July 20, 2025 • 56 mins
Thinking about taking a day trip from Paris? In Episode 555: Day Trip to Chartres from Paris with Patricia Perry, Jennifer Gruenke, and Annie Sargent explore how easy and rewarding it can be to spend a day in this charming French town just an hour from the capital.
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Chartres is best known for its stunning Gothic cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its stained glass windows and soaring architecture. But there’s much more to enjoy! Annie, Patricia, and Jennifer share their firsthand experience exploring the cathedral, wandering the old town, and enjoying a leisurely lunch at a local restaurant right across from the cathedral.
They also talk about smaller gems like the Maison Picassiette and the Centre International du Vitrail, two stops worth making if you’re interested in folk art or stained glass. The episode is full of practical tips: how to take the train from Gare Montparnasse, what to wear, and how to pace yourself if you’re planning a relaxed day trip.
If you're planning on visiting Chartres from Paris or just want ideas for easy escapes beyond the capital, this episode is packed with insight. Whether it’s your first time in France or your tenth, you’ll pick up useful ideas and inspiration.
🎧 Subscribe to Join Us in France for weekly episodes on French destinations, culture, history, and travel tips. Annie Sargent brings you local insight, personal stories, and helpful advice to make your trip to France even better.
Table of Contents for this Episode
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:16):
This is Join Us in France, episode555, cinq cent cinquante-cinq.
Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Usin France is the podcast where we take
a conversational journey through thebeauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today, I bring you a conversation withPatricia Perry and Jennifer Gruenke
about a fun trip the three of uswent on between Paris and Chartres.
(00:40):
We share our tips on what to see anddo from the awe-inspiring Chartres
Cathedral to charming local attractions.
A great episode for people who want totake an easy day trip from Paris with
a little help from Join Us in France.
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support
of lovely humans like you.
(01:00):
You book itinerary consults, takemy VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun
in my electric car, come to theboot camp, or slip me a few euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
Want to keep me going and skip the ads?
There's a link for that in the show notes.
And head to joinusinfrance.com/boutiqueto purchase any of my services,
(01:22):
and thank you so much.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Jennifer and
Patricia, I'll discuss three topics.
This is to make up for the times whenthere is no time for the magazine.
Number one is changes comingto Paris Metro tickets.
These changes have been coming fora while, but now they're serious.
(01:45):
Paris honoring women in science, andlisten up, how to choose a restaurant
in Paris, or in France for that matter.
If you'd like all the links with thefull transcript of the episode where
we spell all these words correctly,all these mysterious French spelling,
you'll find everything on the pagethat lists all the episodes by month
(02:08):
at joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
Plural, there are many, many of them.
And if you'd like a handy summary ofthe conversation with all the useful
links, subscribe to the newsletterat joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
It is the best way to stay in the loop.
(02:37):
Bonjour Patricia Perry and JenniferGruenke, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Bonjour Annie.
Bonjour, tout le monde.
Lovely to see you both.
So today we're going to talk aboutChartres, the beautiful, beautiful city
of Chartres not too far from Paris.
And we are going to specificallydiscuss it as a day trip from Paris,
(02:57):
for people who perhaps spend a littlelonger in Paris and have some time to
go explore more outside of the city.
Jennifer, you... so we went togetherthis winter, and enjoyed that very much,
but you've been there before, right?
You had a summer trip there as well.
Right.
In July, I went with a friend andwe stayed overnight so that we could
(03:21):
see the lights on the cathedral.
That's probably a good idea, right?
Yeah, I think if you're going to take thetime to go to Chartres, the highlight of
the trip for us was seeing the Chartresen Lumieres, I think is what they call it.
They have these projectors, largecolored projectors, and so there is a
video that is tailored to the cathedraland it gives the history of the
(03:48):
cathedral from the building through,you know, there was a fire, through
the World Wars and up until modern day.
And then in addition to that, they havelights in other places in the town.
And there is a map that you canget at the tourist office that
shows you all the places to go.
Is that a free thing or doyou have to get tickets?
(04:11):
No, it's free.
There is a little tourist train thatwill take you around and that you have
to pay for, but if you walk, it's free.
Right.
And so typically activities likethis happen in the summer months,
but also around Christmas, aroundschool vacations very often.
When we have those wonderful long weekendsin the month of May, they know they're
(04:34):
going to have more visitors and so theytypically have them at those times.
But I would recommend that youcheck with the tourist office
before planning a thing like this.
They don't typically publish aschedule of exactly when we're going
to do it next year or whatever.
But this is what you can expect,and if you check with the tourist
office, they can give you moredetails as the time comes.
(04:58):
And, a bonus for going in the dead ofwinter is that you could do this in one
day because it gets dark at 5:00, and it'sonly a one-hour train ride from Paris so
you could just zip back, you know, at 7:00or 8:00, you're home by 9:00, good to go.
Yeah, that's how we didit, really, from Paris.
I mean, it's not a TGV, it'snot a... it's a regional train,
but it's an hour and a half.
(05:19):
It's really inexpensive.
I think it was 10 buckseach way or something.
Yeah, because we had a little bit of anadvance ticket, but logistically, I was
just looking, you know, at our budgetso even paying the maximum price at
today's rate, it's 15 euros each way, so30 euros to go, maybe two euros in Paris
to get to Gare Montparnasse, which is inthe Left Bank, the south side of Paris.
(05:43):
Then we maybe like, 20 euros for lunch,it's 10 euros or maybe less than that
for the video tour, 10 euros for anin-person tour, and then if you want to
buy something like a book, 10 or 15 euros.
So you could do the whole thingeasily for about 80 euros.
And I looked at the price of going witha, like a viator tour, which they're
very good, they have very good guides,it was 330 euros per person for a
(06:07):
five-hour tour exactly like what we did.
But, you know, they do have verygood tours and it was private
transportation, so it's a choice.
Right, right.
There are ways to do this inexpensivelyand honestly I don't see the... I
mean, once you get to the cathedral,they have some tours there.
The tour guide we had, I didn't thinkwas... He was a bit of a character.
(06:31):
I'm sure he knew everything there isto know about this cathedral, but he
was a little bit disjointed in hispresentation, let's put it that way.
And there is an older gentlemanfrom England who is the expert,
really, on the Chartres windows,his name is Malcolm Miller.
He's in his 90s now and heonly does very short private
tours, but you can buy his book.
(06:52):
He is truly, you know, he's beenrecognized by France for his contribution
to the history of Chartres, so buyhis book, take a look at it before you
go or after you go, it's excellent.
So what all did you seewhen you went to Chartres?
Since you spent longer, Jennifer, whatare all the things that you enjoyed there?
Well, we left early Friday,so we got there before we
(07:16):
could check in to our Airbnb.
There is a place where you can hirea locker, just to the right of the
courtyard in front of the cathedral.
It was closed in the winter, becauseI saw it whenever we were there,
but in the summer it was open forfive euros you could, you know, we
put two backpacks in one locker.
(07:39):
Then we went to the tourism office toget that map, for the light show later.
Then we went out and walked around thetown, saw the cathedral a little bit.
It's nice to walk along the river, whichour group didn't have time to get down
there, but it is a very pleasant walk.
You can see some of the remnants of one ofthe original ports or gates into the city.
(08:04):
I would recommend that as soon as youarrive in town, you go to the cathedral
to book tickets for a tour of the upperlevels of the cathedral, because it
was sold out for that Friday, but wewere able to book tickets for Saturday.
It's a tour in French, but evenif you don't speak French, it's
(08:25):
really cool to get up in theupper levels of the cathedral.
So it's worth seeing even ifyou can't understand everything.
Also on that Friday, wewent to do the labyrinth.
So this is one of the most famousthings about the Chartres Cathedral,
in the Middle Ages, it was prettycommon for these cathedrals to
have a maze or labyrinth setinto the floor in the stones.
(08:48):
It's a different color of stone.
And pilgrims to that cathedral wouldwalk this path, and it is, I think,
one of the very few cathedrals thathas retained its original labyrinth.
And you can go on Friday, 10:30 AM to 4:45PM and walk this labyrinth in the floor.
(09:09):
You mean today?
Yes.
Let's see, it's between Lent andNovember 1st, you can go on a Friday,
10:30 AM to 4:45 PM, except for theFriday before Easter when it is closed.
Okay.
Yeah, because when we went, therewere pews over the labyrinths.
We could see it, but you couldn'twalk it, because the whole idea was
(09:34):
to have a meditative kind of walk,circular walk around, because typically
pilgrims would walk around the edgesof the cathedral and would just
circumnavigate the whole length andsize of the cathedral, and say prayers,
and stop at every different saint, andsay different prayers and whatever.
(09:55):
Visit the relic that eachspecific cathedral is famous for.
But they also had this circularthing in the center of the cathedral,
which was another opportunity tomeditate and think about whatever
it is that they were thinking about.
But it's a very nice experience, andyou have to imagine it with people who
(10:19):
have been... a cathedral chock-full ofpeople who have been hiking, pilgrims
who are all engaging in this... theonly thing that we can see today that's
kind of similar to that is the Hajj,that the Muslims do where they all walk
around their... Is it called the Hajj?
Maybe it's not.
(10:40):
The Hajj is the name of the pilgrimage.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, they go and they walk aroundthis central, beautiful... I don't
know what it's called, but it'sa similar idea, the walking and
meditating and things like that.
Well, today they still havethe Camino de Santiago.
Okay, it is part of it.
Yeah, that's right, we saw thelittle shell set into the ground.
(11:01):
Yeah, I think most people visiting arenot walking there, but theoretically
you could walk from Paris toChartres as part of the Camino.
What else did you do?
What else did we do?
So we also then, on Friday night, ofcourse, went to see the light show.
On Saturday we went to see Picassiette,which is this very quirky house and garden
(11:26):
that was constructed by this one guy whocame back from World War I and bought this
property in the outskirts of Chartres.
You can walk in 20 or 30 minutes.
And he covered everything in mosaicsmade from broken dishes, and so
it's called Picassiette as a play onwords because of Picasso and Assiette
(11:52):
means plate, I think, in French.
So if you like sort of weird,quirky sights, this is a must-see.
Yeah.
And it's not open year-round.
I wanted to go see it, and they...it closed in the wintertime,
so check the dates of opening.
Again, it's probably starting in Marchor April, and every long weekend and
(12:16):
every school vacation and, like, if yougo at Christmas, I would bet they open
it as well, just around the Christmasschool holiday, because they know
they're going to get more visitors.
So how long does it taketo see the Picassiette?
You said it's about 30 minutes towalk there and back, so an hour walk?
Yeah.
I mean, we were probably there for anhour or so, just kind of taking our time.
(12:36):
It's not real big, but there's alot of little details if you want
to sit and look at the details.
If you really just want to go andsee it real quick, you could be in
and out in 10 minutes, I suppose.
We also went to see Les Fresques deBelair, which is a block of sort of
generic apartment buildings that werepainted with murals, and so they turned
(12:58):
these sort of boring apartment buildingsinto these beautiful public murals.
People actually do live there, so youkind of have to be careful not to,
like, impinge on people's privacy,but if you like murals, which I
do and my friend who went withme also does, that's worth a see.
