Paris Day Trips: Chartres

My mom and Cathy arrived in Paris on New Year's Day, at the height of holiday tourism. You already know how I feel about crowds of tourists (and how Matt feels about how I feel about tourists), so I was relieved when we decided to leave the city for a day-trip on January 2nd. Our destination was Chartres.

Chartes, population 40,000, is the lovely capital of the Eure-et-Loire department. We ate lunch at a decent restaurant (Café des Arts), checked out the public médiathèque (library for DVDs and CDs), and walked the medieval ramparts. But mostly we were there to see the city's massive cathedral, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

There are any number of things that distinguish this cathedral from others in France and throughout the world: the speed with which it was constructed (26 years), its high fidelity to what we think of as the main tenets of Gothic architecture and decoration; the relic it was built to protect (a tunic supposedly worn by the Virgin Mary); its non-matching towers and extant Romanesque façade (above). But one of my favorite parts of the cathedral was its 172 12th- and 13th-century stained-glass windows.

Beautiful, non? Chartres is only an hour-long train ride from Paris (Gare Montparnasse). Tell them I sent you, and don't forget to try the labyrinth . . .

This Week in Paris

Wowee wowee wow - most visitors ever!

Thursday, Eden (Maggie's sister) and JP (Eden's man) arrived. They're staying with us.

On NYE, we served quiche (mushroom, red onion, tomato, spinach) to not only Eden and JP but also Emi and Jules, who were just in town for a few day, and who did not stay with us. Emi lived with Eden and Maggie for more than a year through a Japan-US foreign exchange program, married Jules about a month ago, and now lives in England.

Emi, showing off a spice that Maggie's mom sent Eden and JP

Last but certainly not least, my mom (Joy) and my quasi-second mom Cathy arrived on New Year's Day, and we've been aggressively traipsing Paris, pillaging the city for its fine food and cultural/historical offerings.

Cathy and Mom at the Cathedral of Chartres, which we visited Saturday, and about which I'll post more soon.

Funtimes so far: another fabulous dinner at Fish La Boissonnerie and a decent dinner at Coq Ming (Belleville Chinese joint), Christmas decorations at Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, a visit to the Musée du Moyen Age, strolls around the Sorbonne, through the Tuileries, and in the Marais, a few choice bus rides, our daytrip to Chartres.

Funtimes to come: visits to St. Chapelle, the Conciergerie, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musées d'Orsay and Rodin, tea and pastries at Ladurée, tea-shopping at Mariage Frères, crêpes somewhere not-food-poisining-inducing, ice cream and tarte tatin at Berthillon Glace, walks through Montmartre, the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, the Champs Elysées, and of course a trip up the Eiffel Tower.

It's going to (continue to) be a great week!