A Day Trip to Chartres

The Tour Montparnasse looks surprisingly attractive when viewed close up. From a distance it rises up dull and dark, to preside over the city in sombre rigidity. Seen from an escalator in the neighbouring railway station its lines are cleaner, neat and smart rather than harsh and unforgiving as you glide upwards to search for your train. The Gare Montparnasse itself is grey, vast and humming with the electricity of a hundred railway engines. Across the cold concrete floor feet scurry and the wheels of suitcases scrape, their owners keen to make their escapes out into the countryside.

Double-decker trains are still a phenomena that fascinates my little English brain. The top level provides the ideal vantage point for watching the station greyness subside into the distance before giving way to light brightness and vivid colours. At first you see the kaleidoscope of graffiti bursting out from the walls in every imaginable hue. Then, under the ever deepening blueness of fineday skies, the trees start to appear, sometimes thickly arranged in lush forests, at other times more sparse, punctuating meandering river bends and vast agricultural plains. Just beyond the station of Versailles Chantiers there was an unexpected treat – a view of the chateau, elegant and imposing in its wooded parkland off to the left of the train tracks.

Our ultimate destination was Chartres, a very still place in the already warm morning sun, with the cathedral towers telling us clearly which way we need to head upon exiting the station. Sculptures and neatly tended parks alternated with narrow cobbled streets as we approached the great building, the reason why pilgrims and ordinary tourist folk alike make their way to this town. Even scaffolding, bedecked with the lunch bags and tool-filled buckets of busily toiling masons, could not detract from the majesty of the place.

There was peace all around – no Parisian car horns, bike bells, shouts or buskers. Inside the dim, close, incense-infused confines of the knave and the side chapels, sunlight penetrated the famous stained glass windows in pinpoint rays, whilst elsewhere statues, shrines and confessionals were lit by the soft, red glow of candles. Behind the cathedral, a little avenue of trees provided a shady spot for a lunch passed contemplatively, quietly gazing down at a maze on the terrace below and up at birds and light aircraft soaring into the clear skies above faraway houses.

A climb up the cathedral bell tower presented even more far-reaching views, made all the more expansive by the tightly wound spiral staircase that had to be negotiated in order to reach them. It was narrow and dark, with a rope for hands to cling to when the footing was unsure. Moving upwards towards the faint glimmer of daylight we suddenly emerged looking out over the cathedral roof, the cruciform shape of the building clearly visible. On a level with the gargoyles and squeezing along slim walkways we surveyed the whole of Chartres spread out below.

The river flowing gently through the town was a pleasant place to stroll, with small footbridges traversing its breadth and vocal groups of ducks swimming about, patrolling their territories. Now and again we stopped, sometimes to rest on a well-placed bench, sometimes to admire ancient, half-timbered buildings delicately reflected in the stillness of the water. There was a thoroughly relaxed charm about the town, a soothing balm to protect against an overload of fast-paced city living.

Returning on the lower deck of the train this time, the afternoon heat and humidity could not be relieved even by an open window and a drawn, flapping SNCF curtain. The countryside retreated in favour of tower blocks tightly clustered around the myriad of tracks making up the straight, grey roads of iron into the capital, and soon we were back in the heart of Paris. Through the harsh white electric strip lights of the Gare Montparnasse tunnels we walked, and then down into the packed métro station. Bodies were crammed in together in the hot carriage, so many stations passing by with nobody leaving the train and no respite from the crush. Exiting at Châtelet we found that the air on the streets was marginally fresher, but it was still crowded on the narrow pavements and amongst the traffic. The strollable streets of Chartres, watched over by her quiet cathedral, seemed but a distant, pleasant contrasting memory.