While we were sad to leave Paris it actually felt great to get back to our "home" and back on the road again. We headed south west to a town called Chartres.
Chartres revolved around two things for us - food, and the 'Illuminations....'
To get the most out of the experience, we spent most of our first day in town trying as many of the local specialties as we could. This included:
- Honey
- Mentchikoffs (praline covered chocolates)
- L'Eurelienne beer
- Sable de Beauce (shortbread)
- Beauce Cola
- Chartres Pate (actually a kind of pie)
It was all delicious, including the confectionary, which was a relief after some of the fairly hideous stuff we have tried in the past.
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| 14 randomly flavoured macaroons - the shop assistant spoke no english. |
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| It tastes good, and is good for you.....can I have a job, please? If you look closely, you can see the sellotape, glue and bits of plastic card that are holding the left arm of my glasses on. |
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| Giant macaroon cake, this one was for 4 people - you could get one that would feed 8. |
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| Chartres Pate - actually a partridge and guinea fowl pie. Really, really yum. |
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| This shop was even weirder than it looked. It was owned by a French guy who went to NZ for a visit, loved it, and set up this shop. However, he also set up a clothing label to go with it - and the clothes are emblazoned with moko motifs and 'Maori Pride'. I don't think the Tangata Whenua would be pleased. We did get a New Zealand bumper sticker though. |
We also went to the cathedral (of course) and went up the steeple. According to the Chartres promotional material the Cathedral is 'the most complete and well preserved of all Gothic Churches' and it has all of its 12th Century windows. During the war they took them down, dismantled them and put them into storage. It also has a 'labyrinth' on the floor that pilgrims can walk through, and it represents a spiritual journey to Jerusalem. Presumably less customs hassles, but more boring travel photos.
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| This is a gardeny representation of the labyrinth. |
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| ......and here it is for real - covered up with chairs unfortunately. |
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| Houses across from the Cathedral |
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| The Cathedral at dusk. |
The "illuminations" were incredible. Every night during the summer months they light up 22 locations in town with a mix of static displays, and some which move, change and are set to music. It is an amazing thing to see in such a relatively small town, and these photos don't do them justice (even though the photos are really, really good.)
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| The illuminations, the Cathedral had a series of different images projected on three sides of the building while music played. It lasted for about 15mins before repeating. |
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| The museum had two different movies projected on different sides to a musical score. |
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| St Aignan's Church - this was a static image. This Church has only one buttress (the arch going from the little tower on the left to the roof). It was designed to have a vaulted stone roof, but they ran out of money and built a wooden one instead, so they didn't need the extra support of buttresses. They had already built one, so they built that small tower and called it a day. |
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| The Church of Saint Pierre, sadly falling to bits a little inside. |
On our way out of Chartres we visited the Picassiette - which is a small house ornately tiled with smashed plates. The name is a French pun, which means 'plate stealer' or 'Picasso of Plates'. The owner lived there, and tiled it over decades. We were not allowed to take photos, so these are photos taken of the information brochure. It was pretty incredible.
Chartres was a great way to get back into things after Paris. Now onward through the Loire Valley.
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