It's about a 30-minute walk in a differentdirection, so you kind of have to be up
(13:22):
for a lot of walking to do both of those.
Yeah, well, but you could also,I guess, get an Uber to drive
you there and drop you off.
Probably.
I haven't checked to see if there'sUber in Chartres, but yeah, maybe.
The buildings are just residential, soit's a bunch of buildings and each one has
a painting on the outside that is sort ofthemed for the region and for the city.
(13:48):
It's not anything ancient.
I mean, they have one that's sort of anhomage to the sort of the farming area.
There's one that they apparently,I think, have some sort of perfume
production, so these flowers thatthey harvest to make perfume.
There's one that has the maze,the Labyrinthe from Chartres.
(14:10):
It's a lot, so if you areinterested in that kind of
thing, definitely worth the walk.
And how long did you spend there?
30 minutes to an hour again,and again another hour walking.
We're both Parisians and walking30 minutes is not a big deal.
Was there a bus that would, youcould take there or did you not
investigate public transportation?
(14:30):
Yeah, I suppose.
I don't get the impression that there's alot of public transportation in Chartres.
Maybe a little bit.
I think that there's a bus that goesaround the outer edge, where the
original medieval wall used to be.
I think I saw that on a map.
But I don't know aboutout into the suburbs.
That might be a question when yougo to the visitor office, which
(14:52):
I always recommend, like yourfirst stop when you get into town.
They would have information on that,if there was any transportation,
or Ubers or whatever to get around.
Saturday afternoon we did the tourof the upper levels of the cathedral,
which again, highly recommend.
Then we did an audio tour of thecathedral, which was in English.
(15:13):
They have a tour in person inFrench that we did together, but I
preferred the one in English becauseit was more focused, as you said.
The guy who was giving our tourin French was not very balanced.
He spent a lot of time onjust the windows in the front.
And the audio guide took you around tosee more things, to get a more balanced
(15:36):
view of the history of the cathedral.
Yeah, and as someone who does both audioguides and in-person tours, I can tell
you, I forget half of the stuff I intendto talk about when I do an in-person tour.
Because people ask you questions, you getdistracted, something happens, whereas
when you write an audio guide, you justknow exactly, you know, "I'm going to talk
(15:57):
about this, this, and this, and this,"you have to have a structure and... unless
your in-person guide is very funny orvery charming or something, audio tours
tend to be more informative, usually.
And I think one other criticism ofthe in-person guide was they weren't
using audio in-the-ear equipment,so the guide would be talking at
(16:19):
a soft voice, couldn't hear him...
Yeah, or he was walking away from thegroup and talking ahead, and the people
in the back couldn't hear him at all.
Like, even if you have very goodhearing, he wasn't even turning around
to address us some of the time, so yeah.
So get the audio guide.
And that was the end.
We got our luggage and went back to Paris.
(16:42):
Okay.
Very good.
One other point on the tours, theonly way to see the crypt, the under
ground part, which is quite big,is a guided tour with a person.
You cannot just walk down thereon your own, which is unfortunate
because it's a vast area, actually.
There's interesting things down there thatsurvived various fires over the centuries.
(17:02):
So, it's not a can't-miss, butit's nice to see it and that
is the only way to see it.
Yeah, I think if we had been short ontime and had... because we did this.
If we had been short on timeand had not seen it, it wouldn't
have been a tremendous mistake.
I mean, it's interesting but it'snot... I wouldn't say it's the
most interesting thing to do there.
(17:23):
No, I've been there multiple times and I'dnever seen it before, this is the first
time I had an opportunity to see it, so...
Shall we talk a little bit more aboutthe cathedral and what the experience
of visiting the cathedral is, evenif you can't do it the pilgrim way?
Yeah, I think it's fantastic.
I mean, it is this very classic Gothiccathedral with I think the very best
(17:44):
collection of stained-glass windows thattell the entire story of the Creation,
from Creation to the final Judgment.
And these stained-glass windowshave always been intact, and
so they're from the medievalperiod and they are fantastic.
So I mean, you have to work at it.
You really have to get a good look atthe paper and learn how to read them,
(18:06):
pick one out, maybe use one as yourexample, but it is fantastic, you know.
And they are very different from theones in the Sainte-Chapelle because
the ones in the Sainte-Chapelleare made of very small motifs.
So you have these kind ofcircular bits that tell a
story, but they're really small.
(18:26):
It's really hard to tell what thestory is in the Sainte-Chapelle,
whereas in Chartres, it's sized better.
You can understand thewindow with some help.
Most of us are not, you know, trainedto read stained-glass windows.
Most of us would need helphaving things pointed out to us.
(18:46):
But once somebody points it out toyou, you can actually recognize it,
whereas in the Sainte-Chapelle, whoo,you have to have serious binoculars.
And Patricia wants to talkabout the binoculars, so go, go.
Bring binoculars.
Yeah, in one of my other lives,I'm a birder, so I always
(19:07):
have multiple binoculars.
But I have learned, I have a very, asmall pair of what people might call opera
glasses, but they're really quite good.
I take those with me whenever Itravel because there's lots of
buildings in France and WesternEurope where things are very little.
Little tiny things up high, gutterthings, you know, cathedrals,
stained-glass windows, carvings.
(19:27):
And you will, even if you buy a cheappair for, you know, €30, you'll get
your use out of them, so... Especiallywhen you're looking at stained-glass
windows, so highly, highly recommend totake some kind of binoculars with you.
And maybe just a monocular.
Maybe your camera has a great zoomon it, but take something that will
(19:49):
allow you to see, magnify things ata distance with reasonable quality.
Yeah, I agree.
So I tend to use photography, you know,either a big zoom lens or even with my
latest iPhone there, it has enough ofan optical zoom that I could, you know,
zoom into a specific part of the windowthat the guide was telling us about, and
(20:12):
then look at it on my phone, which was,to me, easier than trying to look up.
And if you are used to binoculars,they are fantastic, but if you've
never used binoculars before, I thinkwe're... Most people are more used
to using a phone to take a photo of athing and then enlarge with the phone.
(20:33):
But whatever it is that you want to do,it is good to think ahead of time of how
you're going to actually see those things.
Or you could, I guess you could buy a bookor, you know, there's books you can...
You carried a book as well, Patricia, withsome very good professional photography.
Yeah, there it is.
She's showing it to us.
It just says ChartresCathedral on the front.
(20:53):
Oh, it's the Malcolm book, yeah.
I think the more time you spend aheadto kind of learn a little bit about this
place, the better off you're going to be.
And the other major attractionin the cathedral was the, what do
they call it, the shawl of Mary.
It's called the Santa Camisa of Mary,which is supposedly the shroud that
(21:14):
she wore when she gave birth to Jesus,so that's another holy spot, you know,
one of those reliquaries that peopleneed to look at when they go in there.
So I'm looking at a list of interestingthings in the Chartres Cathedral, and
they mention the Blue Virgin window,which I was able to see because it's
very beautiful and very blue, so it'shard... you know, you can pick it out.
(21:37):
And the other one that theymention is the Zodiac window.
That one I don't remember seeing,or paying attention to particularly.
It's actually near the Blue Mary.
It's just less obviousbecause it has smaller motifs.
It has the 12 signs of theZodiac, and you kind of have to
know what you're looking for.
Okay, okay.
(21:57):
But it's good to know thatit's near there so that you can
concentrate in that area, perhaps.
Okay, yeah.
And our guide was talkingabout the rose window a lot.
Besides that, the overall feeling of thecathedral, because on this trip I spent,
I went inside of Notre Dame several times.
It was fully renovated.
(22:18):
So Chartres, by comparison,felt a little dark.
And they are working on it, right?
Yeah, it's in theprocess of being cleaned.
It was originally painted, and inthe audio tour that I did previously,
they said that about 70% of theoriginal paint had been preserved,
(22:39):
and that the remainder, they weresort of filling in and restoring.
And it's kind of like an off-whitepaint and a white paint, and they
have sort of made it look like bricks.
I guess it is, it's stones, butthey make the stones look more
uniform than they actually are.
So there's like a patternpainted in the ceiling, with this
(23:00):
light-colored paint that was original.
And once they get that finished, I thinkit'll be as bright as Notre Dame is now.
But it's in process, as you say.
Right, so they had some scaffolding insideof the cathedral, and they're probably
going to be working on the outside aswell, which looks quite gray right now.
(23:21):
Yeah, the courtyard was all torn up.
But the outside is an important partto look at, at the cathedral also.
I mean, the royal portal with all ofthe sculptures that go over the portal,
fantastic, you know, storytelling andsculptures to, you don't want to miss.
Yeah, and then in Notre Dame,you have biblical stories
in wooden carvings, right?
(23:44):
And they've been all restoredand they look, they're around the
choir, and they are beautiful.
In Chartres, it's a similaridea but it's in stone carvings,
and they are really intricate.
I always love to see those becausethey are typically a little closer
to eye level, and usually it's easierto tell what story they are telling.
(24:05):
Typically, it's going to be the storiesof the life of Jesus, which is what
you find in cathedrals anyway, right?
I'm looking through my photos of Chartres,it's just a very beautiful cathedral.
And myself, I could have spent two,three hours just in the cathedral
looking at different details, andwe kind of spent that much time
almost because we had the tour.
(24:27):
Oh yeah.
We had two one-hour tours andthen we were there a little
before and a little afterwards.
So yeah, you can easily spendthree, four hours there.
But I will also warn you, it was a coldday, the church is not heated at all.
I think it was colder insidethe church than outside.
Be prepared for weather in... the sameweather or worse, you know, at least
(24:47):
dry, cold weather inside the cathedral.
Yeah, it was... it was damp.
I had all my layers, andI was happy about that.
The surrounding of the cathedral has thisbeautiful medieval houses, it's a big old
plaza with, it's a very pleasant plaza.
I'm sure they use itfor all sorts of things.
(25:08):
We had lunch right acrossfrom the cathedral.
I can't remember the name of the place,it was a lovely restaurant, wasn't it?
Yeah, we just stoppedfor like soup and coffee.
We took some snacks also.
There's a Chocolaterie Royale.
Mm, num, num, num.
Yeah, it's a beautiful little town,and the walk between the train station
(25:33):
and the cathedral is very easy, like,10 minutes, so it's totally doable.
Annie, it's Le Café Serpentwas the place that we stopped?
That was right next to the cathedral.
So a nice view, very nice inside, notvery expensive, a good place to stop
even just for coffee if you need a break.
(25:53):
Yep, yep, I enjoyed that.
Yeah, it's called the SalmonHouse because it has a carved
wooden salmon on the outside.
The visitor's center is alsoa ancient timbered building,
you know, that's preserved.
Right, and Chartres has this cutething, they do like tiny little
mosaics by the names of the streets.
(26:17):
And so Rue du Lait, so Milk Road, hasthis milkmaid pouring milk into something.
I took photos of a few of those.
But a lot of the places where you seethe name of the street, you'll also have
a little mural kind of showing you, Iguess for people who wouldn't know how
(26:39):
to read, that would be good because theycould see what the name of the street is.
And you know, I say that in jest butin Toulouse, in the metro in Toulouse,
they have actually put images, thatare standard images for each metro
stop, because they've noticed thatthere are people who don't know how
to read who can't navigate the metro,and to make it easier for them.
