Chartres

Flowers on the doorstep of the cathedral


Chartres--both town and cathedral--are about an hour outside Paris by train. We visited Chartres twice, we enjoyed our first trip so much.


Jim, Cathy and Alex on the train to Chartres


Yes, I even mock cathedrals


There is a man named Malcolm Miller who moved to Chartres 50 years ago as a young man studying to become a school teacher. He never left, and has devoted his life to studying the cathedral and especially the stained glass. On our first tour with him, we "read" the window that tells the stories, intertwined, of the Good Samaritan, and Adam and Eve in the garden. We also read the windows dealing with the birth of Jesus and the crucifiction, and the assumption of Mary. On our next visit he asked if anyone had been on one of his tours before. When we said we had and told him what we had covered previously, he read an entirely different set of windows. He likens Chartres to the public library and just as you would not expect to read all the books in the public library on one visit, you can't possibly learn about all of Chartres 150 or so stained glass windows (the largest collection of medieval stained glass in Europe) on one visit. Needless to say, Malcolm's tours greatly enhanced our appreciation of this beautiful cathedral.

John the Baptist





On our second visit we had time to climb to the top of one of the spires.






We admired the architecture along the way.






I thought I might have to leave T behind on this very narrow passageway at the very top!


All around the spire were these strange, slightly evil looking creatures carved into the stone.







Our photos don't do the windows justice, but for what it's worth:

Tree of life



The apostles