While the day started out cloudy and gray, it quickly burned off as you will see in the photos. For those of you who, like me, are shamefully ignorant of architecture styles, let me cut to the chase. The cathedral in Chartres is THE birthplace of Gothic architecture, as this was the first church to make use of the ornate carvings and flying buttresses that are apparently so characteristic of the style. Although we had been told that a trip to see the cathedral was a must, we were ignorant of this little known fact.
Another interesting tourist tidbit is that the churches in Chartres, especially the main cathedral are all known for the great examples of medieval stained glass windows. Unfortunately, my pictures cannot do these windows justice, but take it from me, they are quite amazing. Sidenote: church services were in progress when we arrived at the cathedral. I am always a bit uncomfortable touring a church while others are there worshipping. Somehow I feel a little awkward checking out the church for its historical, cultural, and architectural while others are there visiting the church for its intended purpose. No one seemed to object, and there were plenty of tourists, so I kept the flash off the camera and kept moving.
Besides trekking through 4 of the city churches, we also explored a bit of the town, seeing plenty of small-town French houses, restaurants, and canals.
An unexpected treat occurred when we literally stumbled onto a crepe restaurant for lunch. We did observe upon first entering the restaurant that no other patrons were having lunch. Uh oh, not a good sign. Within 5 minutes, apparently, the church crowd let out and hit the door, because all of the 10 downstair tables filled up within 10 minutes of our arrival...which was later quite understandable as the crepes were magnifique!
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