Chartres - the Cathedral

Chartres is a beautiful town, some 90 km (60 miles) from Paris; one hour by train. It has a long history, was called Autricum during Roman times, became during the Middle Ages the centre of the “granary of France” (Beauce) and so still is.

I will revert to the town in a future post and will now concentrate on its famous cathedral.

The present cathedral replaced previous ones, destroyed by fires and Vikings. Already since the 9th century Chartres has been an important pilgrimage centre because of a relic given to the cathedral - the “Sancta Camisia”, what is supposed to have been the tunic of Virgin Mary. It’s still there.

The present building, built during the 13th century, incorporating some remains of the previous Romanesque one, is maybe the finest French Gothic cathedral, basically untouched by later wars and revolutions and looking more or less the same as it did when built with exception of one of the towers, the higher one, which was added during the 16th century and which you can visit by climbing some narrow stairs.

Most of the walls, inside as well as outside are very dark, some smaller parts have been renovated and are shining white. The renovation is ongoing. 

Although already the exterior is worth the visit, one is generally even more impressed by the interior.

What strikes the most may be the stained glass windows (some 150?), with their specific blue dominating colour. They left the cathedral during WWII, but are back. Most of them are as old as the cathedral, or even older. The rose windows date from 1150 to 1230.

The most famous window is perhaps the “Blue Virgin Window”, the centre of which also dates from around 1150.

The remarkable choir screen has been added later and took some 200 years to complete; finished only during the 18th century.

Special attention could also be given to part of the floor, designed and created in 1205 as a labyrinth with a 300 m (1000 ft) path, still used by pilgrims - when the chairs have been removed.

I wish you a nice weekend!

Mouzaïa

This area, Mouzaïa, just to the east of Buttes Chaumont (see previous post) has got its name from a town in Algeria. This was again a part of Paris where you found a lot of quarries, abandoned around 1870. The quarries were referred to as the “Carrières d’Amérique”, as a large part of what was extracted was shipped to the US and obviously also was used for the construction of the White House.

As a result of the quarries, the ground conditions at this sloping area did not allow any higher buildings and that’s why today you find a concentration of small streets and alleys – “villas” - with basically only modest two-floored buildings, built around the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Originally this was a working class area, not quite the case today.

Of course the season makes the area even more attractive. 

For much more complete information about this area, I suggest you have a look on the post that Karin – "An Alien Parisienne" – made after a walk we made together in the same area a cold winter day.

Urban art, street art, graffiti, tags...

Whether what I show here should be classified as urban art, street art, graffiti, tags... is open to discussion. These are some examples that I have recently found, mainly in the north-eastern part of Paris. Most of this is done by artists unknown to me, although a few items by Dacruz, Mesnager, Mosko, Jeff Aerosol... are there. (You may also refer to some previous posts about "urban art" and "graffiti".)

Some of you may feel that this shouldn't be. Well, if you see on which kind of walls this has been done, it may definitely be acceptable, the only worry may even be that a lot of this will soon be gone, being on walls which will not last for long. What can be regretted in my mind is that some of the works have been tagged on top by others.

Since some time it seems to be a fashion to decorate the delivery vans, especially those which deliver the open or covered market places. These trucks are of course more easily accesible for "decoration" than trains, metro cars... It seems that most of this is made in agreement with the van owners, but this may sometimes be questionable.

Salsa

I already made a few posts on the Parc de Belleville, a rather recent park, hardly visited by tourists, but offering a very good view of Paris. When I passed the other day (May 22), there was a great dance event going on, salsa. Of course you have a moment of hesitation; should you start moving around also? I decided to just take some photos.

I wish you a nice weekend!

Green fields

During the past weekend, the Champs-Elysées were transformed into some real “champs” – fields. The French agricultural organisations made a great manifestation and the whole avenue was for two days – only - completely transformed. In the nice weather, there were obviously some two million visitors. … and after the long weekend, the traffic was back to normal – a fantastic logisitic operation.

As the serious blogger I am, I decided to climb the close to 300 steps to the top of the Arch of Triumph (see previous post), to give you a total view.