Visitors!

Oh dear, I am so far behind... Is there something magical about a child turning 1 that suddenly makes mom unable to accomplish ANYTHING?? I welcome feedback. ;)

Anyway, I wanted to highlight two special visits by two special people. Two former students of mine, who also served as my student choreographers in the school musicals and were part of a Bible study I did for two years, both came to Paris this semester. Yay!

First, Kate was visiting as part of a school trip. We only had a couple of afternoons to hang out, but it was so fun to see her and catch up. She came by the house to see sweet Oliver:

And we visited the Rodin gardens to enjoy the gorgeous roses and weather:

SO good to see her!

Then, a few weeks later, Hailey came to visit. She was spending the month of June studying in Prague, and decided to use her free weekend to hop on a quick plane to Paris. Though she had been here before, it had been almost 10 years, so we hit some of the highlights. Notre Dame:

A walk around the Latin Quarter and a stop in at St Severin:

Les Invalides:

The Rodin Gardens:

And the Champs de Mars, with a special picture in front of Ecole Militaire (since her boyfriend is attending the US Naval Academy right now, it seemed particularly appropriate):

Finally, on her last evening there, we walked from the Opera Garnier to Chatelet, and meanwhile there was a crazy huge motorcycle parade thing going on along Rivoli (the road we had to walk). It was insane. The photo below shows the density of the riders (though in many places it was more dense than this), and it went on for the entire time we walked the street - at least 25 minutes. Plus it started before we got there and we never saw the end! And they were going pretty fast!! How can there be so many motorcycles in one place?!?!

So though quite random and far too quick, the visits from both of my girls were wonderful. I feel so blessed to have known them (and watched them grow up!) over these past 6 years... They've become such fabulous young women. :)

Cathedral #5: Chartres

As I mentioned before, we visited quite a few gothic cathedrals when my parents were visiting over Easter. The last one on our circuit was another trip to Chartres cathedral. We visited last summer and enjoyed spectacular weather. Though the weather left something to be desired this trip, we gained a new appreciation for the construction of the cathedral after seeing it in such close succession to the other cathedrals we visited: Notre Dame Paris, Reims, St Denis, and Tours. Notre Dame de Chartres is particularly famous for two reasons: 1) It has the largest collection of medieval stained glass. 2) It was constructed in only ~60 years, as opposed to most other cathedrals that took 200+.

The stained glass is truly amazing:

And I liked these windows in particular, which show the Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) being carried by the authors of the "Major Prophets" (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel) to illustrate the New Testament standing on the foundation of the Old Testament... pretty cool:

The cathedral, like the others, boasts the typical gothic features: shaped like a Roman cross, with rib-vaulted ceilings, pointed arches, and plenty of windows:

But due to its hasty construction, this cathedral was a bit simpler than many of the others. With less ornamentation, the cathedral's beauty came more from its proportions and geometry (and its uneven flooring that revealed the wear of centuries):

In fact, we did catch a new experience on this trip as the chairs had been moved out of a portion of the cathedral to reveal the labyrinth constructed on the floor. Labyrinths like this have been used for centuries as a representation of the spiritual pathway to God. Many pilgrims would travel miles to Chartres and then proceed along the path of the labyrinth either on their knees or feet while praying and contemplating their path to God. Here, I left the shutter open for quite some time to capture the journey of the pilgrims (see the feet in the foreground), but the guy who had reached the center really made my picture as he stood still throughout the time lapse:

My favorite feature of the cathedral might be the choir screen. Though it is a bit later than the rest of the church (which is 13th century), it is truly gorgeous stonework. It may contain three wisemen who look a bit like the three musketeers:

But it definitely boasts lovely scenes from Christ's life:

Sweet little Oliver was having trouble falling asleep, so we gave him some reading material (and yes, those of you who recognize the blue book with yellow writing, it was Rick... our friend):

Also interesting (and a bit disappointing, actually) was the behind-schedule renovations. The cleaning of the stones was AH-MA-ZING. Unfortunately, it was a very small portion that had been cleaned, and much of it was covered up. In this photo, the line on the right-hand side is actually the cleaned/uncleaned portions, not a shadow:

A couple of the little side chapels had been cleaned, as well, and they were beautiful:

The outside revealed the simplicity of the design and the wear of acid rain over the years:

But the cleaned portions (few though they were) were spectacular:

The back boasted the tell-tale flying buttresses:

And the porches of the transept had some very intricate carvings that seemed to be made of a different stone - not sure of the story there:

Unfortunately, the western facade (with the two towers) was covered in scaffolding, but I managed to capture them from the back. Interestingly, the two towers at Chartres don't match at all:

After a nice lunch in town and another walk through the cathedral, we strolled around the back where you find a beautiful view of the town:

Definitely an EXCELLENT way to spend time with the grandparents:

Can't wait to see them again in August!

Reims Rhymes with France

Weird, huh? As if French is not complicated enough with all its silent syllables and back-of-the-throat and nasal sounds... Then they go and break the rules by pronouncing the "s" at the end of the word AND putting an "n" sound when the word reads "m". Frenchies... Anyway, a disclaimer: if you are one of the 4 readers (out of my grand constituency of 6) who really only reads my blog for pictures of Oliver, then feel free to scroll ahead to the end of the post. I promise, there are some good ones. But if you're at all interested in our travels, feel free to enjoy the entire post. :)

Reims is the capital of the Champagne region of France. And yes, by Champagne I do mean the bubbly stuff. It is also home to another gorgeous gothic cathedral. The largest of the cathedrals we visited on this trip, Reims cathedral is actually recently restored: after damage in WWI, Rockefeller (yep, the American) actually funded a massive restoration of the place. The western facade towers above you:

And the interior is no less imposing:

Like the others, this cathedral possesses a long central nave:

Which culminates with the altar at the east end. This picture was taken from behind the altar, looking back down the nave toward the west end:

Which bore this spectacular rose window:

This rose window, positioned on either the north or south end of the transept, was particularly clean and, therefore, easy to photograph:

The ambulatories (the aisles on either side of the long nave, which are quite a bit shorter than the nave) I especially liked in this cathedral. They were taller than most other cathedrals I've seen, and they consequently were much better lit:

The stained glass throughout was beautiful:

But especially cool were the Marc Chagall, modern windows... Very different from the traditional gothic stained glass, but (I thought) very moving:

This was particularly fun for me because I had never been here... Always fun to see new things. And, of course, my parents loved it!

Oliver (who napped through most of the visit to the cathedral's interior) woke up a happy camper:

The stonework on each face was well-restored and cleaned:

And though the views were not quite as well crafted as those of Notre Dame (which is particularly breathtaking because the river leaves your sight lines clear), we managed a pretty nice view nonetheless:

And even got a glimpse of the flying buttresses:

After the tour of the cathedral, we were FREEZING, so we took lunch inside a bakery, where sweet Oli enjoyed his baguette:

That afternoon, we had a 2:30 tour of some champagne caves, so we had about an hour and a half to kill... We found a neat little park (with some sunshine to warm us up!), and had a blast. Oliver and Nana played on the seesaw:

And, for those of you who care about photography, the sunlight was perfect... All these pictures had totally natural lighting - no editing - how fun is that?!?!?!

And they enjoyed some time on the merry-go-round:

I do wish we had playground equipment like this at our parks in Paris... And having Nana around to play with Oli's not too bad either. ;) After our little jaunt in the park, though, we headed to the caves. After a little informational video on how champagne is made, we took a LOT of stairs down underground into caves that were originally hewn for stone. At some point several hundred years ago, though, people realized that those caves were the perfect atmosphere for storing and aging wine, so they've been employed as such for centuries. The particular caves we visited are actually no longer in use for production; they are more like a museum, housing old-fashioned wine-making tools (sorry for the black-and-white; the lighting was super weird down there):

We got an informative lecture and tour, and poor little Oliver (who was missing his nap) even cooperated sans stroller (which we left upstairs):

After the tour, we were given a tasting:

After three different champagnes, fun informative explanations, and good company, all we could do was say "salut!":

And then run back to the station to catch our train. Overall, a super easy and fun day! And for those of you who live in Paris, I totally recommend it... If you book early enough, you can get TGV tickets (direct, 45 min each way) for ~15euros each way. Totally worth it.