Chartres, Rambouillet and New Neighbourhoods
Charting Chartres, Rambouillet Rambles, and Negotiating Newfound Neighbourhoods
Over the last week, Cath and I have really spread our wings, and covered a whole lot of territory. We have explored the right bank, the left bank, and significant points south of Paris. Needless to say, nous sommes un peu fatigués. But undaunted we battle on, marching forth to further triumphs on the travel front.
As intimated in my last post, for Tuesday our sights were set on Chartres, a small town boasting one of the best preserved Gothic cathedrals in France. Unbeknownst to us, despite a visit in 2005, the cathedral is not the only church in town, as we were to discover three further churches in the near vicinity which in their day wouldn't have been too shabby; unfortunately, lacking the limelight, today they are just that - shabby.
Chartres lies to the south of Paris, a mere hour's train ride away. Living right beside Gare Montparnasse has its perks, as we were able to roll out of bed, cross the street, and voilà! We loved riding the train - it was quiet, mostly empty, and in our experience, sunlit. Nothing like gazing out at the passing fields of rapeseed that blanket the countryside in yellow. The only curious sighting was of round blobs of greenery among otherwise denuded trees. It wasn't until our subsequent trip south (to Rambouillet) that I was able to get a closer look at it, and with the aid of my brain à la poche, discovered it to be mistletoe, or gui, as it is called here. Apparently it is grown in France for export to England at Christmastime.
Chartres is a small town (about 40,000) with a huge cathedral. Built between 1194 and 1220, it is considered one of the best examples of high Gothic architecture.
Because it is not located near any major battles of either World War, it has retained many of its stained glass windows.
We spent hours (our children can attest to how long Catherine can feast on a church's finer details) poring over the images, reliving the biblical tales as told in brilliant technicolour. We were aided in our quest by the use of Catherine's opera glasses - worth their weight in gold! I couldn't help but wonder whether the illiterate congregation of the 13th century had good enough eyesight to follow the storyline.
We caught the midday mass, which was held in the crypt below the church. It felt like an unheated wartime bomb shelter, but we were warmed by the priest's kindly manner and gentle voice, as well as the fervent responses of the local adherents.
The Crypt
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He may not have a head on his shoulders, but he carries his weight
We then made our way through the town, locating a lovely park and a nearby boulangerie - the two essential ingredients to our lunches on the go. After a much needed rest,
accompanied by the delighted screams of middle schoolers tackling a nearby zipline adventure playground, we took a tour of the backstreets of Chartres, leading to many made-for-travel-blog-post photos.
You get the picture!
What surprised me was the discovery of three other sizeable churches that could have been built from excess rubble that had rolled down the hill from the cathedral. These two below were particularly impressive.
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Saint Pierre
Saint Aignan
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Interior of Saint Aignan with unusual green colouring
We instantly declared the day in Chartres one of our highlights of the trip (after only one week of a nine-week sojourn).
Wednesday took us to the famed neighbourhood of Montmartre, where we were fully expecting to have to climb the steps to the top of the mont in Montmartre, but where we didn`t expect to find an eternal spiral staircase leading out of the Abbesses metro station. Oh, mon dieu! It rivalled the CN tower climb.
When we emerged, we quickly discovered that we were not the only ones who had decided to check out the neighbourhood. I could have sworn that everyone we saw at the Louvre on Monday had landed in Montmartre by Wednesday. Nevertheless, following a written tour of Picasso's haunts in the area we somehow managed to imagine an impoverished Picasso sipping a verre du vin at Au Lapin Agile (hopefully, if his ghost were still there, he too would be able to imagine the streets without tourists cascading by).
Le Bateau Lavoir, where many artists had their studios and apparently shared one bathroom - this somehow inspired Picasso to paint Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
They heard she was coming
Stairs? What stairs?
We left Montmartre vowing never to climb stairs again and within 20 minutes we were at the Arc de Triomphe, and lo and behold, . . .
More stairs!
