Cathedral at Chartres

Today we met up with Ilene's aunt and uncle at the Montparnasse train station to take the 70 minute trip to Chartres and see the cathedral. I chose this among the possible day trips because it is on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and I have a policy to see as many of those sites as possible ever since I realized that some of my favorite visits in Vietnam coincidentally were World Heritage sites. I've collected about 20 so far and have about 800 to go.

The cathedral was as spectacular as promised. We happened to arrive just as mass was getting ready to start and the last stragglers from the surrounding village were hustling to get in. They seemed to be OK with us tiptoeing around during the service, though it did mean the gift shop was closed. It was interesting to think that the people of this town have been praying there, burning incense and lifting their voices up to the vaulted ceiling continuously for 800 years. Some things won't ever change I suppose. The kids in the choir, for example, spent most of the service twisting around in their seats and punching one another.

We were lucky to see it in the slow season. The cathedral and the route up from the train station are ringed with souvenir shops and bus parking, all of it agreeably empty on a Sunday in the middle of January, and I could imagine it crowded with tourists and having a lot less fun.

That's probably part of why we enjoyed the walk around the old medieval part of town more than the guidebook led us to expect. Perhaps if you were on a grand tour of Europe and had seen several other medieval towns, this one would be nothing special, but it was a first for us, and we had it to ourselves for the afternoon.

After we returned to southern Paris, we said goodbye to Ilene's aunt and uncle -- hoping very much to see them again soon -- and then raced off to squeeze in our last destination for the trip -- Montmartre in the north of the city. Unexpectedly, it had the most crowds of all, I think because everywhere else in the city everything is closed up on Sunday. Lots of buskers and mimes and other entertainers were out on the steps leading up to Sacre Couer, and lots of people were out enjoying the late afternoon soon.. We got some good pictures of the city, found the spot where the big reveal was filmed in Amelie, hit the souvenir shops and headed back to the hotel.

That's it, except for whatever adventure getting to the airport tomorrow presents. We did as much as humanly possible without giving up sleep entirely. The food has been our only disappointment, but c'est la vie. You can't do it all. Next time it will be a food-focused visit.

-Robert