Biking to Chartres

[frenchmystiquetour]

Today's bike journey will take us to Chartres. I've ridden a few different ways to get to Chartres, once starting in Rambouillet and once starting in Epernon, so I'll combine both trips into one report. Starting at Gare Montparnasse the bike and I took the train to Rambouillet.

Rambouillet is a wealthy bedroom suburb of Paris that was for most of its history a town inhabited by and under the control of nobles with royal connections. The first written mention of a château here dates to the early 12th century and like most châteaux it has been constantly expanded and modified throughout the centuries. Minor historical events dot its history, such as the death of Francis I at the château in 1547. The château became an official residence of royalty when Louis XVI purchased it and its associated domain in 1783. In 1785 Louis had a dairy farm constructed for Marie-Antoinette so she could continue to pretend to be a peasant, with merino sheep imported from Spain. With renovations being carried out at Versailles, making it temporarily uninhabitable, Louis moved the royal court to Rambouillet and undertook further works there as well. It was also chosen by Louis due to its noted hunting grounds, a sport for which Louis had a great affection.

Abandoned and neglected during the revolution, even serving as a grain depot, Napoléon restores the château and makes it one of his residences. At the end of the restoration of the monarchy Charles X abdicates his throne from here. Being the main town in its canton (district) and due to its proximity to Paris, the arrival of the railroad helped to create a period of modernization in the town with improvements such as gas lighting, public water and many new municipal buildings.

In 1896 the château becomes a summer residence for the Presidents of France. Heads of state are entertained here and continue to engage in hunting, a tradition for which the château had always been noted. In modern times the château has served as a place for international meetings with Nikita Krushchev being received here in 1960 and Leonid Brezhnev in 1973. It was the meeting place for a major economic summit in 1975 with 6 heads of state attending. Mitterand received Gorbachev here in 1990 for a Franco-Russian summit and Boris Yeltsin was received again in 1995. In 1999 during the crisis in The Balkans NATO met here and drafted the Rambouillet Agreement, which called for restoration of autonomy for Kosovo. The former Yugoslavia's refusal to sign the agreement resulted in NATO airstrikes shortly thereafter. There's a whole lot more nuance to this agreement and the parties involved than what I'm covering here but this report is supposed to be about a bike ride, not international politics.

So there's some basic history for you. Time for a ride around this lovely little town.




















Here's a look around the château and its grounds.

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That's all for Rambouillet. Time to bike off into the unknown, and around here much of the unknown looks like this.

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The unknown agricultural plains are occasionally interrupted by unknown towns, such as this one.












These unknown villages don't usually have more than a few hundred inhabitants so back into the countryside I went.




Those of you who have read my prior bike trip reports are probably shocked that the weather is not absolutely perfect with clear blue skies, like there usually are in my reports. As a matter of fact a little bit of rain started to come down at this point in my ride so I hopped off the bike and did a little sun dance to entice the gods of weather to cease their attempts at ruining my perfect streak of rainless bike rides. It worked.




I passed through a few more tiny villages and some more countryside.

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I had planned my ride to go from Rambouillet to a designated scenic road which started in the town of Gallardon. Gallardon is a nice little town, one of the larger ones in the area, and probably the place where anyone within a 10-15km radius comes to find essential services, amenities and shopping. It had the look of ancient times with some half-timbered buildings, a few narrow windy streets, a gothic church, the ruined remains of a medieval tower and it was perched just above a nice little river with park space along it banks. There were a few cafés and restaurants too.

Here we have a 16th century ''Maison de Bois'' (half-timbered house would be a good English translation) known as the ''Fief des Marmousets''. Classified as a historic monument, it is noted for the wide variety of ornamentation in its half-timbered framing which (according to the town website at least) makes it one of the most beautiful houses sculpted in wood in all of France.






I haven't seen all the half-timbered houses in France but I've seen enough of them to qualify as an amateur critic. I must admit to being a bit skeptical of the town's claim in regards to this one but it's still a nice example of the style. Here's another one.



Of course what medieval town worth its salt doesn't have a gothic church.







Actually the church is a blend of Roman, Gothic and renaissance in style with a bit of modern renovation thrown in for good measure.


Here we have The Tower of Gallardon, locally referred to as the ''Epaule de Gallardon'' (Shoulder of Gallardon).





