholic – indeed, I am not religious at all (one might even say anti-religious) – but I found much of the cathedral tedious. It is impressive in its size, particularly given the age in which it was build. However, I have very little understanding of cathedral construction and composition, and thus little appreciation of it. I was impressed with the restoration which is ongoing presently and will take a total of six years to complete. There are portions which are restored already, and they are wonderfully white against the smoky gray-black of literally centuries of grime. I suppose that six years every couple of hundred or so isn’t too bad!

After exploring the cathedral, we left and walked along a tourist circuit which has been mapped out to show some of the charm of Chartres outside the cathedral. We made a mistake and misread the weather for today. We thought it would be warm and sunny and in the 80s. Instead it was cool, cloudy and in the lower 70s. I wore short sleeves, capris and sandals and did not bring a jacket. Roger also had short sleeves, but he was in shoes and socks and blue jeans. We were rather cool the whole day, but fortunately not really cold. It began to rain just a bit in the last hour before we left, but that didn’t last long. We ducked into a brasserie for tea and a crepe with Nutella while the rain abated. Such a sacrifice! We dozed on the train ride back to Paris, then walked home. Nice day, good outing except for the temperature, and even that wasn’t too bad.

I must say that the Europeans have this train thing down pat, and traveling by train is the way to go, particularly for day trips. For 14€ each, or less than $20 each, we hopped aboard a train which left on time, arrived on time, offered a great level of comfort and was totally carefree. When we arrived at Chartres, the cathedral, was within easy walking distance. There were trains leaving about every half hour, and the same for the return. I think that this is true for most of France – the train stations are located central to the middle of town and to the most popular tourist attractions. In the larger cities, of course, a tourist may need to rely on buses, trams, subways or other trains, but for the smaller towns, everything is right there. Roger is already planning our next day trip - this one to Versailles. It will have to wait until I return from Austria, however. I leave early tomorrow morning. Don't know when I will have an opportunity to post.

Another day, another follower. Hello, Patty! How is Berlin? I am sure that you, more than most of my followers, will understand my settling-into-Europe frustrations. Keep in touch!

It is nice to see that BP may have the oil gush in the Gulf taken care of. It’s even nicer to not to even hear or read what is going on in the good old U.S. of A. I don’t see the national news, I don’t see the politics, I don’t see the glitterati news (ugh!), I don’t see sports news, I don’t read or hear about television, movies, or any of it unless I choose to. Roger seems to keep up pretty regularly with the Yahoo news, but mostly I don’t bother. Even he is selective about what he reads. I do not miss the ubiquitous presence of television which smothers the U.S. Television in every restaurant, television in every bar, television in bank waiting areas, television in the doctor’s waiting room, television EVERYWHERE!!!!! Don’t get me started! Thankfully we are in our own insular world here, as we don’t get much French news either unless we seek it out. I do miss NPR though. But not much – not enough to seek it out. I am really, really, REALLY sorry for those whose lives have been affected by the Gulf oil gush, but it depressed me considerably to hear the news of it over and over again before we left Louisiana. I have been off depression medication for over a year and I’m doing really great most of the time, but I don’t need a reversal here.