(27:02):
If the station is called Capitole, theyhave a Capitole sign and on all the
maps that they print, they also put thelittle Capitole sign as well as the name.
Similar in the Marais, which is oneof the older districts in Paris, a
shoemaker is on, like, the cornerof a street, and that's where
the shoemaker used to be, so...
Yeah.
... it would be like a street sign.
(27:23):
Yep, yep.
I was going to mention, one of the thingsthat we miss, and I have never been able
to see, there's a museum of stained-glasswindows, the Musée de Vitraux.
Personally very good.
They have ateliers.
They've got, you know, a lot thatyou can learn about stained glass
construction, colors, pigments dyes.
But never made it there, soreason to go back one more time.
(27:44):
Yeah.
There is a big, kind of covered marketarea that was empty when we went.
It's very close to the touristoffice and the Maison du Saumon.
But I'm sure they have alovely market regularly.
And do they have a covered Halles?
Let's see.
Yeah, that was Les Halles, I think.
(28:05):
That was it.
Right.
But that's not covered.
I mean, that's... It has a roof,but it's not like a closed...
Oh, no.
No walls.
No walls, yeah.
Because they usually have... So theyhave Place Billard, yes, which they
have a kind of a Marché de Plein Vent.
Restaurant Bistrot des Halles.
Marché et Halles, Chartres.
Let's see.
Do
(28:30):
they have a covered market, like in thesame way we do in the rest of France?
Place Billard.
No, it looks like it's just thatone kind of semi-covered market.
It's a bit different that way.
From what I can find intwo seconds googling, eh?
Bistrot des Halles.
Plan Carrefour Les Halles.
Place des Halles.
(28:52):
Huh.
And there's probablymore in the summertime.
It's nice weather, I'm sure.
Yes, yes.
All of that stuff is more active.
And weekend, you know?
You always... For the smaller towns,it's good to go on the weekend
because there's a lot more stuffhappening on the weekend, if you can.
And Chartres is open every day, likefrom 8:00 to 7:00 or something like that.
So you can always get in the cathedralunless there's a special event going on.
(29:15):
Right.
And the town looked really cutewith lots of little boutiques.
And I assume, Jennifer, it's very busyin the summer with lots of people out?
Yeah, I mean, it's not as crowded asParis, but there's definitely activity.
Yeah, in the middle of the winter, thereweren't too many people out, obviously.
Yeah, it was dead in the middle of winter.
(29:35):
It's good.
You have everything to yourself, you know?
You just have to dress warm enough.
And we didn't have rain, so thatwas a good part of the weather.
They have a very largemural to Jean Moulin.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they had a couple of muralsas we were walking around the
area next to Chartres Cathedral.
It's a pretty small town.
I don't think you reallywould need more than two days.
(29:58):
Right, right.
Another one of these cute little signsoutside Place de la Poissonnerie.
They have a Gros Minet.
What do you...?
Oh, from Tom and Jerry.
That's...
the cat is Sylvester from Tom and Jerry.
Right, so you have a side view of thecat, and he's staring at the thing
(30:20):
that says Place de la Poissonnerie,the Fish Market Plaza, I guess.
We'll have to put some of thesepictures of what you're talking
about on your show notes.
I took some pictures of some of theones that we didn't get to see earlier,
so I'll send you some of those.
Yeah, I think overall, Chartres is justa very cute town, well worth a day visit.
(30:43):
It's very easy to do.
Yeah, I mean, actually there's a trainevery hour from Gare Montparnasse.
So you really don't even have to planthat much in advance and you can just
buy your ticket when you get there,or just look at the daily schedule
and be flexible about your timing.
Yeah, the only thing you mentionedyou had to book in advance,
(31:03):
Jennifer, was a tour, right?
Well, that was the tour of theupper levels of the cathedral.
And we just went in person on Fridayafternoon and booked it for Saturday.
This is through the Centredes Monuments Nationaux.
(31:23):
And they do have a website.
I looked this morning and therewasn't any way to book it.
But I'm pretty sure I lookedbefore and there was a way.
The website is kind of flaky this morning.
So I would say check to see if youcould book in advance on the website,
even just a day or two in advance.
(31:45):
But if you can't, then you shouldbe able to do it in person, assuming
that you can speak a little bitof French or can sort of write it
on Google Translate to make do.
There were no English guided tours.
I mean, they used to havea lot of tours at Chartres.
And now they just have one tour a day ofthe upper and one tour a day of the crypt.
(32:07):
That's it.
Even in the summer?
No, in the summer they had multiple.
I think it was like sixtours per day or something.
It's just they were bookedwhenever we arrived on Friday.
All the Friday tours were booked andthe Saturday morning tours were booked,
so we got in on Saturday afternoon.
Yeah, that's often the case.
Lots more people visit inthe summer months or school
(32:29):
vacation or long weekends.
And so for those times, you reallyshould look ahead a few days.
You don't need to book it two monthsin advance or six months in advance,
and they probably can't anyway.
But you know, three, four daysin advance, take a look and see.
Yes.
And there is some Americanassociation that supports
Chartres, and they also do tours.
(32:50):
I don't know if they're the ones that dothe English tours or not, but they've been
instrumental in supporting Chartres overthe years, so something to look up online.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just wanted to mention, just since Ihave both of you here and you are very
good about using public transportationin France, that when you use trains in
(33:12):
France, when you're looking at the signsthat show the trains arriving and trains
departing, they are always color-coded.
So, if it's a green backgrounddisplay, these are the trains
arriving, and if it's a blue backgrounddisplay, it's train departing.
(33:33):
If you're in a hurry and you're lookingfor your train look for the blue screens.
Also look for the time it's leavingand the number, because if you're
looking for... if you're at Montparnasseand you're looking for the train
to Chartres, it's not going to sayChartres, it's going to say Le Mans,
because that's the termination point.
Don't be confused by that.
(33:54):
Just know that you'll always belooking for the town you're going to.
And if you booked on yourphone, usually the app will tell
you which platform to go to.
If you enable notificationsand you have a French phone.
Does it have to be a French phone?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
They're not going to send anote to a foreign phone, no.
(34:15):
Huh.
Well, that's unfortunate.
I'm pretty sure my phone is still setto American and it worked for me, but
I can't guarantee that it'll work.
I have a French phone plan and a Frenchphone number, so maybe that's it.
That's it.
Yeah.
No, SNCF is not global at this point.
It's barely French, you know?
(34:38):
It works but you got towork with it, you know.
The alternative that I recommendis Trainline, which is actually was
developed in France, but now it's ownedby somebody else and it has various
language versions and I think it's theuser interface is much better than SNCF.
So, I just use it tolook up data, you know.
Yeah.
And you can import, if you bought aticket, you can import it into your
(34:59):
Trainline or vice versa, you know?
The other reminder, on thetrain be sure you have your ID.
Have your passport or some sort ofofficial ID because they can ask you to
match up your ticket with the person.
Legally you have to have that.
Right, but I would recommend peopletake their driver's license instead
of their passport, because if youlose, if you forget your driver's
(35:21):
license or it gets stolen, that'seasier to replace than a passport.
And I just carry a copy of most ofthese things, which is sufficient.
You know, if they were to get picky,like, "Okay, fine. Send me a fine and I'll
show you I have a real one," you know.
Yeah, because, I mean, we stillhave a problem with pickpockets and
people... And also, a huge problemwith people forgetting their stuff.
Whenever I've ended up introuble losing something, most
(35:45):
of the time, it was my fault.
I forgot it.
I left it behind, you know?
And when you're tired anddistracted by all these beautiful
things around you, it can happen.
Also the train to Chartres,there are no reserved seats.
It's not the TGV so you justget on board and grab a seat.
But when we went, therewere plenty of seats.
(36:06):
It wasn't a problem.
Week days there's hardly ever anyproblem, you know, unless... Late
Friday, early Monday perhaps whena lot of commuters might be going.
All right.
So, on a scale of one to 10, seeing thatyou've done a lot of day trips around
Paris, how would you rate this one?
You've been Auvers-sur-Oise, you'vebeen to Giverny, you've been to
(36:27):
Provins.
Provins.
You've been to all these places.
Where would you put Chartres?
Well, it's number one for Gothiccathedrals, no doubt about it.
If that's your jam, it isthe best thing to go see.
In all of France.
Yeah.
I would give it a highrating if you stay overnight.
I would say just for a day trip,it's kind of like 7 out of 10.
(36:49):
Maybe 9 out of 10 if you're going tostay overnight and see the light show.
Mm-hmm.
So yeah, perhaps plan a little longer.
Because there are places likeGiverny, there's not much point
staying overnight in Giverny, right?
Nothing happens at night.
Or Auvers-sur-Oise isgreat for a day trip.
I wouldn't want to stay overnight there.
Or Provins, you could do two days becausethey do have a lot there, but I did
(37:13):
manage to do everything there in one day.
I'm definitely a one-day daytripper.
I mean, I will leave at the crackof dawn from Paris and get back
late night, jam in everything I can.
So... But that's just me.
Right, so if it's the winter, likeyou mentioned at the beginning,
if it's winter, you can definitelyjust get a later return, and the
light show might have been on.
(37:34):
Like, if you go at Christmastime,they probably start the light show
at 6:00 PM, and if your train'snot till 8:00 or 9:00 PM...
But in the summer, we wereout until, like, 1:00 AM.
Oh, yeah.
So yeah, I would not have wanted to geton a train afterwards, even if they exist.
Yeah I don't think that.
Yeah.
No, no, in the summer, most lightshows don't start till 11:00, or
(37:59):
fireworks, or things like that.
It starts at 11:00.
So by the time it's done, it's 1:00 inthe morning, and yeah, it's too late.
You've got to go to bed.
Go to bed, people.
All right, did we cover it?
I think we covered it.
I was thinking, we didn't have time,but another bonus thing you might be
able to do is to stop before Chartres,because they get... So there's a
(38:21):
Chateau de Madame Maintenon, I think.
Yeah, so there's, her chateau is there.
It's very nice.
I've been there once, too long ago.
But you know, it's on the very sametrain line, so you could get off
there, spend an hour there, jumpback on, go to Chartres, you know.
I like to jam a lot into a day.
So anyway, it's somethingyou can think about.
Yeah, yeah.
That would be, hmm, that wouldmake for a very long day.
(38:42):
I guess if you leave Paris at 8:00, andyou stop at the Chateau de Maintenon,
you're there by 9:30 or something?
Yeah.
Go there for an hour and a half.
Jump back on a train to Chartres.
I suppose you could.
You could, yeah.
But it would have to be on a, youknow, death march by Patricia.
(39:05):
Not everybody appreciates my scheduling.
Wonderful.
All right, ladies.
Thank you so much for sharing.
We had a wonderful time, both goingto Chartres and talking about it.
It's definitely one of those placesin France that has a lot of charm.
Beautiful.
You're welcome, and thanks for having us.
(39:25):
Let's do another trip.
Yes.
We'll plan another one.
I still haven't been to Provins.
Oh, we should do that.
Ooh, did you see the bird show?
The bird show is good.
On the weekends in the summer, they havea lot of activities that are worth seeing.
One of these days.
Merci, ladies.
Okay.
Merci, au revoir.
Au revoir.
