France: Day 3, Chartres

It’s been a great pace so far. No plans, no sched­ule, no goals, no stress. I did­n’t want to cram a bunch of activ­i­ties on this trip; I’d much rather take it easy and enjoy myself, so I can absorb as much of the cul­ture as pos­si­ble.

People would ask me if I was excit­ed to come here, and I could­n’t say that I was, prob­a­bly because there was­n’t any­thing spe­cif­ic I felt com­pelled to see. Sure, I’ll prob­a­bly end up vis­it­ing some of the touristy, must-see sites in Paris, but more impor­tant­ly, I want to live the life, to be a local for a while.

girl buying bread

The defin­i­tive image of France: a young girl dressed smart­ly in cha­peau and tights waves to the bak­er, who comes from around the counter to hold the door for her as she leaves the store. Of uncor­rupt­ed inno­cence, sim­ple rit­u­als, and fresh bread.

teacups

Entertaining. When you don’t know how many peo­ple are going to show up, you put out a lot of teacups.

corner building

 

Crafts store

Atelier Lisouire, a crafts store that cov­ers almost any craft you can think of, from scrap­book­ing to fine art to cal­lig­ra­phy. Un étage pour les loisirs-créat­ifs, la jon­g­lerie et les cerf-volants de sport.

cutting baguette

Stale baguettes are cut into cubes and used for sal­ads or soups.

Misun, Emmanuelle, and Frederic

 

bad parking

Nice park­ing, jerk­store.

family on street

A fam­i­ly moseys down a street. The mar­ket in Chartres is almost dead on Sundays until around noon, and it’s the per­fect time to go out with­out hav­ing to deal with the crush of peo­ple and cars.

feet on stones

The nar­row roads are often a patch­work of dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als, and some­times even dif­fer­ent stones.

flower market

Even on a cold and rainy day, the flower mar­ket is thriv­ing.

Frederic and Misun walking

 

house truffles

House truf­fles.

La Vieille Maison

La Vieille Maison, a restau­rant in a 14th cen­tu­ry house. Seen at the end of the alley is the Chartres Cathedral.

La Vieille Maison menu

Menu for La Vielle Maison.

Akio on the couch

 

Europe 2010 travel diaries

3 comments

  1. Hey Jeff

    I can’t remem­ber how I stumpled upon your blog, but I have been fol­low­ing it for a few months now. Really enjoy read­ing it or should I say view it, since what caught my eye back when I first encoun­tered the blog, was your pho­tog­ra­phy. I real­ly like your style and they way you cap­ture almost any moment in a state of sta­tis. It is almost as if the world decid­ed to stop and let you take a pic­ture.

    Now I also have a small ques­tion! In the pic­ture you have tak­en of the street with the cob­ble­stones and your shoes. What kind of shoes are they? I real­ly like them, but I prob­a­bly will not be able to buy them in a store here in Denmark, so it will be a hunt on the inter­net to try to find then even­tu­al­ly.

    Warm regards,

    Jesper

    Copenhagen, Denmark

    • Thanks! I tend to be a poor pho­tog­ra­ph­er when it comes to sta­t­ic shots; I’m just not cre­ative in that way. But I found a knack for cap­tur­ing sub­tle moments when they’re happening…or maybe I’m just lucky, because it’s nev­er some­thing I can plan for.

      My shoes are Dr. Martens. They’re some­what expen­sive, but extreme­ly durable. I once wore a pair every day for about six years before the soles bare­ly start­ed to split. Since it’s such a big inter­na­tion­al brand, I’m sure you’ll have absolute­ly no prob­lem find­ing them wher­ev­er you are (I bought this pair in Hong Kong).

  2. Thanks for the quick reply! I’m sure I will be able to find known­ing they are Dr. Martens. I should have recog­nised that, since I have had quite a few pairs in years back.

    Enjoy your stay in France :)

    -Jesper

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