The tower was built in the 12th century and was a home for the guards of the local baron as well as a lookout to survey the surrounding countryside for threats. It was part of a larger fortified castle that was destroyed by the Dauphin, Charles VII, during a siege of Gallardon in 1421. I guess that means the English and/or their local allies must have been occupying the town around that time during The Hundred Years War.

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Here are a few other glimpses around town.
















Much like any town in America would be proud to boast the existence of a house where George Washington slept the same can be said of Louis XIV in France. There does exist in Gallardon a house where Louis XIV slept. I bet you're dying to know why he slept here. Well I'll tell you then. He was visiting a local quarry which was to source the stone for his planned aquaduct in the nearby town of Maintenon. The aquaduct was to facilitate transport of water to Versailles. We'll talk about the aquaduct in a little while but for now we're going to leave Gallardon and see some small villages and country scenery between here and Maintenon.

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Below is a photo of the aquaduct of Maintenon I spoke of earlier.



Well that's not the whole aquaduct but since it was never completed there is no whole aquaduct. It was meant to carry water from the Eure River to Versailles, some 80km away. Louis had used up all the other water sources near the palace and to insure his guests could continue to see water shooting out of statues he needed to come up with something big. To be combined with what would be ''The Canal of the Eure'' the whole project was meant to be one of Louis' great peacetime works. Construction on the aquaduct began in 1685 with 30,000 workers employed and the head of the project being the noted engineer Vauban, famous for his coastline military forts if you didn't know. The aquaduct was to be in three tiers but only the first tier and its 47 arches were completed. Work ceased a few years after the project was begun as it was massively expensive and mounting war costs deprived the project of its needed funds. I'm sure the taxpayers footing the bill weren't that upset. Now they could focus on the war the king had gotten them into.

I'm going to take a little diversion here to the second bike ride to Chartres I had mentioned earlier. I'll start in Eperonon, continue on to Maintenon and then pick up where I just left off.

Epernon first enters noteworthy history when the sons of Hugues Capet erect a fortress there in the 11th century. On his death in 1060, Amaury de Montfort passed on a monastery he inherited to a monk friend from Chartres who founded a priory dedicated to Saint Thomas. The grounds and a few buildings still remain. In the 12th century the hills around the town were covered in vineyards and wine production became part of the local economy. Somewhere in town there exists the 12th century wine cellar (perhaps in the priory) but I didn't see it. Like every other town of import in France it has an old church, The Church of Saint Peter, which has Romanesque and early gothic origins mixed with 16th century renovation.

Not a whole lot of noteworthy historical events or figures are attached to the history of the town but it does earn prominence in the 15th century for its stone quarries as the quality of the sandstone being extracted was noted for its durability. Remember the aquaduct in Maintenon? If you do then you can probably guess that I was going to tell you that some of its stone was sourced from here. When the railway linking Epernon to Paris opened in 1849, Haussmann became a large consumer of stone from Epernon for use in his Parisian building projects. Today it is a nice little town with some medieval charm and a few restaurants, cafés etc. Not very big but pleasant.

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After leaving Epernon I pedalled through a combination of litte anonymous villages and countryside on my way to Maintenon.

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If you've seen my other bike trip reports and the kinds of scenery I usually ride through then this last photo montage may not quite measure up to those standards. The reason being that the whole area encircling Chartres is more or less a huge, flat, wide open plain and the population tends to be scattered out in tiny little hamlets with only the nearby towns of Epernon, Rambouillet, Gallardon and Nogent-le-Roi having any substantial population. I really wanted to bike to Chartres but since I wanted to spend time there exploring I didn't want to spend too much of the day on the bike, like maybe 30km of riding as opposed to my usual 60+km. Well Chartres just happened to be encircled by about 30km of the plains I just mentioned. I try not to take my bike any more than an hour by train from Paris because including the return trip it's already two hours of a day spent on a train. Rambouillet and Epernon are about 30 and 40 minutes by train from Paris and are the two stops that put you within 30+-km from Chartres. So if you want to bike to Chartres but really don't want to bike more than 30km and also allow yourself enough time to visit Chartres then the route(s) I just took and will continue to follow is really your best option for the most scenic and enjoyable ride.

