Yesterday was the final race day of the Tour, a 33 mile race from Bordeaux up north to Pauillac, a long flat run through industrial areas of Bordeaux and straddling the narrow strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Gironde, a waterway extending to the south of Bordeaux and meeting up with the Atlantic north of Pauillac. We had been considering for a number of days if this Stage was worth bicycling. Our Google Earth run of the stage indicated a general lack of scenic interest. The distance was short. And, Gwen and Fran would have to pick us up at the end and bring us back to Bordeaux, since there are no bridges crossing the Gironde north of Bordeaux. The trek to our next stop, Chartres was a long one, longer, we discovered, yesterday morning, than we had anticipated - 250 miles. A very long drive on French roads. So...we decided to forego this stage and head for Chartres. Our Garmin told us we could not expect to arrive until 4pm under the best of circumstances. I wanted to see Chartres. My instincts in choosing this city for our final stop before Paris proved to be excellent. If Sisteron was our jewel of the southeast of France Chartres would prove to be our jewel city of the remainder of the trip.
Why Chartres? Both Gwen and I had read Ken Follett's book, Pillars of the Earth last year. This book provides an excellent history of the cathedral building period of England and France in the 14th century. In the book, one of the English builders takes a journey to France, ending in Chartres, where he learns the mastery of the French technique for constructing buttresses that eliminate the wind load problems causing cracking in the walls of the English cathedrals as the demand to go higher and higher towards the heavens stretches the limits of the designers' structural engineering prowess. In addition, the French had learned how to construct large window openings that had baffled the English designers' abilities. These larger openings offered the opportunity for large stained glass windows, creating a more awe inspiring appearance inside the cathedrals. Chartre's cathedral was the first to employ new stained glass techniques afforded by these larger openings. The English builder was able to return to England with the knowledge to redirect cathedral building there to create some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world. I wanted to see this cathedral, my research indicated, that was second, only to Notre Dame in Paris as the greatest cathedral in France.
We arrived in Chartres about 5pm and our Garmin directed us to a spot just east of the Cathedral and below it. I had selected a wonderful hotel, a conversion of a portion of the Catholic diocese building centuries old, adjoining the cathedral. Getting there was tricky, we discovered we had to contact the police department through a call button alongside a narrow roadway to have the bollards blocking the road remotely retracted below the road level so we could make the final journey up to the hotel area. We unpacked, found the last available parking spot, and headed for the cathedral about 6:45pm, the cathedral closing at 7:30pm. We stepped into a charming square with a number of fine restaurants open with outdoor seating. The air temperature was still about 78 Degrees and we looked forward to an ourdoor dinner adjoining the cathedral. The cathedral is massive and old. It has two very large spires, one about 50' shorter than the other and of different architecture. A service was being conducted at one end of the cathedral, we entered, and were able to listen while examining the interior of this massive edifice. It is gorgeous. From the outside, the stained glass windows look rather opaque, no hint of what is to come. From the inside, the intricate details of the windows are amazing, allowing multi-colored light to enter this large stone structure from every angle. The individual windows are possibly 10' to 20' wide and 30' tall, the glass pieces themselves that make the various artistic patterns are perhaps 1 to 2" square. That's a lot of very intricate glass work. I will let Gwen's gorgeous pictures tell the story far better than any words can describe. The efforts of humans to build cathedrals during this period is awe-inspiring. That's about all I can say. As we examined the inner workings of the cathedral, the organ began to play and resonated throughout this huge structure. What a sound. Imagine this very "high tech" miracle of sound and you have an achievement that, with the quality of the glass work, led to people throughout the region conducting pilgrimages just to experience something far greater than anything else the world had to offer.
After a wonderful "French" dinner that included champagne, escargot, casoulet, a very distinctive duck, sausage and white bean dish originating in the Toulouse area, and which Roy had already ordered on several occasions (This one was excellent, after sneaking a taste from Roy, both Gwen and I decided we needed to share a plate - thanks, Roy) we wandered around a delightful old city center with its many restaurants and shops. Being Sunday evening, there were very few people in town, we seemed to have it pretty much to ourselves. My guess is the entire city center, which could easily absorb several thousand shoppers and diners, was only occupied by 100-200 people. By July this area would be crowded with tourists and vacationers. It was perfect. We returned to the main cathedral square as the sun set and watched a 15 minute light slow performed every evening from the middle of May. It was AMAZING. Various light patterns were projected onto the entire front plane of the cathedral, extending up to the top of the spires at 350'. The light patterns were so precise that they could outline structural elements on the top spires that were less than 1' wide and 30' high. Again, I will need to defer to Gwen, who captured much of the light show. After the show, we strolled back to our ancient quarters where Gwen and I spent several hours up well past midnight, creating our blogs for the Tourmalet stage of the trip. It is now early morning, the sun is streaming through our shuttered windows, and we will soon be preparing to bike into Paris. What a wonderful world we live in.
