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Paris IV: a day trip to Chartres with lots of lessons

Paris IV: a day trip to Chartres with lots of lessons

Old Jun 10th, 2015, 01:26 AM
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Paris IV: a day trip to Chartres with lots of lessons

We went to Chartres yesterday to take Malcolm Miller's tour of the Cathedral. I had heard him lecture in Boston 30 years ago, and he is still going strong in his mid eighties.

One meets him outside the gift shop in the cathedral just before noon, he collects €10 per person, which includes headphones, and the tour begins. Scheduled for an hour, he spoke for at least 1hr 20m, mostly about the windows, on which he is the world's expert, knighted twice by the French government. I tipped him another €10 at the end of the tour. It was worth it, though there is no expectation.

Information: I expected it to be very crowded, like Notre Dame. On a Tuesday, nothing could have been farther from the truth. There were a number of small groups, but no whistles or guides with flags. Most guides spoke into microphones and were heard on headsets. No shouting. On the other hand, there is heavy restoration going on in the cathedral, the narthex is full of scaffolding, and before 11:30 and after 2:00, the workers are noisy. The exterior scaffolding is almost all gone, and you can still see most of the windows. Whether you like the restoration will be uncertain. It is at least historically accurate and the unrestored stonework is black with soot and acid pollution.

Getting there: we went by regional train (SNCF TER) from Gare Montparnasse. We missed the 9:06 because of confusion over where to buy tickets. READ Kerouac's description of the different rail services and their ticketing in my "where what post". Our mistake: because we could buy SNCF, RER, and RATP tickets in the same place at CDG, we assumed we could at Montparnasse. No. By the time we sorted it out, our train was gone. Buy RATP tickets just outside the Metro. Buy SNCF tickets upstairs in the "Grandes Lignes Billeterie", which is a hike. On the left end of the ticket room are windows to buy tickets for that day, in the middle are windows for future travel.

Your outgoing tickets are good for any outgoing train that day (we actually caught the 10:09) and the returns are valid on any of the inbound afternoon trains, though the 16:34 runs express for the last part of the journey so is 15 minutes faster than the others. Our train left Montparnasse from track 22, which seems to be usual if not invariable. You can get to it very easily if you use the toilets on the main floor to the right (50 cents), a good idea since we did not find toilets in 2 cl on the train.

When you get to Chartres: it is a beautiful town, refreshing after the crush of the city. We only had half an hour until the tour so didn't have much time. You cross the street in front of the station and walk gently uphill to an open plaza. Cross the plaza diagonally toward the cafe tables, turn right on a narrow street, then almost immediately left at a bakery and walk more steeply uphill. At a municipal building in the next corner, turn right, then up again and there it is!

There are no free toilets, but the gift shop to the right of the Cathedral has clean toilets, and the price is an apparently standard 50 € cents. We ate lunch at a bistro also to the right, quite a nice one. It has glass to protect from wind, but it was still too cold outside, so we had the menu inside along with a lot of local businessmen.

We did not get to explore the old town because we went back to see more of the cathedral inside and out, but on the way back to the station, we continued straight rather than turning at the boulangerie and found ourselves at the other end of the plaza.

There we found what I have to say is the most effective holocaust memorial I havre seen because it was entirely local. All the deportees -- Jews, political deportees, prisoners of war, forced laborers -- were locals, not statistics, and there were posters about how the community kept their memories alive while they were gone and welcomed them home, if they did come home. The mayor of the town, Jean Moulin, was a railway union leader who was executed by the Germans. There is a plaque to locals who died in the liberation, and the role of US troops is recognized. Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, the contributions of the FFI (roughly Gaullist) and FTP (roughly communist) were equally recognized. Well worth the time if you can read some French.

Some personal adventures: for us, the trip began on the opposite side of Paris with a walk to the Gare de l'Est, just in time to meet the hordes of commuters changing from train to Metro. Line 4 was crowded, but not worse than the Boston Red Line. Montparnasse station is vast, and the walk to the trains was very long with lots of ups and downs like Chatelet which would make luggage difficult. Ditto on return. I would say that because if crowds it took us 12 minutes to get from the metro to the correct ticket windows. It's a workout in a crowd.

We probably spent two hours getting across Paris and back and buying tickets and two and a half hours on the train journey out and back. We were whacked.

