Day 14-16 Tour de France's Churches

Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book.  ~  Victor Hugo

Monday, December 26, 2011  ~  Feast of St. Stephen

With Dad's boundless energy on any family vacation, there was no rest on Christmas break. Yet today's churches were so beautiful, you couldn't blame him one bit. That morning we walked past Notre Dame to the Ste-Chapelle.

You have to go through security since it is in the same compound as the Palace of Justice. The most obviously beautiful feature is the windows upon windows of stained glass, that depict practically the whole Bible. The chapel is quite small, but there is so much to look at that everyone is sitting down and staring up, like in the Sistine Chapel. Apart from the windows, there are also painted columns everywhere with small castles and fleur-de-lis.

Heading south to St-Sulpice, we gazed up at a beautiful fountain. St-Sulpice has two round lantern towers, something I'd rarely seen in a European church.

St-Sulpice gets its fame from this gold astronomical line inside, which somehow featured in The Da Vinci Code (don't remember how, it's been years since I read it, and I've never seen the movie). The church was beautiful, but there were lots of gypsies that kept accosting us.

On to the next church! We made a quick visit to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal, where St. Catherine Laboure's visions of the Virgin are commemorated, and she and her superior St. Louise are buried.

About noon, we came to Gare Montparnasse, where we grabbed some sandwiches and then hopped on the double-decker train to Chartres. Along the way we saw green fields and evergreens, brown rabbits standing on their hind legs, and brightly colored pheasants in the hedges. We also saw the palace of Versailles outside of Paris.

Arriving in Chartres, we could see the cathedral rising above the town.

As we wound through the streets to reach the cathedral, Mom and Dad told us of their last trip here, when it was foggy and they had to rush to the station, and up and down stairs, to keep from missing their train.

When they ran out of money the architects were unable to finish one tower, so a radically different one was put up years later. One delicate and tall, the other stout with a roof more typical to a castle, they make Chartres a very special cathedral. Here the blueish stained glass is famous, and there seems no end of the biblical figures you can find. I especially liked finding the stories of Joseph in Egypt.

The cathedral stands in an important stage of transition--they are restoring the interior stone walls to their Medieval splendor, which will make it look radically different to those used to seeing the ancient blank stone. Also, the apse was being restored, so we could not see the most famous window of the Virgin and Child, but these things make you want to return.

The outside of the cathedral is also amazing. Statues project from every corner, and there is a small garden behind the church. The towers and tunnels make it look more like a fortress than a cathedral.

We left Chartres and got back to Paris when it was dark. Putting on more warm layers at the apartment, we attempted to catch the "Party Boat" from the Pont Neuf, but we were too late for the last one (several times every night, this tour boat would pass by our apartment with these blinding spotlights, and decorative Christmas lights, hence our calling it the party boat).

Tuesday, December 27, 2011  ~  Feast of St. John the Apostle

She lived in Paris, which she pretended to detest, because it was only in Paris that one could find things to exactly suit one's complexion. Besides, out of Paris it was always more or less of a trouble to get ten-button gloves.  ~The American

It was a very cold and foggy day in Paris, so Colin and I decided to have a relaxing day walking around and shopping. The rest of the family got up early to climb the towers of Notre Dame, and then they walked down the Champs Elysees. I got to visit Zara, a favorite from my Rome days, and then Colin and I had lunch in the Greek district near Notre Dame. The restaurant was pretty sketchy, and we were kind of afraid we would wake up a few hours later without our kidneys after they served us free aperitifs. Fortunately, a huge group of tourists came in, so we felt a little safer. I had soupe d' oignon, turkey in champagne sauce, and chocolate mousse. The rest of the afternoon we wandered around souvenir shops and vendors, and saw the very modern Opera Bastille, which sits on what was once the site of the Bastille prison. That evening we packed our suitcases and went out for one last crepe.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

...anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the damnable. 
~Mark Twain

Don't worry, the trip wasn't that bad, but I was glad that another American didn't think of Paris as idyllic. We got up early this morning and took the train to Charles de Gaulle Airport. The plane wasn't as nice as the one to London--there were no individual TVs, so we were all forced to watch Monte Carlo with Selena Gomez. We did play some rousing games of 20 Questions between our three different aisles, which probably really annoyed the girls in front of us. Customs in Dallas was worse than I had remembered it being, and then we said goodbye to Nick. Our plane was delayed, but we finally made it home.

As a final word on the trip, I have to say I love both London and Paris. I'm a sucker for anything with history and art and literature. London is much more fun and friendly, but Paris has a very mysteriously ancient quality to it. Let me know your thoughts about London and Paris, and your favorite things to do there!