Why Chartres? Both Gwen and I had read Ken Follett's book, Pillars of the Earth last year. This book provides an excellent history of the cathedral building period of England and France in the 14th century. In the book, one of the English builders takes a journey to France, ending in Chartres, where he learns the mastery of the French technique for constructing buttresses that eliminate the wind load problems causing cracking in the walls of the English cathedrals as the demand to go higher and higher towards the heavens stretches the limits of the designers' structural engineering prowess. In addition, the French had learned how to construct large window openings that had baffled the English designers' abilities. These larger openings offered the opportunity for large stained glass windows, creating a more awe inspiring appearance inside the cathedrals. Chartre's cathedral was the first to employ new stained glass techniques afforded by these larger openings. The English builder was able to return to England with the knowledge to redirect cathedral building there to create some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world. I wanted to see this cathedral, my research indicated, that was second, only to Notre Dame in Paris as the greatest cathedral in France.
We arrived in Chartres about 5pm and our Garmin directed us to a spot just east of the Cathedral and below it. I had selected a wonderful hotel, a conversion of a portion of the Catholic diocese building centuries old, adjoining the cathedral. Getting there was tricky, we discovered we had to contact the police department through a call button alongside a narrow roadway to have the bollards blocking the road remotely retracted below the road level so we could make the final journey up to the hotel area. We unpacked, found the last available parking spot, and headed for the cathedral about 6:45pm, the cathedral closing at 7:30pm. We stepped into a charming square with a number of fine restaurants open with outdoor seating. The air temperature was still about 78 Degrees and we looked forward to an ourdoor dinner adjoining the cathedral. The cathedral is massive and old. It has two very large spires, one about 50' shorter than the other and of different architecture. A service was being conducted at one end of the cathedral, we entered, and were able to listen while examining the interior of this massive edifice. It is gorgeous. From the outside, the stained glass windows look rather opaque, no hint of what is to come. From the inside, the intricate details of the windows are amazing, allowing multi-colored light to enter this large stone structure from every angle. The individual windows are possibly 10' to 20' wide and 30' tall, the glass pieces themselves that make the various artistic patterns are perhaps 1 to 2" square. That's a lot of very intricate glass work. I will let Gwen's gorgeous pictures tell the story far better than any words can describe. The efforts of humans to build cathedrals during this period is awe-inspiring. That's about all I can say. As we examined the inner workings of the cathedral, the organ began to play and resonated throughout this huge structure. What a sound. Imagine this very "high tech" miracle of sound and you have an achievement that, with the quality of the glass work, led to people throughout the region conducting pilgrimages just to experience something far greater than anything else the world had to offer.
After a wonderful "French" dinner that included champagne, escargot, casoulet, a very distinctive duck, sausage and white bean dish originating in the Toulouse area, and which Roy had already ordered on several occasions (This one was excellent, after sneaking a taste from Roy, both Gwen and I decided we needed to share a plate - thanks, Roy) we wandered around a delightful old city center with its many restaurants and shops. Being Sunday evening, there were very few people in town, we seemed to have it pretty much to ourselves. My guess is the entire city center, which could easily absorb several thousand shoppers and diners, was only occupied by 100-200 people. By July this area would be crowded with tourists and vacationers. It was perfect. We returned to the main cathedral square as the sun set and watched a 15 minute light slow performed every evening from the middle of May. It was AMAZING. Various light patterns were projected onto the entire front plane of the cathedral, extending up to the top of the spires at 350'. The light patterns were so precise that they could outline structural elements on the top spires that were less than 1' wide and 30' high. Again, I will need to defer to Gwen, who captured much of the light show. After the show, we strolled back to our ancient quarters where Gwen and I spent several hours up well past midnight, creating our blogs for the Tourmalet stage of the trip. It is now early morning, the sun is streaming through our shuttered windows, and we will soon be preparing to bike into Paris. What a wonderful world we live in.
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