Day 3: Chartres and Tours

Day 3 had us waking up at 6am – which was rough, considering my body was still thinking it was on Eastern Daylight Time, and I wasn’t able to fall asleep until almost 5am. We packed up our stuff and piled on the buses, heading for our next destination – Tours. On our way to Tours, we stopped at the small village of Chartres, which is probably most well known for it’s 12th century Gothic cathedral with it’s two contrasting spires.

la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres
la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres
Another view of the cathedral
Another view of the cathedral























We were given a guided tour of the cathedral by historian and author Malcolm Miller, then the chorus sang an impromptu couple of songs in the cathedral, followed by free time to explore on our own. If you’re wondering what I may have learned on the guided tour, please re-read the first sentence of this blog, and do the math.



Inside the cathedral
Inside the cathedral
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Some of the beautiful stained glass in the cathedral























For our free time, we grabbed some lunch, then wandered around the village. Some of the girls wanted to shop, and some wanted to visit the glass museum, so the shoppers went with one chaperon, and the ones interested in a little culture came with me. I really just wanted to nap and enjoy the afternoon, so while they wandered the museum, my roommate and I waited outside on a bench and pondered the amazing detail of the cathedral in front of us.



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More views of the cathedral
Love the symmetry! (Yeah, I like 'matchy-matchy')
Love the symmetry! (Yeah, I like ‘matchy-matchy’)
Exploring Chartres
Exploring Chartres
Some statues on the outside of the cathedral
Some statues on the outside of the cathedral











































The chorus singing in the cathedral
The chorus singing in the cathedral – click the photo to go to a video of their performance
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Chartres

After our visit, we boarded our buses to continue the journey to the second stop on our tour, oddly enough called Tours. We had dinner in the hotel, and then went to bed – tomorrow’s another concert day!