Tuesday, May 2
The sun is out! I thought it would be a good day for a trip to Chartres, so after a stop at Paul%26#39;s for juice and pain au chocolat to go, I took the Metro to Montparnasse Station. I bought a round trip ticket to Chartres (24.80E) which is about an hour%26#39;s journey. As the train chugged out of Paris, I noticed one high rise apartment building that had clothes hanging in many windows. I wondered if they didn%26#39;t have closets and had to use curtain rods for their clothes. Some clothes even seemed to be hanging outside the windows.
The train made a few stops along the way and arrived at Chartres at 10:25. I could see the cathedral steeples from the Gare and headed that way. The tourist office is next to the cathedral, and I stopped there first for information and a map.
I was completely awed by the cathedral, even before I went inside. I was hoping to get in on a Malcolm Miller tour, but the first thing I saw on the information board was %26quot;no tours today.%26quot; The other thing that interested me about the cathedral was the stone labyrinth on the floor. I%26#39;d read it might be covered with chairs, and it was. As I was trying to follow it with my eyes, thinking about pilgrims walking the labyrinth on their knees (ouch), a man appeared at my elbow and informed me that the labyrinth is uncovered only on Fridays.
He started talking to me in a mix of French and English, and I never quite figured out what he was saying about San Francisco and a book. Then he began telling me about himself, and he went on and on. I tried to be polite, but I was surprised he was giving me all this information. He said something about singing It%26#39;s a Small World, but I didn%26#39;t know in what context and it made me laugh since I know so many people who hate that song. As he took his leave, he said with barely an accent, %26quot;Have a nice day.%26quot; I said, %26quot;Et vous,%26quot; which turned out to be a mistake because his eyes lit up and he said, %26quot;You speak French!%26quot; I explained I didn%26#39;t, only knew a few words, but that got him talking again. Finally we parted ways, he to the left, I to the right.
I was admiring the beautiful carvings that surround the altar when my %26quot;friend%26quot; reappeared to tell me they represented the life of Christ, which I%26#39;d managed to figure out for myself. He asked me if France was expensive for me, and I said yet it was, quite expensive. He grabbed my left hand and said, %26quot;You%26#39;re not married.%26quot; I quickly assured him I was and that I had three children and two grandchildren. He asked why my husband wasn%26#39;t with me, and I tried to explain that he didn%26#39;t like to travel, but the man couldn%26#39;t understand me. Finally I said, %26quot;Airplane. No.%26quot; He said, %26quot;Oh, your husband is afraid to fly.%26quot; He isn%26#39;t, but I left it at that. More conversation followed and just as I thought I%26#39;d be talking to him all day, he took his leave.
I walked around the cathedral, saw what is supposed to be Mary%26#39;s veil, the silk of which dates to the first century. The north tower was open so I climbed that (6.5E) for the view over Chartres, which was well worth it. In the cathedral gift shop, I bought Miller%26#39;s book about the windows and another he authored that had a walking tour of the town. I thought I%26#39;d eat lunch while I looked over the books, then come back and view a couple of the windows with the help of the book. I stood outside on the south side taking more photos, and my %26quot;guide%26quot; appeared once more. Finally I understood. He makes his living standing on the south steps singing %26quot;It%26#39;s a Small World.%26quot;
I walked down a side street for lunch, afraid that if I sat down at one of the cafes right across from the cathedral, he%26#39;d sit down with me and I%26#39;d have to buy his lunch. I went into La Picoterie and ordered Salade Nicoise and a Coca Light (total 12.20E). The salad was delicious, full of tuna, eggs, olives, and veggies. The other customers were all speaking French, I think they were on their lunch hour(s).
After lunch, I returned to the cathedral and read the story of and viewed the three lancets below the west rose window which are the oldest since they originally belonged to the former cathedral that was severely damaged in the fire of 1194. I tried to find the Blue Virgin window, the other from that time, and finally realized it was the window behind the scaffolding.