Au revoir.
(39:52):
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing that.
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
And a special shout-out thisweek to my new Join Us in France
champions, P Miller and Savio Wong.
(40:14):
Would you join them too?
You can do it for as little as $3 amonth, but if you can afford it, I would
love to have you pledge more so youcan have access to more of the rewards.
And this week I had the pleasureof spending a few hours with
one of my longtime patrons,Dawn, and it was very fun.
So I really, you know, I create arelationship with my patrons, especially
(40:38):
the longtime ones, and so thank youto them and to everybody who joins.
Somebody left this review of my Ilede la Cite VoiceMap tour this week.
"Excellent tour, great pace, andso informative. Just like taking
a stroll except you're learning somuch along the way. A great way
to start exploring this area beforecircling back later to see each site."
(40:59):
Yes, VoiceMap is like taking a privatetour with a human guide who lets you stop
whenever you want, picks you up again atyour leisure, or even goes to a different
point on the map and, like this persondid, you can go back or not go back.
I mean, you could do it any way you like.
You can stop the tour and go in thecathedral or in the venue, or not.
(41:20):
It's entirely up to you and youcannot do that with a live tour guide.
Podcast listeners get a bigdiscount for buying these tours
directly from my website, butyou can also buy them on the app.
If you buy them from me directly,it's best, because I get to keep more
of what you pay instead of givingit to Apple or Google, but it's not
instant if you buy them from me.
(41:40):
It takes a day or two.
So only do it that way ifyou're not in a big hurry.
To use your tour code, open VoiceMap,tap Tour Code at the bottom right,
enter the code, download the tour.
It's as easy as that.
You don't have to use your tour creditimmediately, and you can even listen at
home, so, I think it's a pretty good deal.
If you are planning a trip to Franceand want expert help, you can hire
(42:03):
me as your itinerary consultant.
You can find all of my openingsand the different levels and all of
that at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
Usually I have openingswithin a month or so.
Sometimes it's more like two orthree months, so don't put it off too
much, if you really want to do this.
Let's talk about the Paris Metro tickets.
If you're planning to use publictransportation in or around Paris
(42:26):
over the next couple of years, there'ssomething important to keep in mind.
That familiar paper metro ticket,those little magnetic strip tickets,
are being phased out, and I will tellyou the truth, paper tickets are
being phased out everywhere in France.
The Toulouse metro servicedoesn't give those out anymore.
They do kind of a plasticky card that isreusable instead of the throwaway tickets.
(42:50):
Ile de France Mobilités, which isthe public transit authority for
the Paris region, has announcedthat these cardboard tickets will
gradually disappear as part of theirpush to move everything to digital.
By summer 2026, which is comingfast, paper tickets will no longer
be accepted on metros, RER trains,or Transilien commuter trains.
(43:10):
This phase out has already begun.
It started in May 2024.
About half of all train andmetro stations in the regions
have completely or partiallystopped selling magnetic tickets.
And all stations will stopselling them altogether soon.
I don't know, you know, some placesseem to sell them, some don't, but
(43:31):
don't expect to get them anymore.
If you still have unused paper tickets,you'll have to start using them now.
Some buses and trams will still acceptthem, but only until May 2026 and
only on older validation machines.
After that, they'll be invalid.
You know, you have to find amachine that has a slot where you
(43:52):
can put your ticket and thoseare going to get very, very rare.
Ile de France Mobilités says therewill be a procedure to exchange
unused tickets, but they haven'tannounced how that's going to work yet.
I'm hoping most people don't havethousands of those tickets in a drawer
somewhere, and it'll be fairly easy,you just use the ones that you have.
In the meantime, they recommend switchingto digital options like the Navigo Easy
(44:17):
pass, which is the one I recommend you do.
The Liberté+ card, which is for locals.
Or you can buy a singleticket via your smartphone.
So, if you're holding onto a stackof those little white tickets, this
is your friendly reminder that youneed to use them while you still can,
and it's not going to be much longer.
Paris is honoring women in science.
(44:39):
Paris has taken a bold and along, long overdue step towards
honoring women in science.
Since 1889, the Eiffel Tower hasdisplayed the names of 72 men, engineers,
mathematicians, and scientists, engravedin gold along the edge of the first floor.
It's hard to see, but if you bringbinoculars, which Patricia would
(45:03):
strongly suggest that you do, and Ido too, it's a good thing to have,
you will be able to see those names.
So there are 72 men,but not a single woman.
And that's about to change.
I even chat about that in my VoiceMaptour of the Eiffel Tower, which I
recorded like three, perhaps fouryears ago, so it's been a while,
because it's unconscionable that theydidn't think to include any women.
(45:26):
It's not like there haven'tbeen any women scientists.
They just don't talkabout them, there you go.
So Mayor Anne Hidalgo, in partnershipwith the Societe d'Exploitation de la
Tour Eiffel, this is the company thatruns the Eiffel Tower, and the Femmes
et Sciences Association has announcedan initiative to add the names of
women scientists to the monument.
(45:47):
A scientific committee will overseethe project to ensure that the
additions respect the heritageof Gustave Eiffel's masterpiece.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're going to do it right.
I mean, they need to do it right.
One of the groups behind this push iscalled Les Quarante Soeurs d'Hypatie,
named after Hypatia of Alexandria, atrailblazing mathematician, astronomer,
(46:07):
and philosopher from the 4th century.
Hypatia taught in Alexandria during a timeof deep cultural and political change,
and she became one of the earliest knownfemale scientists in recorded history.
Today her name stands out asa powerful symbol of women's
contribution to knowledge,often unrecognized but enduring.
(46:30):
The names added to the Eiffel Towerwill help rewrite that narrative.
They'll raise awareness of the manybrilliant women who shaped science
and inspired future generationsto see themselves in that legacy.
At last.
How do you choose restaurants in France?
Okay, I wanted to chat about thisbecause people... you know, I talk
(46:51):
to visitors all the time, every daypretty much, and this is a question
that comes up every single time.
How do you choose restaurants in France?
Somebody called Dana wrotethis question on Facebook.
" I was listening to one of the olderpodcasts, and in it Annie says we
should never go to a restaurant in aguidebook." And this made her laugh,
(47:12):
because I called out a particularguidebook that Dana has used frequently.
So wondering where do youall get dining advice?
We'll be in Paris and Normandy thissummer, and I don't want to be locked
in, but I want to have some optionson my plan, because hungry teenagers.
Thoughts?
Thanks."
Okay.
She didn't specify what episode itwas, but I have said in the past, and I
(47:36):
probably will keep saying, that it's nota great idea to just go to the restaurants
that are recommended in the Rick Stevesbooks, because they are sold to so many
people that these places just get a lotof business without trying very hard.
And that's, that definestouristy, you know.
If you are in a place where it's onlygoing to be one-time dining, if they
(48:00):
want to maximize profits, they're goingto make things as cheaply as possible
and as easily as possible, becausethey're never going to see you again.
That's just the reality.
There are some people who are notgoing to try and maximize profits,
but, you know, most people do, yeah.
It's just how it goes.
So I would recommend, if you wanta guidebook to help you with your
(48:23):
dining recommendations, perhapsuse the Green Michelin Guide.
It would be way better.
And it's also used by French peoplemore, so, you know, it will adhere to
standards that matter in France, okay?
Because we are French.
That's what we like.
But if I know nothing about therestaurants in a particular town,
(48:45):
what I do is... And if I don't havethe Green Guide with me, which I have
a copy, but I don't carry it with meall the time, I read Google reviews,
usually in French, because I'm French.
I mean, English will do as well,and probably you can get AI
translations of these reviews anyway.
And I do this a few days before I arrive.
That's the trick is don't... Ifyou're going to be picky, don't
(49:09):
be picky right this second.
Just look a few days before you arrive.
I look for words like cuisinesoignee, which means to do it
carefully, to do it thoughtfully.
I also look, and I pay particularattention to whether or not
reviewers say it's best to reserve.
If they don't mention it,then probably it's okay.
(49:29):
But if they say you shouldreserve, then really believe them.
And I do this a few days before,not six months before, okay?
Because reserving a restaurant sixmonths before is usually pointless.
They don't know if you're reallygoing to come and they don't
want to take your reservation.
So most of the time they justwant reservations within that week.
The end.
(49:49):
Unless it's, again, a very specialrestaurant that world-renowned blah,
blah, blah, people book months in advance.
That happens as well, but I'massuming most of the meals you're
going to have in France are notgoing to be in that sort of place.
I don't try ever the cheapestrestaurants or the most expensive.
Usually, if you're going to go to thecheapest restaurant, it's going to
(50:10):
be pizza and kebabs, I mean, that'sfine once in a while, but, you know,
you don't want to eat like that.
I go to the middle ofthe road kind of pricing.
These days in France, you really shouldn'texpect to eat lunch for less than 20.
That's really bottom dollar.
And 30 is little bit better.
Dinner will be around 50 probablyfor a Cuisine Soignée type of place.
(50:34):
I don't go to the most expensive onesbecause typically, they will take longer.
If you go to a restaurant where you'regoing to pay 200 bucks per person, you're
going to be there for three hours, andI don't want to be there for three hours
typically, especially when I'm touring.
It's just, you know, too long.
I do look at food photos onlineto see if anything is a put off
(50:57):
to me because I have issues.
Like I don't like the frothy stuffthey put at the bottom of the plate.
It looks like spit to me.
I don't want it.
I want nothing to do with it.
Most people don't mind at all.
They think it's lovely.
It makes it look cool, andI... no no no no, not me.
Perhaps you have your own kindof issues with specific things.
(51:20):
So do look at the photos,it can be informative.
And I never ever schlep acrosstown just to eat at a restaurant
that I read about somewhere.
That is just not something I do,because, I guess I don't visit
France specifically for the food.
If you visit France specificallyfor the food, then maybe it
would make sense to do that.
But I would only do that forsomething special emotionally, like
(51:42):
something I have... Like if youwent there when you were a kid or
if your parents had their, you know,honeymoon meal there or something.
I don't know.
Something that has emotional resonancewith you, but just because you read about
it somewhere, I don't care that much.
And I also keep in mind that it's afact that some restaurants are really,
really good at getting reviews,while others don't try at all.
(52:06):
So, eh, true story, I was in arestaurant in the 10th Arrondissement,
perhaps it was the 11th.
We were going to a show.
So this is an area that hasa ton of little theaters.
It was a comedy show.
And I was with my husband andmy sister and her boyfriend.
And the four of us went outto dinner after the show.
(52:29):
We got a little tipsy.
We had apéro, we had a couple of bottlesof wine, we were all on vacation,
ha ha ha, it was all fun, great.
At the end of the meal the waitressasked us if we would leave reviews.
She got really pretty forceful.
She grabbed my phone and showed meexactly where I should write my review.
So some restaurants area bit, you know, yeah.
(52:52):
And some restaurants are excellent,would never think to even mention that
maybe they'd like a review, you know.
And it's a fact also thatrestaurants change hands very often.
So ignore the older reviews.
They don't mean much.
But if you know that in a specific townthere's a restaurant that's been there
(53:12):
for 30 years, there is a good reasonwhy it's been there for 30 years, okay?
Even if they're not good at reviews,if it's been in the same hands, the
same team for 30 years, you can be surethat they're doing something right.
And in Lyon, for example, there areseveral restaurants that have been,
(53:32):
you know, long running restaurants.
And it's worth trying those if you wantto try some genuine French, kind of
gastronomy without spending a fortune.
My thanks to podcast editors Anneand Christian Cotovan who produced
the transcripts and the audio.
Next week on the podcast, an episodewith Elyse Rivin of Toulouse Guided
(53:55):
Walks about the beautiful city of Annecyin the French Alps, a place I had the
pleasure of visiting quite recently.
She has been there, too, andit's absolutely beautiful,
picture perfect place.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
(54:16):
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
This is Join Us in France, episode555, cinq cent cinquante-cinq.
Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Usin France is the podcast where we take
a conversational journey through thebeauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today, I bring you a conversation withPatricia Perry and Jennifer Gruenke
about a fun trip the three of uswent on between Paris and Chartres.
(00:40):
We share our tips on what to see anddo from the awe-inspiring Chartres
Cathedral to charming local attractions.
A great episode for people who want totake an easy day trip from Paris with
a little help from Join Us in France.
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support
of lovely humans like you.
(01:00):
You book itinerary consults, takemy VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun
in my electric car, come to theboot camp, or slip me a few euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
Want to keep me going and skip the ads?
There's a link for that in the show notes.
And head to joinusinfrance.com/boutiqueto purchase any of my services,
(01:22):
and thank you so much.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Jennifer and
Patricia, I'll discuss three topics.
This is to make up for the times whenthere is no time for the magazine.
Number one is changes comingto Paris Metro tickets.
These changes have been coming fora while, but now they're serious.
(01:45):
Paris honoring women in science, andlisten up, how to choose a restaurant
in Paris, or in France for that matter.
If you'd like all the links with thefull transcript of the episode where
we spell all these words correctly,all these mysterious French spelling,
you'll find everything on the pagethat lists all the episodes by month
(02:08):
at joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
Plural, there are many, many of them.
And if you'd like a handy summary ofthe conversation with all the useful
links, subscribe to the newsletterat joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
It is the best way to stay in the loop.
(02:37):
Bonjour Patricia Perry and JenniferGruenke, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Bonjour Annie.
Bonjour, tout le monde.
Lovely to see you both.
So today we're going to talk aboutChartres, the beautiful, beautiful city
of Chartres not too far from Paris.
And we are going to specificallydiscuss it as a day trip from Paris,
(02:57):
for people who perhaps spend a littlelonger in Paris and have some time to
go explore more outside of the city.
Jennifer, you... so we went togetherthis winter, and enjoyed that very much,
but you've been there before, right?
You had a summer trip there as well.
Right.
In July, I went with a friend andwe stayed overnight so that we could
(03:21):
see the lights on the cathedral.
That's probably a good idea, right?
Yeah, I think if you're going to take thetime to go to Chartres, the highlight of
the trip for us was seeing the Chartresen Lumieres, I think is what they call it.
They have these projectors, largecolored projectors, and so there is a
video that is tailored to the cathedraland it gives the history of the
(03:48):
cathedral from the building through,you know, there was a fire, through
the World Wars and up until modern day.
And then in addition to that, they havelights in other places in the town.
And there is a map that you canget at the tourist office that
shows you all the places to go.
Is that a free thing or doyou have to get tickets?
(04:11):
No, it's free.
There is a little tourist train thatwill take you around and that you have
to pay for, but if you walk, it's free.
Right.
And so typically activities likethis happen in the summer months,
but also around Christmas, aroundschool vacations very often.
When we have those wonderful long weekendsin the month of May, they know they're
(04:34):
going to have more visitors and so theytypically have them at those times.
But I would recommend that youcheck with the tourist office
before planning a thing like this.
They don't typically publish aschedule of exactly when we're going
to do it next year or whatever.
But this is what you can expect,and if you check with the tourist
office, they can give you moredetails as the time comes.
(04:58):
And, a bonus for going in the dead ofwinter is that you could do this in one
day because it gets dark at 5:00, and it'sonly a one-hour train ride from Paris so
you could just zip back, you know, at 7:00or 8:00, you're home by 9:00, good to go.
Yeah, that's how we didit, really, from Paris.
I mean, it's not a TGV, it'snot a... it's a regional train,
but it's an hour and a half.
(05:19):
It's really inexpensive.
I think it was 10 buckseach way or something.
Yeah, because we had a little bit of anadvance ticket, but logistically, I was
just looking, you know, at our budgetso even paying the maximum price at
today's rate, it's 15 euros each way, so30 euros to go, maybe two euros in Paris
to get to Gare Montparnasse, which is inthe Left Bank, the south side of Paris.
(05:43):
Then we maybe like, 20 euros for lunch,it's 10 euros or maybe less than that
for the video tour, 10 euros for anin-person tour, and then if you want to
buy something like a book, 10 or 15 euros.
So you could do the whole thingeasily for about 80 euros.
And I looked at the price of going witha, like a viator tour, which they're
very good, they have very good guides,it was 330 euros per person for a
(06:07):
five-hour tour exactly like what we did.
But, you know, they do have verygood tours and it was private
transportation, so it's a choice.
Right, right.
There are ways to do this inexpensivelyand honestly I don't see the... I
mean, once you get to the cathedral,they have some tours there.
The tour guide we had, I didn't thinkwas... He was a bit of a character.
(06:31):
I'm sure he knew everything there isto know about this cathedral, but he
was a little bit disjointed in hispresentation, let's put it that way.
And there is an older gentlemanfrom England who is the expert,
really, on the Chartres windows,his name is Malcolm Miller.
He's in his 90s now and heonly does very short private
tours, but you can buy his book.
(06:52):
He is truly, you know, he's beenrecognized by France for his contribution
to the history of Chartres, so buyhis book, take a look at it before you
go or after you go, it's excellent.
So what all did you seewhen you went to Chartres?
Since you spent longer, Jennifer, whatare all the things that you enjoyed there?
Well, we left early Friday,so we got there before we
(07:16):
could check in to our Airbnb.
There is a place where you can hirea locker, just to the right of the
courtyard in front of the cathedral.
It was closed in the winter, becauseI saw it whenever we were there,
but in the summer it was open forfive euros you could, you know, we
put two backpacks in one locker.
(07:39):
Then we went to the tourism office toget that map, for the light show later.
Then we went out and walked around thetown, saw the cathedral a little bit.
It's nice to walk along the river, whichour group didn't have time to get down
there, but it is a very pleasant walk.
You can see some of the remnants of one ofthe original ports or gates into the city.
(08:04):
I would recommend that as soon as youarrive in town, you go to the cathedral
to book tickets for a tour of the upperlevels of the cathedral, because it
was sold out for that Friday, but wewere able to book tickets for Saturday.
It's a tour in French, but evenif you don't speak French, it's
(08:25):
really cool to get up in theupper levels of the cathedral.
So it's worth seeing even ifyou can't understand everything.
Also on that Friday, wewent to do the labyrinth.
So this is one of the most famousthings about the Chartres Cathedral,
in the Middle Ages, it was prettycommon for these cathedrals to
have a maze or labyrinth setinto the floor in the stones.
(08:48):
It's a different color of stone.
And pilgrims to that cathedral wouldwalk this path, and it is, I think,
one of the very few cathedrals thathas retained its original labyrinth.
And you can go on Friday, 10:30 AM to 4:45PM and walk this labyrinth in the floor.
(09:09):
You mean today?
Yes.
Let's see, it's between Lent andNovember 1st, you can go on a Friday,
10:30 AM to 4:45 PM, except for theFriday before Easter when it is closed.
Okay.
Yeah, because when we went, therewere pews over the labyrinths.
We could see it, but you couldn'twalk it, because the whole idea was
(09:34):
to have a meditative kind of walk,circular walk around, because typically
pilgrims would walk around the edgesof the cathedral and would just
circumnavigate the whole length andsize of the cathedral, and say prayers,
and stop at every different saint, andsay different prayers and whatever.
(09:55):
Visit the relic that eachspecific cathedral is famous for.
But they also had this circularthing in the center of the cathedral,
which was another opportunity tomeditate and think about whatever
it is that they were thinking about.
But it's a very nice experience, andyou have to imagine it with people who
(10:19):
have been... a cathedral chock-full ofpeople who have been hiking, pilgrims
who are all engaging in this... theonly thing that we can see today that's
kind of similar to that is the Hajj,that the Muslims do where they all walk
around their... Is it called the Hajj?
Maybe it's not.
(10:40):
The Hajj is the name of the pilgrimage.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, they go and they walk aroundthis central, beautiful... I don't
know what it's called, but it'sa similar idea, the walking and
meditating and things like that.
Well, today they still havethe Camino de Santiago.
Okay, it is part of it.
Yeah, that's right, we saw thelittle shell set into the ground.
(11:01):
Yeah, I think most people visiting arenot walking there, but theoretically
you could walk from Paris toChartres as part of the Camino.
What else did you do?
What else did we do?
So we also then, on Friday night, ofcourse, went to see the light show.
On Saturday we went to see Picassiette,which is this very quirky house and garden
(11:26):
that was constructed by this one guy whocame back from World War I and bought this
property in the outskirts of Chartres.
You can walk in 20 or 30 minutes.
And he covered everything in mosaicsmade from broken dishes, and so
it's called Picassiette as a play onwords because of Picasso and Assiette
(11:52):
means plate, I think, in French.
So if you like sort of weird,quirky sights, this is a must-see.
Yeah.
And it's not open year-round.
I wanted to go see it, and they...it closed in the wintertime,
so check the dates of opening.
Again, it's probably starting in Marchor April, and every long weekend and
(12:16):
every school vacation and, like, if yougo at Christmas, I would bet they open
it as well, just around the Christmasschool holiday, because they know
they're going to get more visitors.
So how long does it taketo see the Picassiette?
You said it's about 30 minutes towalk there and back, so an hour walk?
Yeah.
I mean, we were probably there for anhour or so, just kind of taking our time.
(12:36):
It's not real big, but there's alot of little details if you want
to sit and look at the details.
If you really just want to go andsee it real quick, you could be in
and out in 10 minutes, I suppose.
We also went to see Les Fresques deBelair, which is a block of sort of
generic apartment buildings that werepainted with murals, and so they turned
(12:58):
these sort of boring apartment buildingsinto these beautiful public murals.
People actually do live there, so youkind of have to be careful not to,
like, impinge on people's privacy,but if you like murals, which I
do and my friend who went withme also does, that's worth a see.
It's about a 30-minute walk in a differentdirection, so you kind of have to be up
(13:22):
for a lot of walking to do both of those.
Yeah, well, but you could also,I guess, get an Uber to drive
you there and drop you off.
Probably.
I haven't checked to see if there'sUber in Chartres, but yeah, maybe.
The buildings are just residential, soit's a bunch of buildings and each one has
a painting on the outside that is sort ofthemed for the region and for the city.
(13:48):
It's not anything ancient.
I mean, they have one that's sort of anhomage to the sort of the farming area.
There's one that they apparently,I think, have some sort of perfume
production, so these flowers thatthey harvest to make perfume.
There's one that has the maze,the Labyrinthe from Chartres.
(14:10):
It's a lot, so if you areinterested in that kind of
thing, definitely worth the walk.
And how long did you spend there?
30 minutes to an hour again,and again another hour walking.
We're both Parisians and walking30 minutes is not a big deal.
Was there a bus that would, youcould take there or did you not
investigate public transportation?
(14:30):
Yeah, I suppose.
I don't get the impression that there's alot of public transportation in Chartres.
Maybe a little bit.
I think that there's a bus that goesaround the outer edge, where the
original medieval wall used to be.
I think I saw that on a map.
But I don't know aboutout into the suburbs.
That might be a question when yougo to the visitor office, which
(14:52):
I always recommend, like yourfirst stop when you get into town.
They would have information on that,if there was any transportation,
or Ubers or whatever to get around.
Saturday afternoon we did the tourof the upper levels of the cathedral,
which again, highly recommend.
Then we did an audio tour of thecathedral, which was in English.
(15:13):
They have a tour in person inFrench that we did together, but I
preferred the one in English becauseit was more focused, as you said.
The guy who was giving our tourin French was not very balanced.
He spent a lot of time onjust the windows in the front.
And the audio guide took you around tosee more things, to get a more balanced
(15:36):
view of the history of the cathedral.
Yeah, and as someone who does both audioguides and in-person tours, I can tell
you, I forget half of the stuff I intendto talk about when I do an in-person tour.
Because people ask you questions, you getdistracted, something happens, whereas
when you write an audio guide, you justknow exactly, you know, "I'm going to talk
(15:57):
about this, this, and this, and this,"you have to have a structure and... unless
your in-person guide is very funny orvery charming or something, audio tours
tend to be more informative, usually.
And I think one other criticism ofthe in-person guide was they weren't
using audio in-the-ear equipment,so the guide would be talking at
(16:19):
a soft voice, couldn't hear him...
Yeah, or he was walking away from thegroup and talking ahead, and the people
in the back couldn't hear him at all.
Like, even if you have very goodhearing, he wasn't even turning around
to address us some of the time, so yeah.
So get the audio guide.
And that was the end.
We got our luggage and went back to Paris.
(16:42):
Okay.
Very good.
One other point on the tours, theonly way to see the crypt, the under
ground part, which is quite big,is a guided tour with a person.
You cannot just walk down thereon your own, which is unfortunate
because it's a vast area, actually.
There's interesting things down there thatsurvived various fires over the centuries.
(17:02):
So, it's not a can't-miss, butit's nice to see it and that
is the only way to see it.
Yeah, I think if we had been short ontime and had... because we did this.
If we had been short on timeand had not seen it, it wouldn't
have been a tremendous mistake.
I mean, it's interesting but it'snot... I wouldn't say it's the
most interesting thing to do there.
(17:23):
No, I've been there multiple times and I'dnever seen it before, this is the first
time I had an opportunity to see it, so...
Shall we talk a little bit more aboutthe cathedral and what the experience
of visiting the cathedral is, evenif you can't do it the pilgrim way?
Yeah, I think it's fantastic.
I mean, it is this very classic Gothiccathedral with I think the very best
(17:44):
collection of stained-glass windows thattell the entire story of the Creation,
from Creation to the final Judgment.
And these stained-glass windowshave always been intact, and
so they're from the medievalperiod and they are fantastic.
So I mean, you have to work at it.
You really have to get a good look atthe paper and learn how to read them,
(18:06):
pick one out, maybe use one as yourexample, but it is fantastic, you know.
And they are very different from theones in the Sainte-Chapelle because
the ones in the Sainte-Chapelleare made of very small motifs.
So you have these kind ofcircular bits that tell a
story, but they're really small.
(18:26):
It's really hard to tell what thestory is in the Sainte-Chapelle,
whereas in Chartres, it's sized better.
You can understand thewindow with some help.
Most of us are not, you know, trainedto read stained-glass windows.
Most of us would need helphaving things pointed out to us.
(18:46):
But once somebody points it out toyou, you can actually recognize it,
whereas in the Sainte-Chapelle, whoo,you have to have serious binoculars.
And Patricia wants to talkabout the binoculars, so go, go.
Bring binoculars.
Yeah, in one of my other lives,I'm a birder, so I always
(19:07):
have multiple binoculars.
But I have learned, I have a very, asmall pair of what people might call opera
glasses, but they're really quite good.
I take those with me whenever Itravel because there's lots of
buildings in France and WesternEurope where things are very little.
Little tiny things up high, gutterthings, you know, cathedrals,
stained-glass windows, carvings.
(19:27):
And you will, even if you buy a cheappair for, you know, €30, you'll get
your use out of them, so... Especiallywhen you're looking at stained-glass
windows, so highly, highly recommend totake some kind of binoculars with you.
And maybe just a monocular.
Maybe your camera has a great zoomon it, but take something that will
(19:49):
allow you to see, magnify things ata distance with reasonable quality.
Yeah, I agree.
So I tend to use photography, you know,either a big zoom lens or even with my
latest iPhone there, it has enough ofan optical zoom that I could, you know,
zoom into a specific part of the windowthat the guide was telling us about, and
(20:12):
then look at it on my phone, which was,to me, easier than trying to look up.
And if you are used to binoculars,they are fantastic, but if you've
never used binoculars before, I thinkwe're... Most people are more used
to using a phone to take a photo of athing and then enlarge with the phone.
(20:33):
But whatever it is that you want to do,it is good to think ahead of time of how
you're going to actually see those things.
Or you could, I guess you could buy a bookor, you know, there's books you can...
You carried a book as well, Patricia, withsome very good professional photography.
Yeah, there it is.
She's showing it to us.
It just says ChartresCathedral on the front.
(20:53):
Oh, it's the Malcolm book, yeah.
I think the more time you spend aheadto kind of learn a little bit about this
place, the better off you're going to be.
And the other major attractionin the cathedral was the, what do
they call it, the shawl of Mary.
It's called the Santa Camisa of Mary,which is supposedly the shroud that
(21:14):
she wore when she gave birth to Jesus,so that's another holy spot, you know,
one of those reliquaries that peopleneed to look at when they go in there.
So I'm looking at a list of interestingthings in the Chartres Cathedral, and
they mention the Blue Virgin window,which I was able to see because it's
very beautiful and very blue, so it'shard... you know, you can pick it out.
(21:37):
And the other one that theymention is the Zodiac window.
That one I don't remember seeing,or paying attention to particularly.
It's actually near the Blue Mary.
It's just less obviousbecause it has smaller motifs.
It has the 12 signs of theZodiac, and you kind of have to
know what you're looking for.
Okay, okay.
(21:57):
But it's good to know thatit's near there so that you can
concentrate in that area, perhaps.
Okay, yeah.
And our guide was talkingabout the rose window a lot.
Besides that, the overall feeling of thecathedral, because on this trip I spent,
I went inside of Notre Dame several times.
It was fully renovated.
(22:18):
So Chartres, by comparison,felt a little dark.
And they are working on it, right?
Yeah, it's in theprocess of being cleaned.
It was originally painted, and inthe audio tour that I did previously,
they said that about 70% of theoriginal paint had been preserved,
(22:39):
and that the remainder, they weresort of filling in and restoring.
And it's kind of like an off-whitepaint and a white paint, and they
have sort of made it look like bricks.
I guess it is, it's stones, butthey make the stones look more
uniform than they actually are.
So there's like a patternpainted in the ceiling, with this
(23:00):
light-colored paint that was original.
And once they get that finished, I thinkit'll be as bright as Notre Dame is now.
But it's in process, as you say.
Right, so they had some scaffolding insideof the cathedral, and they're probably
going to be working on the outside aswell, which looks quite gray right now.
(23:21):
Yeah, the courtyard was all torn up.
But the outside is an important partto look at, at the cathedral also.
I mean, the royal portal with all ofthe sculptures that go over the portal,
fantastic, you know, storytelling andsculptures to, you don't want to miss.
Yeah, and then in Notre Dame,you have biblical stories
in wooden carvings, right?
(23:44):
And they've been all restoredand they look, they're around the
choir, and they are beautiful.
In Chartres, it's a similaridea but it's in stone carvings,
and they are really intricate.
I always love to see those becausethey are typically a little closer
to eye level, and usually it's easierto tell what story they are telling.
(24:05):
Typically, it's going to be the storiesof the life of Jesus, which is what
you find in cathedrals anyway, right?
I'm looking through my photos of Chartres,it's just a very beautiful cathedral.
And myself, I could have spent two,three hours just in the cathedral
looking at different details, andwe kind of spent that much time
almost because we had the tour.
(24:27):
Oh yeah.
We had two one-hour tours andthen we were there a little
before and a little afterwards.
So yeah, you can easily spendthree, four hours there.
But I will also warn you, it was a coldday, the church is not heated at all.
I think it was colder insidethe church than outside.
Be prepared for weather in... the sameweather or worse, you know, at least
(24:47):
dry, cold weather inside the cathedral.
Yeah, it was... it was damp.
I had all my layers, andI was happy about that.
The surrounding of the cathedral has thisbeautiful medieval houses, it's a big old
plaza with, it's a very pleasant plaza.
I'm sure they use itfor all sorts of things.
(25:08):
We had lunch right acrossfrom the cathedral.
I can't remember the name of the place,it was a lovely restaurant, wasn't it?
Yeah, we just stoppedfor like soup and coffee.
We took some snacks also.
There's a Chocolaterie Royale.
Mm, num, num, num.
Yeah, it's a beautiful little town,and the walk between the train station
(25:33):
and the cathedral is very easy, like,10 minutes, so it's totally doable.
Annie, it's Le Café Serpentwas the place that we stopped?
That was right next to the cathedral.
So a nice view, very nice inside, notvery expensive, a good place to stop
even just for coffee if you need a break.
(25:53):
Yep, yep, I enjoyed that.
Yeah, it's called the SalmonHouse because it has a carved
wooden salmon on the outside.
The visitor's center is alsoa ancient timbered building,
you know, that's preserved.
Right, and Chartres has this cutething, they do like tiny little
mosaics by the names of the streets.
(26:17):
And so Rue du Lait, so Milk Road, hasthis milkmaid pouring milk into something.
I took photos of a few of those.
But a lot of the places where you seethe name of the street, you'll also have
a little mural kind of showing you, Iguess for people who wouldn't know how
(26:39):
to read, that would be good because theycould see what the name of the street is.
And you know, I say that in jest butin Toulouse, in the metro in Toulouse,
they have actually put images, thatare standard images for each metro
stop, because they've noticed thatthere are people who don't know how
to read who can't navigate the metro,and to make it easier for them.
(27:02):
If the station is called Capitole, theyhave a Capitole sign and on all the
maps that they print, they also put thelittle Capitole sign as well as the name.
Similar in the Marais, which is oneof the older districts in Paris, a
shoemaker is on, like, the cornerof a street, and that's where
the shoemaker used to be, so...
Yeah.
... it would be like a street sign.
(27:23):
Yep, yep.
I was going to mention, one of the thingsthat we miss, and I have never been able
to see, there's a museum of stained-glasswindows, the Musée de Vitraux.
Personally very good.
They have ateliers.
They've got, you know, a lot thatyou can learn about stained glass
construction, colors, pigments dyes.
But never made it there, soreason to go back one more time.
(27:44):
Yeah.
There is a big, kind of covered marketarea that was empty when we went.
It's very close to the touristoffice and the Maison du Saumon.
But I'm sure they have alovely market regularly.
And do they have a covered Halles?
Let's see.
Yeah, that was Les Halles, I think.
(28:05):
That was it.
Right.
But that's not covered.
I mean, that's... It has a roof,but it's not like a closed...
Oh, no.
No walls.
No walls, yeah.
Because they usually have... So theyhave Place Billard, yes, which they
have a kind of a Marché de Plein Vent.
Restaurant Bistrot des Halles.
Marché et Halles, Chartres.
Let's see.
Do
(28:30):
they have a covered market, like in thesame way we do in the rest of France?
Place Billard.
No, it looks like it's just thatone kind of semi-covered market.
It's a bit different that way.
From what I can find intwo seconds googling, eh?
Bistrot des Halles.
Plan Carrefour Les Halles.
Place des Halles.
(28:52):
Huh.
And there's probablymore in the summertime.
It's nice weather, I'm sure.
Yes, yes.
All of that stuff is more active.
And weekend, you know?
You always... For the smaller towns,it's good to go on the weekend
because there's a lot more stuffhappening on the weekend, if you can.
And Chartres is open every day, likefrom 8:00 to 7:00 or something like that.
So you can always get in the cathedralunless there's a special event going on.
(29:15):
Right.
And the town looked really cutewith lots of little boutiques.
And I assume, Jennifer, it's very busyin the summer with lots of people out?
Yeah, I mean, it's not as crowded asParis, but there's definitely activity.
Yeah, in the middle of the winter, thereweren't too many people out, obviously.
Yeah, it was dead in the middle of winter.
(29:35):
It's good.
You have everything to yourself, you know?
You just have to dress warm enough.
And we didn't have rain, so thatwas a good part of the weather.
They have a very largemural to Jean Moulin.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they had a couple of muralsas we were walking around the
area next to Chartres Cathedral.
It's a pretty small town.
I don't think you reallywould need more than two days.
(29:58):
Right, right.
Another one of these cute little signsoutside Place de la Poissonnerie.
They have a Gros Minet.
What do you...?
Oh, from Tom and Jerry.
That's...
the cat is Sylvester from Tom and Jerry.
Right, so you have a side view of thecat, and he's staring at the thing
(30:20):
that says Place de la Poissonnerie,the Fish Market Plaza, I guess.
We'll have to put some of thesepictures of what you're talking
about on your show notes.
I took some pictures of some of theones that we didn't get to see earlier,
so I'll send you some of those.
Yeah, I think overall, Chartres is justa very cute town, well worth a day visit.
(30:43):
It's very easy to do.
Yeah, I mean, actually there's a trainevery hour from Gare Montparnasse.
So you really don't even have to planthat much in advance and you can just
buy your ticket when you get there,or just look at the daily schedule
and be flexible about your timing.
Yeah, the only thing you mentionedyou had to book in advance,
(31:03):
Jennifer, was a tour, right?
Well, that was the tour of theupper levels of the cathedral.
And we just went in person on Fridayafternoon and booked it for Saturday.
This is through the Centredes Monuments Nationaux.
(31:23):
And they do have a website.
I looked this morning and therewasn't any way to book it.
But I'm pretty sure I lookedbefore and there was a way.
The website is kind of flaky this morning.
So I would say check to see if youcould book in advance on the website,
even just a day or two in advance.
(31:45):
But if you can't, then you shouldbe able to do it in person, assuming
that you can speak a little bitof French or can sort of write it
on Google Translate to make do.
There were no English guided tours.
I mean, they used to havea lot of tours at Chartres.
And now they just have one tour a day ofthe upper and one tour a day of the crypt.
(32:07):
That's it.
Even in the summer?
No, in the summer they had multiple.
I think it was like sixtours per day or something.
It's just they were bookedwhenever we arrived on Friday.
All the Friday tours were booked andthe Saturday morning tours were booked,
so we got in on Saturday afternoon.
Yeah, that's often the case.
Lots more people visit inthe summer months or school
(32:29):
vacation or long weekends.
And so for those times, you reallyshould look ahead a few days.
You don't need to book it two monthsin advance or six months in advance,
and they probably can't anyway.
But you know, three, four daysin advance, take a look and see.
Yes.
And there is some Americanassociation that supports
Chartres, and they also do tours.
(32:50):
I don't know if they're the ones that dothe English tours or not, but they've been
instrumental in supporting Chartres overthe years, so something to look up online.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just wanted to mention, just since Ihave both of you here and you are very
good about using public transportationin France, that when you use trains in
(33:12):
France, when you're looking at the signsthat show the trains arriving and trains
departing, they are always color-coded.
So, if it's a green backgrounddisplay, these are the trains
arriving, and if it's a blue backgrounddisplay, it's train departing.
(33:33):
If you're in a hurry and you're lookingfor your train look for the blue screens.
Also look for the time it's leavingand the number, because if you're
looking for... if you're at Montparnasseand you're looking for the train
to Chartres, it's not going to sayChartres, it's going to say Le Mans,
because that's the termination point.
Don't be confused by that.
(33:54):
Just know that you'll always belooking for the town you're going to.
And if you booked on yourphone, usually the app will tell
you which platform to go to.
If you enable notificationsand you have a French phone.
Does it have to be a French phone?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
They're not going to send anote to a foreign phone, no.
(34:15):
Huh.
Well, that's unfortunate.
I'm pretty sure my phone is still setto American and it worked for me, but
I can't guarantee that it'll work.
I have a French phone plan and a Frenchphone number, so maybe that's it.
That's it.
Yeah.
No, SNCF is not global at this point.
It's barely French, you know?
(34:38):
It works but you got towork with it, you know.
The alternative that I recommendis Trainline, which is actually was
developed in France, but now it's ownedby somebody else and it has various
language versions and I think it's theuser interface is much better than SNCF.
So, I just use it tolook up data, you know.
Yeah.
And you can import, if you bought aticket, you can import it into your
(34:59):
Trainline or vice versa, you know?
The other reminder, on thetrain be sure you have your ID.
Have your passport or some sort ofofficial ID because they can ask you to
match up your ticket with the person.
Legally you have to have that.
Right, but I would recommend peopletake their driver's license instead
of their passport, because if youlose, if you forget your driver's
(35:21):
license or it gets stolen, that'seasier to replace than a passport.
And I just carry a copy of most ofthese things, which is sufficient.
You know, if they were to get picky,like, "Okay, fine. Send me a fine and I'll
show you I have a real one," you know.
Yeah, because, I mean, we stillhave a problem with pickpockets and
people... And also, a huge problemwith people forgetting their stuff.
Whenever I've ended up introuble losing something, most
(35:45):
of the time, it was my fault.
I forgot it.
I left it behind, you know?
And when you're tired anddistracted by all these beautiful
things around you, it can happen.
Also the train to Chartres,there are no reserved seats.
It's not the TGV so you justget on board and grab a seat.
But when we went, therewere plenty of seats.
(36:06):
It wasn't a problem.
Week days there's hardly ever anyproblem, you know, unless... Late
Friday, early Monday perhaps whena lot of commuters might be going.
All right.
So, on a scale of one to 10, seeing thatyou've done a lot of day trips around
Paris, how would you rate this one?
You've been Auvers-sur-Oise, you'vebeen to Giverny, you've been to
(36:27):
Provins.
Provins.
You've been to all these places.
Where would you put Chartres?
Well, it's number one for Gothiccathedrals, no doubt about it.
If that's your jam, it isthe best thing to go see.
In all of France.
Yeah.
I would give it a highrating if you stay overnight.
I would say just for a day trip,it's kind of like 7 out of 10.
(36:49):
Maybe 9 out of 10 if you're going tostay overnight and see the light show.
Mm-hmm.
So yeah, perhaps plan a little longer.
Because there are places likeGiverny, there's not much point
staying overnight in Giverny, right?
Nothing happens at night.
Or Auvers-sur-Oise isgreat for a day trip.
I wouldn't want to stay overnight there.
Or Provins, you could do two days becausethey do have a lot there, but I did
(37:13):
manage to do everything there in one day.
I'm definitely a one-day daytripper.
I mean, I will leave at the crackof dawn from Paris and get back
late night, jam in everything I can.
So... But that's just me.
Right, so if it's the winter, likeyou mentioned at the beginning,
if it's winter, you can definitelyjust get a later return, and the
light show might have been on.
(37:34):
Like, if you go at Christmastime,they probably start the light show
at 6:00 PM, and if your train'snot till 8:00 or 9:00 PM...
But in the summer, we wereout until, like, 1:00 AM.
Oh, yeah.
So yeah, I would not have wanted to geton a train afterwards, even if they exist.
Yeah I don't think that.
Yeah.
No, no, in the summer, most lightshows don't start till 11:00, or
(37:59):
fireworks, or things like that.
It starts at 11:00.
So by the time it's done, it's 1:00 inthe morning, and yeah, it's too late.
You've got to go to bed.
Go to bed, people.
All right, did we cover it?
I think we covered it.
I was thinking, we didn't have time,but another bonus thing you might be
able to do is to stop before Chartres,because they get... So there's a
(38:21):
Chateau de Madame Maintenon, I think.
Yeah, so there's, her chateau is there.
It's very nice.
I've been there once, too long ago.
But you know, it's on the very sametrain line, so you could get off
there, spend an hour there, jumpback on, go to Chartres, you know.
I like to jam a lot into a day.
So anyway, it's somethingyou can think about.
Yeah, yeah.
That would be, hmm, that wouldmake for a very long day.
(38:42):
I guess if you leave Paris at 8:00, andyou stop at the Chateau de Maintenon,
you're there by 9:30 or something?
Yeah.
Go there for an hour and a half.
Jump back on a train to Chartres.
I suppose you could.
You could, yeah.
But it would have to be on a, youknow, death march by Patricia.
(39:05):
Not everybody appreciates my scheduling.
Wonderful.
All right, ladies.
Thank you so much for sharing.
We had a wonderful time, both goingto Chartres and talking about it.
It's definitely one of those placesin France that has a lot of charm.
Beautiful.
You're welcome, and thanks for having us.
(39:25):
Let's do another trip.
Yes.
We'll plan another one.
I still haven't been to Provins.
Oh, we should do that.
Ooh, did you see the bird show?
The bird show is good.
On the weekends in the summer, they havea lot of activities that are worth seeing.
One of these days.
Merci, ladies.
Okay.
Merci, au revoir.
Au revoir.
Au revoir.
(39:52):
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing that.
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
And a special shout-out thisweek to my new Join Us in France
champions, P Miller and Savio Wong.
(40:14):
Would you join them too?
You can do it for as little as $3 amonth, but if you can afford it, I would
love to have you pledge more so youcan have access to more of the rewards.
And this week I had the pleasureof spending a few hours with
one of my longtime patrons,Dawn, and it was very fun.
So I really, you know, I create arelationship with my patrons, especially
(40:38):
the longtime ones, and so thank youto them and to everybody who joins.
Somebody left this review of my Ilede la Cite VoiceMap tour this week.
"Excellent tour, great pace, andso informative. Just like taking
a stroll except you're learning somuch along the way. A great way
to start exploring this area beforecircling back later to see each site."
(40:59):
Yes, VoiceMap is like taking a privatetour with a human guide who lets you stop
whenever you want, picks you up again atyour leisure, or even goes to a different
point on the map and, like this persondid, you can go back or not go back.
I mean, you could do it any way you like.
You can stop the tour and go in thecathedral or in the venue, or not.
(41:20):
It's entirely up to you and youcannot do that with a live tour guide.
Podcast listeners get a bigdiscount for buying these tours
directly from my website, butyou can also buy them on the app.
If you buy them from me directly,it's best, because I get to keep more
of what you pay instead of givingit to Apple or Google, but it's not
instant if you buy them from me.
(41:40):
It takes a day or two.
So only do it that way ifyou're not in a big hurry.
To use your tour code, open VoiceMap,tap Tour Code at the bottom right,
enter the code, download the tour.
It's as easy as that.
You don't have to use your tour creditimmediately, and you can even listen at
home, so, I think it's a pretty good deal.
If you are planning a trip to Franceand want expert help, you can hire
(42:03):
me as your itinerary consultant.
You can find all of my openingsand the different levels and all of
that at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
Usually I have openingswithin a month or so.
Sometimes it's more like two orthree months, so don't put it off too
much, if you really want to do this.
Let's talk about the Paris Metro tickets.
If you're planning to use publictransportation in or around Paris
(42:26):
over the next couple of years, there'ssomething important to keep in mind.
That familiar paper metro ticket,those little magnetic strip tickets,
are being phased out, and I will tellyou the truth, paper tickets are
being phased out everywhere in France.
The Toulouse metro servicedoesn't give those out anymore.
They do kind of a plasticky card that isreusable instead of the throwaway tickets.
(42:50):
Ile de France Mobilités, which isthe public transit authority for
the Paris region, has announcedthat these cardboard tickets will
gradually disappear as part of theirpush to move everything to digital.
By summer 2026, which is comingfast, paper tickets will no longer
be accepted on metros, RER trains,or Transilien commuter trains.
(43:10):
This phase out has already begun.
It started in May 2024.
About half of all train andmetro stations in the regions
have completely or partiallystopped selling magnetic tickets.
And all stations will stopselling them altogether soon.
I don't know, you know, some placesseem to sell them, some don't, but
(43:31):
don't expect to get them anymore.
If you still have unused paper tickets,you'll have to start using them now.
Some buses and trams will still acceptthem, but only until May 2026 and
only on older validation machines.
After that, they'll be invalid.
You know, you have to find amachine that has a slot where you
(43:52):
can put your ticket and thoseare going to get very, very rare.
Ile de France Mobilités says therewill be a procedure to exchange
unused tickets, but they haven'tannounced how that's going to work yet.
I'm hoping most people don't havethousands of those tickets in a drawer
somewhere, and it'll be fairly easy,you just use the ones that you have.
In the meantime, they recommend switchingto digital options like the Navigo Easy
(44:17):
pass, which is the one I recommend you do.
The Liberté+ card, which is for locals.
Or you can buy a singleticket via your smartphone.
So, if you're holding onto a stackof those little white tickets, this
is your friendly reminder that youneed to use them while you still can,
and it's not going to be much longer.
Paris is honoring women in science.
(44:39):
Paris has taken a bold and along, long overdue step towards
honoring women in science.
Since 1889, the Eiffel Tower hasdisplayed the names of 72 men, engineers,
mathematicians, and scientists, engravedin gold along the edge of the first floor.
It's hard to see, but if you bringbinoculars, which Patricia would
(45:03):
strongly suggest that you do, and Ido too, it's a good thing to have,
you will be able to see those names.
So there are 72 men,but not a single woman.
And that's about to change.
I even chat about that in my VoiceMaptour of the Eiffel Tower, which I
recorded like three, perhaps fouryears ago, so it's been a while,
because it's unconscionable that theydidn't think to include any women.
(45:26):
It's not like there haven'tbeen any women scientists.
They just don't talkabout them, there you go.
So Mayor Anne Hidalgo, in partnershipwith the Societe d'Exploitation de la
Tour Eiffel, this is the company thatruns the Eiffel Tower, and the Femmes
et Sciences Association has announcedan initiative to add the names of
women scientists to the monument.
(45:47):
A scientific committee will overseethe project to ensure that the
additions respect the heritageof Gustave Eiffel's masterpiece.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're going to do it right.
I mean, they need to do it right.
One of the groups behind this push iscalled Les Quarante Soeurs d'Hypatie,
named after Hypatia of Alexandria, atrailblazing mathematician, astronomer,
(46:07):
and philosopher from the 4th century.
Hypatia taught in Alexandria during a timeof deep cultural and political change,
and she became one of the earliest knownfemale scientists in recorded history.
Today her name stands out asa powerful symbol of women's
contribution to knowledge,often unrecognized but enduring.
(46:30):
The names added to the Eiffel Towerwill help rewrite that narrative.
They'll raise awareness of the manybrilliant women who shaped science
and inspired future generationsto see themselves in that legacy.
At last.
How do you choose restaurants in France?
Okay, I wanted to chat about thisbecause people... you know, I talk
(46:51):
to visitors all the time, every daypretty much, and this is a question
that comes up every single time.
How do you choose restaurants in France?
Somebody called Dana wrotethis question on Facebook.
" I was listening to one of the olderpodcasts, and in it Annie says we
should never go to a restaurant in aguidebook." And this made her laugh,
(47:12):
because I called out a particularguidebook that Dana has used frequently.
So wondering where do youall get dining advice?
We'll be in Paris and Normandy thissummer, and I don't want to be locked
in, but I want to have some optionson my plan, because hungry teenagers.
Thoughts?
Thanks."
Okay.
She didn't specify what episode itwas, but I have said in the past, and I
(47:36):
probably will keep saying, that it's nota great idea to just go to the restaurants
that are recommended in the Rick Stevesbooks, because they are sold to so many
people that these places just get a lotof business without trying very hard.
And that's, that definestouristy, you know.
If you are in a place where it's onlygoing to be one-time dining, if they
(48:00):
want to maximize profits, they're goingto make things as cheaply as possible
and as easily as possible, becausethey're never going to see you again.
That's just the reality.
There are some people who are notgoing to try and maximize profits,
but, you know, most people do, yeah.
It's just how it goes.
So I would recommend, if you wanta guidebook to help you with your
(48:23):
dining recommendations, perhapsuse the Green Michelin Guide.
It would be way better.
And it's also used by French peoplemore, so, you know, it will adhere to
standards that matter in France, okay?
Because we are French.
That's what we like.
But if I know nothing about therestaurants in a particular town,
(48:45):
what I do is... And if I don't havethe Green Guide with me, which I have
a copy, but I don't carry it with meall the time, I read Google reviews,
usually in French, because I'm French.
I mean, English will do as well,and probably you can get AI
translations of these reviews anyway.
And I do this a few days before I arrive.
That's the trick is don't... Ifyou're going to be picky, don't
(49:09):
be picky right this second.
Just look a few days before you arrive.
I look for words like cuisinesoignee, which means to do it
carefully, to do it thoughtfully.
I also look, and I pay particularattention to whether or not
reviewers say it's best to reserve.
If they don't mention it,then probably it's okay.
(49:29):
But if they say you shouldreserve, then really believe them.
And I do this a few days before,not six months before, okay?
Because reserving a restaurant sixmonths before is usually pointless.
They don't know if you're reallygoing to come and they don't
want to take your reservation.
So most of the time they justwant reservations within that week.
The end.
(49:49):
Unless it's, again, a very specialrestaurant that world-renowned blah,
blah, blah, people book months in advance.
That happens as well, but I'massuming most of the meals you're
going to have in France are notgoing to be in that sort of place.
I don't try ever the cheapestrestaurants or the most expensive.
Usually, if you're going to go to thecheapest restaurant, it's going to
(50:10):
be pizza and kebabs, I mean, that'sfine once in a while, but, you know,
you don't want to eat like that.
I go to the middle ofthe road kind of pricing.
These days in France, you really shouldn'texpect to eat lunch for less than 20.
That's really bottom dollar.
And 30 is little bit better.
Dinner will be around 50 probablyfor a Cuisine Soignée type of place.
(50:34):
I don't go to the most expensive onesbecause typically, they will take longer.
If you go to a restaurant where you'regoing to pay 200 bucks per person, you're
going to be there for three hours, andI don't want to be there for three hours
typically, especially when I'm touring.
It's just, you know, too long.
I do look at food photos onlineto see if anything is a put off
(50:57):
to me because I have issues.
Like I don't like the frothy stuffthey put at the bottom of the plate.
It looks like spit to me.
I don't want it.
I want nothing to do with it.
Most people don't mind at all.
They think it's lovely.
It makes it look cool, andI... no no no no, not me.
Perhaps you have your own kindof issues with specific things.
(51:20):
So do look at the photos,it can be informative.
And I never ever schlep acrosstown just to eat at a restaurant
that I read about somewhere.
That is just not something I do,because, I guess I don't visit
France specifically for the food.
If you visit France specificallyfor the food, then maybe it
would make sense to do that.
But I would only do that forsomething special emotionally, like
(51:42):
something I have... Like if youwent there when you were a kid or
if your parents had their, you know,honeymoon meal there or something.
I don't know.
Something that has emotional resonancewith you, but just because you read about
it somewhere, I don't care that much.
And I also keep in mind that it's afact that some restaurants are really,
really good at getting reviews,while others don't try at all.
(52:06):
So, eh, true story, I was in arestaurant in the 10th Arrondissement,
perhaps it was the 11th.
We were going to a show.
So this is an area that hasa ton of little theaters.
It was a comedy show.
And I was with my husband andmy sister and her boyfriend.
And the four of us went outto dinner after the show.
(52:29):
We got a little tipsy.
We had apéro, we had a couple of bottlesof wine, we were all on vacation,
ha ha ha, it was all fun, great.
At the end of the meal the waitressasked us if we would leave reviews.
She got really pretty forceful.
She grabbed my phone and showed meexactly where I should write my review.
So some restaurants area bit, you know, yeah.
(52:52):
And some restaurants are excellent,would never think to even mention that
maybe they'd like a review, you know.
And it's a fact also thatrestaurants change hands very often.
So ignore the older reviews.
They don't mean much.
But if you know that in a specific townthere's a restaurant that's been there
(53:12):
for 30 years, there is a good reasonwhy it's been there for 30 years, okay?
Even if they're not good at reviews,if it's been in the same hands, the
same team for 30 years, you can be surethat they're doing something right.
And in Lyon, for example, there areseveral restaurants that have been,
(53:32):
you know, long running restaurants.
And it's worth trying those if you wantto try some genuine French, kind of
gastronomy without spending a fortune.
My thanks to podcast editors Anneand Christian Cotovan who produced
the transcripts and the audio.
Next week on the podcast, an episodewith Elyse Rivin of Toulouse Guided
(53:55):
Walks about the beautiful city of Annecyin the French Alps, a place I had the
pleasure of visiting quite recently.
She has been there, too, andit's absolutely beautiful,
picture perfect place.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
(54:16):
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
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