And for those taking TER trains with luggage, these cars are double decked. The newer outbound trains had lots of steps and an overhead package shelf above the seats but no place to put luggage except at the end of the car. This shelf would not hold a carryon bag. The older return car had no overhead at all and at least two steps up into the train and more to the upper level or three to the lower level. Travel lightly.
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Old Jun 10th, 2015, 04:07 AM
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Great report on Chartres and Malcolm Miller!
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Old Jun 10th, 2015, 07:25 AM
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Nice report. To buy train tickets (I go to Chartres several times a year) when you walk in the front entrance of Gare Montparnasse go up the escalator in front of you and then go left and about 50 meters in front of you is the room where you'll buy your tickets. On some days you'll buy the tickets at the counters on your left just outside of the room where tickets are usually sold.
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Old Jun 10th, 2015, 05:38 PM
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We had a little trouble figuring out the Grande Lignes tickets at Montparnasse, as well (but made our train). Would love to revisit Chartes it was cold and a bit dead the day after Christmas. It looked like it would be lovely in slightly warmer weather!
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Old Jun 11th, 2015, 10:50 AM
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Thanks so much for this report -- my DH and I are planning a trip to Paris next year and this sounds like a lovely day trip and a great tour. Did you have to reserve with Mr. Miller beforehand, or do you just show up? Is there a website or other information that you had in advance?

thanks!
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Old Jun 11th, 2015, 11:08 AM
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Enjoyed your report! We took Malcom Miller's tour back in 2010 and enjoyed it so much! I'm glad to hear he is still giving tours. I would like to go back and take the tour again and see the Holocaust memorial you described, as we did not see it when we were there. We had a nice lunch in a bistro next to the cathedral when we were there too. Thanks for posting this information!
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Old Jun 11th, 2015, 12:11 PM
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We visited Chartres about 10 years ago and because we had our kids with us, did not take the tour with MM. Wish we had!

Just opposite the entrance to the Cathedral is a typical french bistro/cafe which when we were there did a great french onion soup. I wonder if it's the same as yours, Florida1?
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Old Jun 12th, 2015, 02:21 PM
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I wonder if it is, annhig! I just checked my notes from that trip, out of curiosity, and they say the place we ate was Le Serpente on the South side of the cathedral.
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Old Jun 12th, 2015, 02:39 PM
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Thanks for your detailed report. This is a day trip we'd like to take next year.
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Old Jun 12th, 2015, 11:22 PM
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You do not need to reserve with Malcolm Miller in advance. You simply step into the Cathedral and join the awkward looking group outside the small gift shop INSIDE the Cathedral. The group is awkward because everyone is wondering if he is in the right place! MM shows up about 11:55, and the show goes on. You will need €10 in cash for each person

I wish now that I had scheduled a couple of more days in Chartres so I could take his tour more than once. Like most experts, he gives different but overlapping talks each time. He also does private tours for €125 per couple which I should have considered more carefully as it would probably be a once in a lifetime experience. He had recently taken celloist YoYo Ma and his wife around. Ma wanted all the windows and sculptures with musical references!

I think the deportation memorial may be more recent than 2010.

As you face the Cathedral, there is a bistro on your left and another slightly downgrade on your right. We picked the one on the right for no particular reason and ate well.
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Old Jun 13th, 2015, 05:33 AM
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Florida/Ackislander - 10 or so years later it's not easy to remember exactly where one ate. if pushed I'd have said it was more likely to be the one of the right than on the left but that's only a feeling! I do remember the excellent french onion soup though!
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Old Jun 13th, 2015, 12:32 PM
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The group is awkward because everyone is wondering if he is in the right place! MM shows up about 11:55, and the show goes on. You will need €10 in cash for each person>

Maybe - we showed up once and there was only a handful - about 8 people waiting and Malcom, smelling of wine - an after lunch tour - haughtily said that it was 'not worth my time for this few people and if we all did not pay double the natural price he had better things to do"

I took the tour disgusted because I was researching Chartres for an article I once wrote and left a bad taste in my mouth - especially the haughty demeanor of Malcom, who now must be pushing 90? And behave during the tour - on other tours I've seen folks upbraided for not paying strict attention and small kids - well just don't take them. A funny thing to me was when Malcolm began yelling at French teens who were - he said - purposefully riding their loud mopeds by the outside of the church where he was explaining some aspect. A great great tour but a cranky ill-tempered at times tour guide.
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Old Jun 14th, 2015, 02:32 AM
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I enjoyed this report post, Aks. Thanks.

PalenQ--it's great that you report on the "flip side" of Malcolm, too. We did morning and afternoon with Malcolm around 10 years ago, loving both sessions, but he truly was a crusty old soul.

In fact, when my youngest was studying for the SATs and I was trying to give her "visuals" for vocabulary words, for the word "curmudgeon", I said, "Malcolm Miller"! We all laughed at the dinner table.

REMINDER TO ALL even if you don't tour with the famous MM: Bring your binoculars to Chartres.

