Un Petit Plus de Chartres

More about Brittany next, I promise, but these last bits from Chartres are burning a hole in my picture files.

We climbed up the northwest tower and had it all to ourselves for quite a while for great views out over the rolling countryside.

And straight down--that's our hotel on the left with the green cafe furniture in front:

I'll spare you yet more pictures of the great gargoyles up there, but do you think maybe this is where Eiffel was inspired for his tower?

Back inside the cathedral a tremendous cleaning project is underway to get years of soot and dirt off the walls and windows. Here's clean glass, on the left, next to dirty glass:

The restored vaults are whitewashed, or the like, and some repainting has been done in what I guess they believe are the original colors. The contrast with the dirty, dark stone is impressive.

There is more to see in Chartres along with the cathedral. We stopped in at the Centre International du Vitrail for their displays on restoring stained glass and to see samples of modern glass. This piece caught Harlan's eye:

I was especially fascinated by an exhibit on how damaged medieval and renaissance windows in another church in Chartres had been reassembled with from the broken shards, sometimes just to close the window opening. Some of the results are crazy collages from different images and eras that still manage to present a coherent theme, and others are wonderfully modern.

But who needs stained glass when you have sunlight and trees to color your windows?

I was surprised how quiet it was around the cathedral, expecting it to be shoulder to shoulder with tourists. But evenings are lively. After dark (which isn't until 10:30 or so) there's a spectacular light show on the face of the cathedral.

At one point a pair of big white figures moves across the facade.

Little white figures drop by ropes of light from the top and leap around highlighting the architectural details.

Our second evening featured a hunting horn concert on the street just down from our hotel.

Hunting horn tunes are quite nice but they do begin to sound all the same to us who lack expertise in the area. The video I have doesn't seem to want to appear here, but you're not missing much. It's the only musical performance I can think of where the artists turn their backs to the audience.

I guess this is the cool way to hang out with your instrument if you're not playing it:

OK, on to Auray--here's a snap from today's loop around the Golfe du Morbihan: