Now we've taken our time to admire the cathedra.
Inside there was still the Nativity...
Pictures were hard to take. Parts of the cathedral have just finished to
be restored, the walls have been cleaned and let appearing the ocher
coating of medieval origin and the white walls, which make the lights
coming from the glasses dancing on the walls... and others parts are
still keeping the traces of the pollution of years and are really dark.
Nadia had visited it before the restoration and was really surprised by
the new vision... She says it changes all... There were some people
looking for a new place to restore, we took some time to see how they
were working, using laser to measure, different instruments to study the
degree of moisture in the wall, porosity, etc...
Choir of the cathedral - just restored -
Surrounding the choir is a wall, fully carved, it consists of a set of
40 groups totaling 200 statues, illustrating Jesus and Marie's lifes. It
tooks one hundred years to realise it !
-ambulatory behind the choir with various chapels-
Just restored too...
When Nadia first visited, it was the same color as the carved wall!
-glasses in the ambulatory-
See us at the foot of the column? We feel so small in the such a high building!
Chartres' cathedral is well known for its glasses and especially for the
deep and light blue used.
Most of the glasses were made between 1205
and 1240, some even came from the previous building (the last picture
with Marie and infant Jesus is from 1180 !!!)
There are more than 170
glasses. They were all dropped down to be preserved during the 2 World
Wars, that's why we can admire them now...
The other parts of the cathedral were really dark compared to the restored ones ....
That was our visit at the nice cathedral in Chartres
No comments:
Post a Comment