We did not get to see the deportation memorial, Aks, so if we go back, I'd like to see it. Thanks for pointing it out to us.

Last, you are right, Aks, that Jean Moulin died for his role in the Resistance. But he was more than just a "prefect" in the area.

Jean Moulin was, and always will be, THE SOUL of the French Resistance. Although by 1946, everyone in France was claiming to have been a part of the Resistance, Jean Moulin was known to one and to all for resisting wrong--be it from the Germans or from his own government--from the time he was a teenager. Even torture (and he was tortured on SEVERAL occasions) never persuaded him to wrong others.

Jean was a brilliant man and a talented artist, but his skills in dealing with people--and his skills in making people of different beliefs get along--led him into politics.

If Charles de Gaulle was the public face of France in exile, Jean was the person who put de Gaulle's movement into action. Having reported to England, Jean returned by parachute to get things going on the ground.

He always knew he would be facing death.

There are biographies of him out there, but this link captures the essence of this hero to all of humanity:
http://www.alliancefrancaise.london/JeanMoulin.php
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Old Jun 14th, 2015, 05:06 AM
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Thank you AlexandraZoe, it is what others add that make it worth doing posts.

I shall read your citation with great interest.
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Old Jun 14th, 2015, 08:38 AM
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Oh I hope you enjoy it, Acks. There's a movie out there I've never seen about Jean which I plan to find and watch one of these days.

And because of YOUR post, I decided today to re-read André Malraux's famous speech when Moulin's ashes were transferred to the Pantheon from Le Pere Lachaise Cemetary. It's such a famous speech that my high school French teacher made us translate it for a class assignment.

Since that was 45 years ago, I had to re-read it in English. Here's a translation: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-st...3S14_Andre.pdf
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Old Jun 14th, 2015, 10:44 AM
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There's a good municipal museum in the Jardin Atlantique above the Gare Montparnasse honoring both Jean Moulin and Maréchal Leclerc. There is no admission charge. There's a link on this site to download a guide in English.

http://www.paris.fr/english/museums/...-museums/p8229
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Old Jun 15th, 2015, 03:19 AM
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I never knew that, MaineGG. THANK YOU! I am making of point of seeing the Moulin/Leclerc on my next trip for sure. I got excited at the preview of the Liberation of Paris picture wall.

Heavens, even all the other little museums on the page you sent me to reminded me that there's STILL a lot of Paris I've not seen.

FYI, for others: the link to the http for the Moulin/ Leclerc museum on the page MaineGG sent us to isn't working, BUT the "download the tour guide" link right under it does and it's a good snapshot.

Here is the link to the Moulin/Leclerc museum's official website--http://museesleclercmoulin.paris.fr/ -- but I'm not seeing any English version.

In reading the tour guide, MaineGG, I never knew Leclerc had been in charge of expeditionary troops in French Vietnam in 1945-46. I saw that he had recommended quite early on that France negotiate with Ho Chi Minh the aim of creating Indochinese autonomy within the French Union. So then I had to read up on that!

Interestingly enough, Leclerc, a total military guy with no experience in the Far East, quickly perceived that the issue was one of nationalism, not communism. While he worked hard to stabilize the situation militarily, he saw that only by establishing a strong Vietnamese government would the influences of China and the Soviet Union be kept at bay.

His reward was to be publicaly denounced as a coward.

Makes you think about how had his advice been heeded, so much death and destruction for the next 30 years on the part of French military, Vietnamese troops and citizens, and US troops could have been spared.
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Old Jun 15th, 2015, 06:41 AM
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MaineGG, you have inspired me again.

We do a theme each time we come to Paris. Next trip, we will do Paris, 1944, starting with the museum at Montparnasse.

We have been to a lot of places where the FFI and FTP fought it out with the Germans and always stop to honor the plaques on the wall, but we will try to read a bit and perhaps see these and other sites in a rational order.

Every time we go near the Prefecture of Police, I think of the photos of the courtyard in ruins, and I have always been fascinated by the story of the Sherman tank shooting it out with the Germans at Place de la Concorde. Sometime on this visit, we will go to Saint Germaine en Laye, where y father was billeted in 1944 and developed a lifelong love of artichokes.

On y va!
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Old Jun 15th, 2015, 07:39 AM
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Ackislander, I think that that is a terrific way to approach a place, particularly one where there is so much to see.

Perhaps i will suggest to DH that we adopt it on our next visit [as yet unplanned] to Paris.
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Old Jun 16th, 2015, 11:08 AM
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I'm so glad that you posted about the Moulin/ Leclerc museum, Maine GG. I am definitely putting it on my Paris list of places to visit next time. Lots of interesting links here to peruse too - thanks to all for posting them!
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