Although the scenery wasn't overwhelmingly spectacular it was still pleasant, the roads are flat and easy to ride and there are few cars so it's an altogether peaceful atmosphere. And there are still going to be a few more upcoming attractions and pleasant stretches of scenery so I don't want to sell myself short on the quality of the ride. There's still more to see, which you will find out about now as we return to the town of Maintenon, where I had previously left off on my other ride.

Anyone reasonably familiar with the history of Louis XIV's love interests has probably heard of Madame de Maintenon, one of the wives of Louis, and it is this town from which her title is derived. Like about a million other towns in France Maintenon is first recorded historically in the early 12th century when mention is made of a lord of Maintenon. The first fortified castle arose at this time and by the 13th century there was also a keep. In the early 16th century the château comes to the possession of one of the creditors of the lords of Maintenon, who was also the treasurer for Louis XII and finance minister of Francis I, Jean Cotterau. The château is expanded, giving it a square shape with towers at the corners. The next major changes come when the château is purchased by Madame de Maintenon in 1674. Having raised the illegitimate children of the king and his mistress she became the beneficiary of money, property and other rights and privileges sufficient enough for her to purchase the château.

Just beause she's an interesting historical figure and because the towns fame is so inextricably linked to her here's a quick background of the Madame de Maintenon. Supposedly born in a prison to a father of noble stature (her mother was the jailers daughter), in her adolescence relations of her family introduce her to Parisian society where she meets and marries the noted poet, Paul Scarron, whose salon attracted all the bigshots. Scarron was a cripple (rheumatoid arthritis and/or partial paralysis) who had supposedly contracted his infirmity due to an unfortunate bathing experience in the Seine in the winter. Myself, I would think a bathing experience in the Seine would be unfortunate in any season.

Becoming an influential figure at the salon, Madame Scarron (not Maintenon yet) makes friends with all the important ladies (I don't want to name drop), one of whom is Madame de Montespan, the kings mistress. She earns the mistress' trust enough to raise hers and the kings illegitimate children, in discretion of course. For her services the king and his mistress each gave her large sums of money, allowing her the ability to purchase the château. The king falls for her and starts spending much of his time with her, while the royal bastards spent time being raised at the château. Hmmmm, do you think Madame de Montespan is starting to think she made a poor choice for a governess? Shortly thereafter in a secret ceremony Madame de Maintenon married the king and the wedding celebration was held at the Château de Maintenon. The rest, as they say, is history.

The king did frequent the château often to visit the bastards (I love saying that word) and Racine wrote the works ''Esther'' and ''Athalie'' at the château (not that I've read those books) and I'm sure lots of other exciting things must have happened there but I don't know about them. I'm a casual cycling enthusiast, not a Rhodes scholar so my knowledge of literary masterpieces and historical detail doesn't extend much beyond the limits of the widely read classics such as ''Bambi'' and historical intrigue involving things like ''The Bermuda Triangle''. If you'd like to learn more about either of those two topics just ask me.

So, I'm on the bike again and we're going for a cruise through Maintenon. Here's what it looks like.














The château is rather impressive, with large grounds, and is open to the public but I didn't go in. The view is somewhat obstructed from street view by buildings and trees so this is the best I could do.



As you can see, there is renovation of some sort going on.






That's all for Maintenon.




Since I've got pictures from two different rides for the next few photos I'll insert some of the ones from the ride I took in the fall since the colors are nicer and it was a sunny day.














Okay, it's time for the next attraction. The sign in the next picture will explain everything.





If you don't know about dolmens, menhirs and megaliths in general then click on this link:

anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=france&action=display&thread=4008

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The dolmens that are on display here are the exposed elements of an archaeological dig, which is ongoing so you can see the various trenches that have been dug and there are accompanying informational signs that explain what you are looking at. On this site were constructd a few dolmens and menhirs. Although the original construction date is not known due to later disturbance, it is likely prior to 1,500B.C. to give a conservative estimate.

What is interesting about the dolmens here is that they were later re-used as a necropolis during Merovingien times, around the end of the 5th to early 6th centuryA.D. Since the end of the megalithic period is generally considered to be around 1,500B.C. it is interesting to see the function of utilizing a dolmen as a funerary monument still being practiced a couple of thousand years after its original construction. Some sort of pagan traditions must have been carried on for many generations prior to the Christianization of France, when many of these remnants of the past were torn down by zealous Christians, as well as others who saw them as handy building material and farmers who saw them as a nuisance in their fields.

