Chartres

We spent the day in Chartres today... rather longer than we intended, but it was a fabulous day.

We enjoyed seeing the parts of the Cathedral that have been recently restored, the stained glass windows are amazingly beautiful, and I was glad to learn a little more about the labyrinth in the ground of the nave.

This is one of the restored windows at the front of the church. In the bottom right corner you can see an unusual nativity... with Mary resting on a bed having given birth and pointing to baby Jesus, placed above her on a table. In other sections you can see the three kings and Mary's visit to Saint Anne. (Try pushing L on your keyboards to see the details in Large.)

We had lunch at le Café des Arts when we first arrived and Ch forgot her pink backpack there. We realized it during our tour of the Cathedral but decided to finish the tour before going back to the restaurant - "...they'll still be open, don't worry!" Well, they were closed. We switched our train tickets to a later train and hung around until the kitchen opened for dinner. With our extra time we walked through the old part of Chartres (well worth it!) and had coffees and hot chocolates at the Reine de Saba café, the site of an earlier incident, on our last visit to Chartres 15 years ago, that has become a popular family story... but which I have promised the interested parties I won't describe here. It was as we remembered it.

After another look around inside the cathedral, we checked back at the restaurant. The chef opened the door for us and brought out the missing backpack! There was much rejoicing. We got back to Paris around 8pm.

Hurray for 200 blips with no breaks!... (but our time in Paris is passing by too quickly.)