Saturday, 19 October 2013

Chartres, France

We had an end-of-summer bank holiday weekend, one week before Labou Day in the US.  Its funny that we have these bank holidays with no real title for the holiday!  Anyway, my friend Lizzie and I took the Eurostar to Paris and rented a car to visit the Loire Valley.  Our first stop was in Chartres, where they have a Cathedral that is supposed to be one of the best examples of French Gothic architecture.  The current Cathedral was built around 1200, but it was the fifth church on the site.
From the gardens behind the Cathedral...

We went inside but most of my pictures were lousy because it was very dark.  They had fully cleaned and renovated the forward half of the church, but the back half was still very dirty.  Here is a photo looking up at the roof where you can really see the difference between the cleaned and dirty sections!
Chartres has a really beautiful little old city center, full of shops and restaurants.  This building was in the city center with a full mural on the side.


No comments:

Post a Comment