Chartres, no pun intended!

Part of Christine's family visit adventure was a day trip to Chartres (pronounced: sharts).

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. What an inappropriate name for a town! But all the more reason to go, I guess! Courtney, Monica and I tagged along with Christine, her mom and aunt as we rushed to the train station to get on the 10:33 A.M. train to Chartres. Luckily, we made it on the completely overcrowded train in time; and "overcrowded" is no exaggeration. The train was so crowded, there was absolutely no sitting room and we were left to stand in the aisles for the one-hour train ride. However, that did not deter us from the exciting day to be had.

Arriving in Chartres was a surreal experience. The town is exactly how I imagined a small, picturesque French town. It was perfect, beautiful, and the weather was absurdly nice. We couldn't help but gasp at all the adorable buildings and the pristine gardens. It was an amazing sight. 
We started off our day in Chartres at the market, where we sampled pea pods and bought some fruit for a picnic. After buying some sandwiches, biscuits, and a chocolate egg, we were ready for our picnic. Courtney, our GPS queen, led us towards the park where we wanted to picnic at. This park was UNBELIEVABLE! Set perfectly on the bank of a beautiful river, we parked ourselves neatly on a bench and the nearby grass and ate away at our strawberries, oranges, sandwiches, and whatever else we could fill our stomachs with.

Courtney, having finished her lunch a little early, began to sketch Monica and I, but soon found that two bodies are much more time consuming to sketch than one. She stuck with my obscenely beautiful body and sketched me away. I was posed in a very uncomfortable position, however, and Courtney continually had to yell at me to keep still even though my shoulders were giving out from leaning on them...Her sketch turned out pretty good, I think (considering I threatened her to make me look 20 pounds lighter)!


After our picnic, we walked around the park a bit more and came across a little hen pen, where we came across some interesting birds from Japan.

Heading out of the park, we walked around the quaint streets of Chartres on our way to its infamous cathedral. This cathedral was extremely beautiful and is especially famous for its stained glass.




Sitting around outside of the cathedral to soak up some more sun with our energy levels fading, we decided to take the 4:30 P.M. train back to Paris. We killed some time walking into a chocolate shop, a wine shop, and some other stores until it was time to trek our tired bodies back to the train station. This train, luckily, was practically empty when we boarded and we all got a chance at a nice nap during the ride back.

Chartres, thank you for providing me with a great memory of the French countryside!!