A Field Trip to Chartres

Community Highlights Europe A Field Trip to Chartres

June 4, 2024 — Day 19 (Tuesday)

Up early and off to Chartres. We took the Metro #4 to Montparnasse and after you get off the Metro, you walk a thousand miles inside Montparnasse Station to get to the trains. There are two lengths of moving sidewalk and at least one escalator but there are also lots of stairs both up and down and plenty of floors that wouldn’t think of moving. After getting through all of that you end up in the Montparnasse train station that is mammoth and there aren’t a lot of signs. We went up two escalators looking for a ticket office (billetterie) with no luck. I finally went over to the Maison de Chocolat and asked the clerk where the tickets were sold. She cheerfully directed me to an adjoining hallway and said to take that hallway and then turn left. It worked. We got in line and were approached by a man who assured us he didn’t speak any English but would be happy to help us . . . and he did. We got our tickets to Chartres and back and were told where to find the train.

We had at least fifteen minutes to wait so I suggested grabbing two seats at a nearby café, ordering a coffee for me and waiting in somewhat comfortable seats. I grabbed a table and Ed got my coffee. As we chatted, a woman came over and started picking at a croissant. She quickly discerned we were speaking English and going to Chartres and announced she was headed there too. As it turned out, it was her first trip to Chartres and she had booked an entire day there and wasn’t sure what to do after visiting the Cathedral. We had a great time suggesting enough other things to see and do that she should have a nice full day. It all started when she asked, “If you’ve been to Chartres before, why are you going back?” Let me tell you the ways . . .

The train arrived and there were two uniformed people checking papers and one of them got in a argument, a very loud one, with a belligerent passenger so getting past that was difficult. We didn’t see the compost machine so didn’t compost our tickets hoping it wouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t. Catherine, the lady we met, climbed up to the upper level of the train but I wasn’t going up because coming down is not fun for my knees. We didn’t see her again so I hope she had a good day.

We stopped at Versailles-Chantiers, Rambouillet, Épernon, Maintenon and got off at Chartres where we walked up to the beautiful Cathedral. The last time we were there, they were cleaning the frieze around the choir and it is completed and sparkling white. They have also painted the columns and ceiling of much of the main part of the church. It looked strangely new, but looking at the parts that weren't painted, you understood. Mold and mildew were eating away at the walls and ceiling. It just seemed like a different church, not the one we've visited for nearly 30 years. Thankfully they have not touched the beautiful ancient floor.

After we left the church, we started checking menus for lunch. This involved fighting our way through all the construction on the outside of the church. The construction was nearly as bad as in Paris and they aren’t having Olympics in Chartres! We wandered up rue du Soleil d’Or and finally found a restaurant that had both bar and souris d’agneau so we settled in to enjoy it. [Bistro Le Sully, 20 Rue du Soleil d'Or; +33 (0)2 3736-9956] They don’t have inside seating but fortunately it was very nice weather.

We left lunch for a walk around town and ended up looking for the Eure River which involves going down a pretty steep hill. We photographed the Lavoir de la Porte Guillaume with three waterfalls under it. We walked along the river looking for a spot where I could get the river and the Cathedral in one shot and walked up rue de la Foulerie until we finally found it. Took the obligatory photos and then crossed Pont Saint-Hilaire and started back up the mountain to Église Saint-Pierre but got stopped by more construction so we couldn’t visit the beautiful church. We continued up rue Saint Pierre and took the left fork over to rue des Changes that we followed up to the Cathedral where we entered and claimed a couple chairs to recover from the climb. We had forgotten how hilly Chartres is.

It was approaching time for our train so we wended our way back down to the train station and out to the track to wait. It was a lovely ride home until we landed at Montparnasse in Paris. Again . . . pure pandemonium. We hiked back to the Metro station and it was just as far returning as it was this morning, only in reverse. Fortunately our train arrived quickly and we only had two stops. Rounding the corner and seeing the sturdy tower of Saint Sulpice always gives me the motivation to walk the final four blocks.

This featured blog entry was written by Beausoleil from the blog Paris Was Preparing for the Olympics.
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