CHARTRES (and Australia)

A highlight of our trip was a visit to the small town of Chartres, famous for its huge medieval cathedral with the gorgeous stained glass windows, gargoyles, stone carvings, and graceful spires. We decided against going to Versailles because we both thought the over-the-top opulence was not too interesting and besides, I love stained glass. Also the trip to Chartres was longer and we would see more of the countryside. The trip was also highly recommended by Sue and Jo, our two tour directors extraordinaire, as well as the Fodor’s Guide we were using. Our time share reception desk was not very helpful with any details, so we just went to Montparnasse station and caught the first train out.
We met a family of Australians on the train, a mother and father who were teachers, and 2 daughters who were college and high school students. They had rented an apartment in the Montmarte on the internet, and were spending part of their summer vacation away from the heat of Brisbane. She was an art teacher, he a scientist, but he enjoyed telling us about the political nature of life in Australia. Later we would meet in the Cathedral and we shared the name of the restaurant where we had brunch, large baked potatoes smothered in a mushroom cheese sauce. They went there for dinner and found the owners were transplanted Australians themselves! We also ended up taking the same train back as them. So much for intensive sight seeing. But I did get to see the southern suburbs of Paris, which were quite lovely, with their views of the Eiffel Tower and mix of new and old types of housing. Further on there were small towns and farms, but the extensive wheat fields that I had read about were only beginning to green up. It was all quite picturesque, and when we got to Versailles station, I was glad we had not planned to go to that dingy looking town (I’m sure the palace is quite stunning, though).
And you can see the Chartres cathedral from the train station! The town itself had a lot of charm, and once they finish the “big dig” in the middle of town, I am sure it will be much more charming. We wondered about it, and on the way out, noticed a series of signs and boards outlining the archaeological finds in the middle of town that had necessitated the diggings. Try to put in a road in a popular spot, and you’ll find bones from centuries ago, I guess.
Anyway, Chartres cathedral was most impressive and the scope of the statues and stain glass is just huge, making you feel like just a small speck in the overall scheme of things. The “choir screen”, the interior sculpture walls, is so intricate that it is hard to focus on one thing. But once you do, you notice heads missing and some puzzling types of destruction. I mentioned it to Chris, the art teacher from Brisbane, and she thought that in the anti-Catholic era (read Tracy Chevalier’s Virgin Blue), they intended to but procrastinated tearing the place down, and in the meanwhile, people have felt free through the ages to take off an occasional head for a souvenir from the sculptures there-after all, there are so many!
One more thing is the maze that is a theme on the outside and the inside of the church. Walking the maze was what the pilgrims did (not a form of entertainment as I thought originally), full of symbolism, found in and around many churches and public structures of the time. Go figure! We tried not to walk in too many circles and ended up having a grand time.