hudebnik: (devil duck)
hudebnik ([personal profile] hudebnik) wrote2002-07-06 07:29 am

Paris

[transcribed from paper diary]

c. 12€ dinner, 22€ lunch (on card), 15€ exhibit catalogue, 5€ admission, 20€ guided tour, 36€ (on card) SNCF, c. 40€ pilgrim badges & gifts.
Chartres Cathedral is amazing.  And the rest of the town is nothing to sneer at either: another 12th-century church built on the ruins of a Gallo-Roman amphitheatre, a former Benedictine monastery whose 1000 AD bell tower survives, along with 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th-century sections, and a large section of town whose surviving houses and shops have been restored to an incredibly picturesque tableau, while still functioning in the 21st century.
La Chemisette de la Vierge is actually a two-foot piece of a formerly 18'-long rectangular piece of white silk, which apparently has been dated to roughly 2000 years old by scientific means.  But the artifact we really went to see is a later 14th-c. red silk pourpoint: I took about ten photos of it in available light, then gave up, scrapped that roll of film, and switched to 1600 ASA, which made it a little easier.  We also bought an exhibit book that includes several pages on the restoration of the pourpoint.