Let's have a look at the dolmens and the dig site.





As you can see, this one obviously suffered various levels of destruction over the centuries. There are also informational signs for the visitor.



Often times, local nicknames have been given to megalithic features, many of which refer to the mythical figure in the Gargantua series of works from the 16th century writer Rabelais. That is the case with the menhir nearby.






Sometimes dolmens and menhirs were given nicknames based on their appearance. People sometimes imagined their physical shapes to resemble certain types of animals or saw otherwise fantastic images in their appearance, such as a devils footprint. As the former research director for a somewhat non-mainstream archaeological organization from time to time I used to receive photos from enthused advocates who sent me pictures of rocks in which they saw fantastic images, most of which were penises and vaginas. There were none of those types of images here today but apparently this dolmen resembles a frog.





Does everyone see the frog?





Leaving the megaliths behind I continued on my way. There wasn't much of serious historic significance until I got to Chartres so once again we'll ride through anonymous villages and countryside and if I'm feeling lively perhaps I'll break up the photo montage with a comment or two.

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At this point in the journey I stumbled onto a dedicated bike path that was supposed to lead me to Chartres, according to what the sign I saw said. I left the little country roads and got on to the bike path, hoping it would lead me to Chartres because this detour was unplanned.

















That's the end of the bike path. I had finally arrived at the outskirts of Chartres and for a brief period had to get on the main road into town, but that doesn't last long before you arrive at the historic downtown.

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Now that I've reached this famous town with its world renowned gothic cathedral I bet you're all expecting a big history lesson. But you're wrong. When you arrive at such an internationally famous place as Versailles or Chartres or the Eiffel Tower what more is there that you can say that isn't already common knowledge, especially if you're just a regular guy like me. There are audio-guided tours available from the tourist office that will lead you through the cathedral and another that will lead you through the town. You'll learn everything you need to know by renting the audio-guides. As much as I enjoy visiting the cathedral I think I enjoy strolling around the old downtown even more. It's got a lot of wonderful buildings and architecture from medieval and renaissance times and if you did nothing but wander through the cathedral and strolled through all its quaint streets you could easily spend a few hours here. I hate trying to desribe in words what can be explained with photos so I'll now take you on a little photo tour of Chartres. I'm sorry in advance for not taking too many pictures of the cathedral because it's so well photographed that I'm not sure any picture I take couldn't be found in a brief on-line search.

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So that's all there is to see today. Hope you enjoyed it.

[PariS]

Bruce, another fantastic photo essay! I really enjoyed the pics of Chartres, as it's on The List but haven't gotten there yet. The chateau at Rambouillet is pretty! What month were you there? I notice flowers blooming, so I assume it hasn't been too recently, given all the rain and snow, but if so...I'm impressed at the gardeners skills!. What did you say to the cattle to get them all to look at you? Fromage?

[frenchmystiquetour]

Hi AnnetteC - Thanks! Chartres would be a lovely town to visit even if it didn't have the cathedral and it's so easy to reach from Paris. I did this trip twice but the pictures of Rambouillet were taken, I believe, in September. I was dragging my feet on getting this report written but finally got around to it, seeing as how there has been nothing better to do with all this gray, wet weather we've been having. Today was the first sunny day we've had in at least a couple of weeks and tomorrow is supposed to be nice too.......and then back to more gray, wet weather! Oh, I think cows just like having their picture taken!

[PariS]

Bruce, it's nice to hear you're having some sun! I hope you save some, as I'll be there in 5 days with my kids!!! I've warned them to pack for lots of cold and rain, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

[frenchmystiquetour]

AnnetteC - I was just checking the extended forecast and starting from this Thursday until the following Tuesday the daytime highs are supposed to be quite warm (12°C) but it looks pretty gray and wet too. However, while the extended forecasts are usually reliable in regards to temps they are less than reliable when it comes to sun vs. clouds/precipitation. I never trust it more than 2 days in advance at best and even then it is notoriously inaccurate. It's not that the weather service is of poor quality but rather that weather is extremely difficult to predict here. For example, yesterday it said today would be cloudy and rainy, and it was actually sunny.

You can always check forecasts at www.meteo.com or the American site www.weather.com among the many sites for weather forecasting. I hope you enjoy some sunny weather during your visit, so I can enjoy it too!