By then it was 2:00, time for the tour of La Crypte. I was given a ticket in the gift shop, I guess because I spent enough money there to earn it. I walked to the south side of the cathedral outside the Crypte gift shop to wait for the guide and was surprised my unofficial guide didn%26#39;t show up. I figured he must have earned enough for the day. The tour of the Crypte is given only in French, but I was handed a brief English translation to read. There were only two of us on the tour. The other person was a French man who was kind enough to translate a few times for me (without my asking). We saw where the stained glass windows had been stored during WWII to protect them from bombs and Nazi thefts, a deep well from Roman times, some faded frescoes, a Roman staircase, and part of what was believed to be a Roman villa. There were some miniatures of the cathedral, one that showed how it was originally planned--with nine steeples.
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When the tour was over and I was back in daylight, I found it had gotten quite warm. I carried my coat over my arm for the rest of the day while I followed the old town walk mapped out in the Miller book about Chartres. Down, down, down the stairs behind the cathedral following helpful %26quot;circuit touristique%26quot; signs. Somehow I goofed up and missed the oldest house in Chartres, but I saw everything else the book mentioned, including the author%26#39;s 15th century house, Queen Bertha%26#39;s staircase from the 16th century, and the ancient public wash houses along the River Eure where women did their washing until the mid-20th century. The walk along the river was especially lovely with spring flowers in bloom. I also passed the old Benedictine Abbey, two old churches, and the Saumon house, then it was only a block or two back to the cathedral.
There%26#39;s a gift shop across from the Cathedral with a big sign %26quot;toilettes.%26quot; The room is large with five or six stalls, and it%26#39;s clean. It costs 40 cents, or centimes, to use it. I walked back to the Gare where a train for Paris was leaving in five minutes. I was worn out.
When I arrived back in Paris at Montparnasse Station, I decided that, tired or not, it was a good time to visit the Montparnasse Tower, which was practically right outside the door of the station. It costs 11.70E. An elevator takes you to the viewing area inside on the 56th floor where there is also a snack bar and a nice restaurant. Then you can use the stairs to access the 59th floor outdoor terrace to get the panoramic view, which is spectacular.
After the Tower, I went back to the hotel and left my raincoat and backpack, now heavy with books, at the reception desk because I was just going to be a minute at the Champion store across the street. I must have gotten in the store when everyone was stopping on their way home from work. No hand baskets were available, so I had to use a cart for my bottled water and snacks. Then I got in one of the many long lines.
I found being in the checkout line had its own rules, much like vehicular traffic. Here%26#39;s how the line worked, from my viewpoint. You get as close to the person in front of you as possible and you push forward often. If the man behind me had gotten any closer, we would have been intimate. He kept urging me forward, even when there was only an inch between the front of my cart and the woman in front of me. At one point, he was admiring the ice cream he was buying and held it in front of him, which meant the ice cream container was actually over my shoulder, practically at my nose. He said something about it being %26quot;divine%26quot; and made it a question, so that I was unsure if I was supposed to comment or if he was talking to his friend next to him. Because I left an inch of space in front of my cart, those who wanted to cut through the line to get to another aisle used my one inch space to do so which meant the cart handle kept getting rammed into my stomach. At some point during the 20 minutes I was in line, I learned line behaviour. I moved my cart forward so that it was partially to the side of the woman in front of me, leaving absolutely no space between us whatsoever. People had to find another place to cut through the line. The funniest thing was when I was bagging my purchases and the cashier was ready to ring up the man%26#39;s ice cream. He suddenly realized he%26#39;d forgotten something and had to hold up the line while his friend went running off to get it.
When I got back to the hotel, I%26#39;d been gone so long that the shift at the front desk had changed and my backpack and coat were in storage. I brought everything up to my room, then went out walking around the St. Germain des Pres area to find a spot to eat. I%26#39;m easily intimidated by those enormous cafes like Les Deux Magots, plus everyone looked so darned young. I ended up at a pizza place about a block off Bd. St. Germain, called, I think, Il Vesuvio, and had pizza ala croquet (cheese, tomato, and egg) and a pichet of white wine (14.40E total). It was very good.
Then I went back to the hotel and went to bed with the window open, hoping the room would cool off. After a while, I got up and shut the window to keep out the noise.
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