[North porch, Chartres cathedral]
A few years ago, we arrived in Chartres and made our way to the cathedral, only to be met by thousands of pilgrims who had walked from Paris and had first dibs on getting inside. We have form with sort of thing, a knack of turning up in somewhere without realising that it’s a bank holiday, a fully closed or early closing day, a special event day, a pilgrimage day, and finding everything shut or inaccessible.
We have just had a few days in France, and this time I made sure Chartres would be open so that we could make our own pilgrimage to see some of the best medieval stained glass in the world. We did get in, only to find huge renovations works under way, scaffolding all over the place, and various bits cordoned off. Plus ça change etc. Still, the windows are incredible: the storytelling, the colours, the humour, the patterns, the sheer scale of it all.
[nice station, but closed]
We also made a Proust pilgrimage to Illiers-Combray to see where he spent some time as a child and which was the basis for the little town of Combray in his work. Again, I checked everything in advance, but this time it turned out on the day that the trains weren’t running (arrival by train being essential in order to enjoy the approach as Proust describes it), the town was dead - and I mean virtually totally empty.
[weekday afternoon in Illiers-Combray - bustling, not]
We walked down the main avenue and didn’t see a soul, the shops were shut and it wasn’t even closing day, we were the only people in the cafe we found that was open, there wasn’t a single madeleine to be had anywhere (I wanted one for the heck of it but it seems you can get plastic bags of madeleines in supermarkets all over France but not in the most famous madeleine place of all), the tourist office only opens three days a week and Thursday isn’t one of them, the Tante Léonie house/Proust museum is shut for a long time (I did know this) and the temporary museum has odd hours. We went into the church which is so beautifully evoked in A la recherche and sat in Proust’s peeling pew, walked along the river, found a few hawthorn flowers (Proust is the poet of the hawthorn), and caught the replacement bus back. So much for a pilgrimage. We had to laugh.
We did manage to get the train to Versailles which, it seems, attracts just as many pilgrims as Chartres. I hadn’t been since I was fourteen and I don’t recall it being so incredibly packed then. It felt like a peaceful version of the storming of the Winter Palace, everyone agog at the gilding and monstrous extravagance on display.
The Hall of Mirrors is as spectacular as I remembered it,
and I had to admire Marie-Antoinette’s taste in floral bedroom decor - lilac, roses, delphiniums, tulips, pansies everywhere. But again, we made an earlier-than-planned exit.
I can’t complain, though. If I were to make a Venn diagram of all the things I love about France, Chartres is one of the places which would be at the centre. It overlaps with many of my favourite things.
Lovely municipal planting with brilliant mixed varieties of tulips and spring flowers (it puts the bog-standard red and yellow mix here to shame).
Lavoirs, all along the river here (and several in Illiers-Combray).
[Renaissance baker’s boy & bread basket, stained glass museum]
Stained glass, and not just in the cathedral.
[1932 cinema-style glamour, Versailles-Chantiers station]
Proximity to impressive 1930s railway stations (both Chartres and Versailles, the latter especially good). Outstanding 1920s post office with external mosaics. Croissants. Cafes. Bookshops. Newspapers. Kir cassis. Butter sections in supermarkets which make you swoon. Ditto cheese.
[Saturday]
Then back home to the tulips which are at their peak now. I don’t know what possessed me to book a trip away during tulip season (unless to Holland), but we did a huge pick on Sunday before we went and I left the flowers, bulbs still attached, in buckets of water in a cool, dark part of the garage. It was an experiment and it worked, as they were in great condition when we got back yesterday. And now I feel like a professional florist.
This weekend, then, consists mainly of basking in tulips, coming to the end of Shout! and the sad mess of the Beatles’ break-up, several Cambridge Literary Festival events (incl a debate on “This house believes it’s time for Britain to abolish its monarchy” - motion carried, comprehensively), and an exciting, new-to-me sock yarn.
Happy Sunday!
Your beautiful photos and evocative musings have become my equivalent of a decadent breakfast in bed. Thank you, Jane! Finding out that a fellow Proustian also happens to be a fellow Beatlemaniac is an additional delight.
Le Musée Carnavalet in Paris has Proust's bedroom among its displays. It, too, is a frustrating place for visitors but still full of small treasures. A beautiful building in its own right, too, and next to Place des Vosges.
Basking in tulips sounds wonderful. Enjoy it. x