First Stop Chartres

July 9, 2016

I first heard about Chartres Cathedral when I was 18, and my dad was on a sabbatical working outside of Paris near Versailles. We could see the cathedral towering above the fields in the distance on our drives, but I never made it there. Of course when you are a bit of a nut about church architecture Chartres has to be near the top of the bucket list. The cathedral has definitely lived up to my expectations. It is the most intact and original gothic cathedral I have ever seen. The sculpture on its own, would have done that, but the original stain glass windows push it right up to blow my mind. Last night I had a technicolor hallucinatory dream that can only be explained by an overdose of the Chatres blue glass in combination with jet lag. This is strong stuff.