The view from the top was worth the steps (Although those actually may be grimaces)
Catherine enjoyed the ensuing stroll down the Champs Elysées to the Place de la Concorde - my knees complained bitterly. At some point we ate our baguette in a small park before entering one of the small museums covered by our pass to various national monuments, called the Hotel de la Marine. It was a residence built in the 18th century to house the guy (Marc-Antoine Thierry de Ville d'Avray) who looked after all the furnishings of the royal properties. After the revolution it housed the Ministry of the Navy until quite recently. They have recreated some of Thierry's apartment rooms and the public rooms of the Ministry. The strength of the museum was the audioguide, the script of which was dramatically voiced, and included little domestic scenes. Or so Catherine let me know, as it was all performed either in French or with British accents and accompanying period music. Here are some shots (as usual, I focussed on what I could see):
From Place de la Concorde - Hotel de la Marine à la droite
The ballroom
A potential danseuse?
Where to go when the dancing gets too hot
Despite being beat, we couldn`t resist a wander through the Tuileries.
Still smiling!
Thursday took us to another right bank neighbourhood, Le Marais, and perhaps a somewhat lesser known museum, Musée Carnavalet, which turned out to be one of my favourites.
Le Marais, despite its English translation (`the marsh`), was home for many of the nobility in Paris in the16th and 17th century. It fell out of favour by the 18th century, and became home to a large Jewish community in the 19th and 20th centuries. Apparently, the French government under De Gaulle took on the area as a rehabilitation project. Some of the original noble homes, often called `Hotel de something` were completely renovated and some have become museums, like Carnavalet and the Musée Picasso. It is now rather hip, and therefore expensive, and is home to many art galleries and fashion houses. One of its more familiar landmarks is the Place des Vosges, which is the oldest planned square in Paris (and unfortunately difficult to photograph without a drone). We enjoyed our baguette in the park and were amused by the reaction of young Parisians to the young German? Swedish? (true blonds, anyway) tourists who were intent upon tanning most of their bodies.
The Musée Carnavalet chronicles the history of Paris by exhibiting all sorts of odds and ends of Paris history, from prehistoric times to the present. I loved the care they put into displaying the artifacts and the helpful descriptions, which often included a description for kids (like me!). Here are some favourite images from our visit.
From early store signs (3 rats - a fromagerie) . . .
. . . to street signs . . .
. . . to doors (town hall) . . .
. . . to gargoyles . . .
and a lovely courtyard garden, to boot.
Nice Dome, though.
From St. Paul's we crossed the Seine, stopping for the obligatory shot of my model,
whence we made our way on foot to the Pantheon, a monumental homage to French history. Built in the neoclassical style in the 18th century, replete with massive columns and an impressive dome, it has shifted back and forth between being a church and being a monument. Not surprisingly, the revolution changed it from a church to a monument, but it shifted back and forth a few more times. All the important figures in French history are immortalized by either statue or floor-to-ceiling paintings. There is even a statue to unknown writers. And you can't miss the Foucault's pendulum hanging from the dome. Here are a few views.
The dome: Antoine-Jean Gros painted the apotheosis of St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris
Having spent two days exploring neighbourhoods of Paris, we were itching to get back out into the quiet of the towns outside Paris, and so embarked on a train journey to the Chateau of Rambouillet, which is amazingly covered by our Paris metro pass. The Chateau is not huge, but the grounds around it are, combining both French and English gardens. The unique thing about this Chateau is that it was a seasonal residence for a number of important figures in French history. Francois I, king of France, died there in 1547, and Napoleon lived there (lavishly decorating his bathroom in Pompeian style...emperor complex, anyone?), and then spent his last night there on the way to exile. Louis XVI frequented it for hunting, but had great difficulty convincing Marie Antoinette to join him there -- she declared it un crapauderie (a toad`s house) - so he built a laiterie (dairy), a veritable temple to milk in marble and sculpted reliefs with an ice-cream parlour on the side, to try to coax her, but she only came once to behold it. The chateau eventually became a summer residence for the presidents of France, and the first G6 summit was held there. For us, it was a great source of peace and quiet and an inspiration for lots of photos!
Napoleon's Bathroom - the roundels were originally portraits of his family, but he flew into a rage at the prospect of his family staring at him in the bath; the artist rapidly changed portraits to country houses!
Napoleon's guardsman
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