DAY 12- June 13th, 2014

Its Friday the 13th and we are done re: the Landscape Architecture official Paris field trips. We will be leaving for Maastricht on Saturday. Having a free day, Leslie and I travel by train to Chartres, about 40 miles SW of Paris. There is an on-going transportation strike but somehow we avoid any travel problems.

Chartres is a smallish town and is dominated of course by the cathedral, officially the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Chartres. The current cathedral, mostly constructed between 1194 and 1250, is the last of at least five which have occupied the site since the town became a bishopric (a bunch of bishops?) in the 4th century.

The cathedral is a fine example of what we architects term High Gothic, which means we get "high" (see Notre Dame) and kind of excited. With good reason. 

Notice the tiny little people way up by the front door! That's about all you can say about the size of the thing, can't capture it very well in photographs. Among the High Gothic cathedrals, Chartres isn't even the tallest- you would have to go to Beauvais for that.

The Nave, 121 feet in height, about 10 stories.....

Side aisle.....

From a distance, the cathedral dominates the skyline, but as you walk the nearby streets the cathedral is alternately hidden, and revealed.

goodbye to Chartres, off to Maastricht, Netherlands