Last day in Chartres, April 2012

Dwight Peck's personal website

Chartres, Le Mans, and the Louvre, 2012 (6)

In mid-April 2012, the snow's disappearing in the Jura.

Too much work anyway. Down tools. We're going to Chartres.

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Sayonara, Chartres

We're checking out of the Hostellerie Saint-Yves and leaving the baggage here for a last walk around the town.

Have a good day.

We've been staring at that North Tower all week. It's now or never.

Up we go.

All of this was headed for the poubelle in August 1944 until Col. Welborn Barton Griffith, Jr., got into the act. As Patton's American Army approached the city, then occupied by the Germans, someone felt that there might be a German sniper in the cathedral and ordered it leveled by artillery. Aghast, Col Griffith demurred and won a short reprieve, enough time for him to sneak behind German lines and determine that there were no snipers in the cathedral, and the order was rescinded. Thank you, Col Griffith (he was killed nearby soon afterward).

We're here, the platform round the North Tower

The view westward. No American artillery, or drones, in fact.

Vertigo: the North Porch and part of the Museum of Fine Arts

The main rail station

The Place Châtelet on the way to the rail station

The South Tower

The South Transept -- the Hostellerie Saint-Yves cowers invisibly behind it.

The North Transept

The decorations

Kristin, a bit stressed

City centre and the rail yards

Tower view southwestward

They're more afraid of us than we are of them.

Neighborhoods to the south

Don't jump!

The Enclos de Loëns, a 13th century tithe barn now the home of the International Stained Glass Centre.

Back to earth. Hang on tight.

So reassuring . . . comforting.

Goodbye, Dotto Trains 'Muson River 1894' model. (The Muson River is a creek in the Veneto region of Italy where the Dotto Trains are manufactured. Half the cities that use this Euro 5 model leave the 'Muson River 1894' plaque on the side of it, the others cover it with advertising.)

A last walk round beautiful Chartres

The House of the Salmon . . .

. . . and its restaurant Truie Qui File, the 'Spinning Sow', the common regional name for an old folklore tradition, as we've just learnt in Le Mans.

The salmon

The 16th century Salmon House is our last tourist stop this trip. Now it's back to the Wifi.

We're catching up on the news in the basement of the Hostellerie Saint-Yves, waiting till its time for our train to Paris.

The laugh's on us. No trains to Paris today, maintenance work on the rail beds, so we're meant to take this nice yellow bus to Rambouillet instead, then chase down the tracks to clamber onto the regular train to Montparnasse. Then snare the 91 bus to the Gare de Lyon in time for the TGV to Lausanne. And then the regional train to Gland. And then a walk to the car stashed in the IUCN garage. And it all went off like clockworks.

Another fabulous mini-holiday.

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