The UNESCO World Heritage

Now we've taken our time to admire the cathedra.

Inside there was still the Nativity...

 Pictures were hard to take. Parts of the cathedral have just finished to be restored, the walls have been cleaned and let appearing the ocher coating of medieval origin and the white walls, which make the lights coming from the glasses dancing on the walls... and others parts are still keeping the traces of the pollution of years and are really dark. Nadia had visited it before the restoration and was really surprised by the new vision... She says it changes all... There were some people looking for a new place to restore, we took some time to see how they were working, using laser to measure, different instruments to study the degree of moisture in the wall, porosity, etc...

Choir of the cathedral - just restored -

 Surrounding the choir is a wall, fully carved, it consists of a set of 40 groups totaling 200 statues, illustrating Jesus and Marie's lifes. It tooks one hundred years to realise it !

 -ambulatory behind the choir with various chapels-

 

Just restored too...

When Nadia first visited, it was the same color as the carved wall!

 

 -glasses in the ambulatory- 

See us at the foot of the column? We feel so small in the such a high building!

 

 

 Chartres' cathedral is well known for its glasses and especially for the deep and light blue used.

 Most of the glasses were made between 1205 and 1240, some even came from the previous building (the last picture with Marie and infant Jesus is from 1180 !!!)

 There are more than 170 glasses. They were all dropped down to be preserved during the 2 World Wars, that's why we can admire them now...

 

 The other parts of the cathedral were really dark compared to the restored ones ....

 That was our visit at the nice cathedral in Chartres

the nice city Chartres

Today we went to Chartres. Nadia stopped to show us the view of the cathedral above the town center. The cathedral is built on the "top" of the town, then it can be seen from kilometers around with sometimes an visual effect (postcards often show the cathedral in the middle of fields, the town being unseen ....) 

We went out from the underground parking in front of the Theater .

On the Place Des Epars (Epars' square), the main building is the old Post Office, now it is the town's Media Library .... a nice place to find old movies DVDs and comic strips says Nadia ... and it's free for children and students to come ... 

the right part of the square is dedicated to a large pedestrian zone with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants ... Well, it's the main place of the town with lot of people usually. In summer, the fountains are on, and children come to play with water and refresh  and for Chrismas there are a small Christmas market (really small...) and a ice rink.

Then let's go to the cathedral! When we arrived, the bells were pealing hard! ... See us into the floral decoration?

"Our Lady of Chartres" cathedral is part of the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979. The actual cathedral was built from 1194 to 1260.  It's one of the most visited religious monument in France. But today it was really quiet and just a few tourists inside.

But the view inside you will get tomorrow!

 We went to the back of the cathedral, where the old episcopal palace is now the Museum of Arts and took some rest on the bench in the garden

 Behind is a small park with a labyrinthe .... We can't see it because of the chairs, but on the floor of the cathedral is engraved a labyrinthe ! The garden one remains it !

 It's a nice place to picnic in summer but today it was raining ... From there, we can see a part of the town down ...

 We went back through the small streets ...

It was a nice morning and we were really pleased to visit such a monument!

 

See you soon !

 

And tomorrow the view in to the  cathedral