I own a children's book titled "Cathedral" which is an illustrated account of how one Medieval, pastoral town managed to build a massive cathedral. The amount of work and passion put into this impossible task floored me. Since reading this book I've always had an enormous amount of respect and admiration for Medieval architecture and on a recent trip to France I found myself intent on visiting one of the most famous buildings from this era.
Taking our rented VW Golf TDI from our hotel on the outskirts of Paris to the city of Chartres did not seem like a hard task when planned from my computer back on Long Island. We had to cross to the other side of the French metropolis and we would do this by avoiding the city as much as possible. This is a common thought process and we found ourselves crawling along several congested roads. Needless to say we ended up at Chartres in late evening and parked our car only a half hour before the parking meters closed for the night.
When you approach Chartres it looks like a small town/city that is dominated by the cathedral that stands atop its highest point. We had a great view of this because we were in bumper to bumper traffic as we approached it. Exhausted and a little delirious we walked through the meandering stone roads up to the apex of the town. It was so quiet and the sun was setting as we turned a small alley and happened upon the side of the mighty cathedral.
Since it was only 15 minutes before closing we snuck in and found ourselves almost completely alone in the cold, open space. The last beams of the sun glowed behind the blue glass of the rose windows and the deep, distant chant of monks buzzed in my ears. It was noticeable colder inside and the air felt like it was being vacuumed up into the vast space above us. You could hear every footstep being made and I realized that we had again happened upon a place at the right moment.
It was a terrible time of day/night to take photos so I don't have many. It was however the perfect time to see this magnificent building.
Taking our rented VW Golf TDI from our hotel on the outskirts of Paris to the city of Chartres did not seem like a hard task when planned from my computer back on Long Island. We had to cross to the other side of the French metropolis and we would do this by avoiding the city as much as possible. This is a common thought process and we found ourselves crawling along several congested roads. Needless to say we ended up at Chartres in late evening and parked our car only a half hour before the parking meters closed for the night.When you approach Chartres it looks like a small town/city that is dominated by the cathedral that stands atop its highest point. We had a great view of this because we were in bumper to bumper traffic as we approached it. Exhausted and a little delirious we walked through the meandering stone roads up to the apex of the town. It was so quiet and the sun was setting as we turned a small alley and happened upon the side of the mighty cathedral.
Since it was only 15 minutes before closing we snuck in and found ourselves almost completely alone in the cold, open space. The last beams of the sun glowed behind the blue glass of the rose windows and the deep, distant chant of monks buzzed in my ears. It was noticeable colder inside and the air felt like it was being vacuumed up into the vast space above us. You could hear every footstep being made and I realized that we had again happened upon a place at the right moment.
It was a terrible time of day/night to take photos so I don't have many. It was however the perfect time to see this magnificent building.
