Matt's Visit and Packing Up

Meeting Matt at the train station.

We returned to Rennes from our travel-ganza late on a Friday afternoon and my brother Matt was waiting at the train station to meet us. He was in the midst of a month-long European adventure across Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands. His bus go to Rennes early that Friday morning so he had about seven hours on his own to explore Rennes and we hope he did. He said that he tried to take a nap in one of the city's parks because he didn't get much sleep on his night bus from Spain to Rennes.

Part of the map-covered bedroom.

Lisa and I both felt bad that we couldn't provide Matt with the same kind of hospitality we've given other guests because, after returning to Rennes, we had three days before we had to vacate our apartment and return to the US. That meant that we had a lot of packing and last-minute errands to do. It also meant that every day Matt was there, someone came by to pick up pieces of furniture they'd bought from us. So every day, we changed what piece of furniture we sat on or ate off of! It was a little sad to pack up everything we own, especially all the maps we'd hung up in the bedroom and the postcards we'd put in the toilet room. In every city we visited this year, we got a map from the tourist office and, when we returned home, hung them on the bedroom walls as decoration and as a reminder of all the amazing trips we took. Similarly, in the toilet room, we hung up a postcard from nearly every city we visited. Returning to bare white walls was a bit depressing!

On the other hand, it was exciting to know that we were just a few days away from returning home to the US and our friends and family. It was stressful few days, though, of canceling our utilities, cleaning, and trips to the post office to mail boxes of books, maps, and brochures home because it was cheaper than paying the overweight baggage fee on the plane. Also, once we started boxing and mailing things, it was surprising how much we had accumulated in France - admittedly, not much by American standards, but quite a lot in proportion to how much we brought with us. Mainly it was maps and books we had purchased, but then again, this blog is called "Running and Reading in Rennes" so you shouldn't be surprised we bought a lot of books.

Our cheese-mongers.

Our apple-seller.

Amidst all the packing and selling and moving, we were able to do a few things with Matt in our area. On Saturday, we took him to the market where we were able to buy some last good fresh French produce and cheese and say good-bye to the many vendors we had become familiar with over the course of the year. They were as sad to see us go as we were to say good-bye to them! We were very happy the cheese-mongers agreed to pose for a picture for us.  We also went into central Rennes that afternoon to go to a record store. Since had Matt hadn't brought any good-sized sturdy luggage, though, he didn't want to try to take records home with him so he bought a few cassette tapes instead. Also downtown, we saw part of what passed for Rennes' Gay Pride Parade and Matt listened to and recorded a good gospel choir singing to advertise their church.

Gay Pride Parade, French-style.

Our Week with Laura: Part Two

Lisa and Laura on the ramparts of Dinan.

We arrived back from Paris in the early evening and made dinner.  We needed to be up early the next day for our day-trip to Dinan, Dinard, and Saint-Malo.  We left bright and early for the county bus and headed on our way.  Laura, like Chris and us, liked Dinan a lot, enjoying its charm and its views.  We were even graced with some sunshine!

How to play dress-up
in Dinan.

We went first to the market (sans hurdy gurdy player this time) where Laura and I continued our tradition of buying scarves--mine in blue and hers in muted pinks.  I think some things will never change, and I'm okay with that!  Aaron (continuing his tradition of buying books in Dinan) found a new travel journal just in time for our next adventure.  We also took Laura past the medieval clothing shop because she and I have always enjoyed a good costume.

The beach at Dinard.

After a picnic lunch in the park behind the oldest church there, we hopped on the bus to Dinard where we got to walk on the beach a bit and see the Hitchcock statue.  We only had a short time there because another bus left for our final destination of Saint-Malo.  Aaron had been there twice, but I had only visited once and had wanted to go back all year.

Laura in the stained-glass rainbows.

Rose window in the cathedral.

I love the stained glass in the cathedral there.  As I think we told you way back in September, all (or at least almost all) of the glass was destroyed in World War II, so it has been replaced recently.  It's rather modern and is just abstract shapes instead of trying to tell stories that are depicted too small to really see.  The light ends up in little rainbow puddles on the floor, and it seems like a lot of life could be there.

While in Saint-Malo, we made Laura try a Kouign-Aman, a butter, flour, egg, and sugar pastry that contains so much butter, the locals even make post cards making fun of it!  We split one among the three of us because the first time Aaron and I found that it was too rich for just two people to share.  We each had a couple of bites, which was the right amount.

Laura at Saint-Malo enjoying the only other sunlight
observed during her trip.

We walked up to the ramparts and had a good view of Dinard and the Channel before walking down to the beach to collect some seashells.  Because it was low-tide, we thought about walking out to Chateaubriand's tomb, but we realized it was farther than it first looked.  It was so nice to have some sunshine that we stayed on the beach until it was almost time to leave for the bus back home.

Constance, Thomas, and Aaron's whipped cream.

The next day, we decided to relax a bit and stay closer to home.  We headed back into downtown Rennes to do some shopping and meet Thomas and Constance for a drink.  Constance had a bit of a cold, but we still had a nice time.  They took us to the Haricot Rouge, which sells milkshakes.  Well, Constance carries extra straws in her bag, so we all got to taste.  It was not a milkshake.  It was milk with flavored syrup stirred in, no ice cream at all.  Still, she adored it, and so that was very good.  Aaron ordered hot chocolate viennois which means that it's covered in whipped cream.  As you can see in the picture, it was!  After we finished our drinks, they took us around to some of the sites, where people were already drunk at 6pm!  That's another thing the locals mock on post cards here.

After that, it was back home for dinner and packing.  We ended the meal with a collection of nine different flavors of macaroons, which we quickly devoured.  They were very delicious.  Saturday morning, we took Laura on a very rushed trip to the market because we couldn't let her leave France without seeing it at its very best.  She got some honey from the honey man who has the best voice I have ever heard!  If I ever manage to get a recording of it, you will have a sound clip here!  We saw Laura off for a sad good-bye at the train station, but we look forward to seeing her again soon in the States!

Laura, sporting her new scarf while
attacking the macaroon collection.

Macaroon siege continues.

Macaroons conquered.

Paris with Laura: Day One

Laura in the Luxembourg Gardens.

In the middle of her week with us, we went with Laura into Paris for the better part of two days. We took a morning train from Rennes, arriving in Paris around 11. Because it looked rather rainy outside, we decided to eat our picnic lunch inside the train station and then we headed by Metro and by foot to the Luxembourg Gardens. Fortunately, it wasn't raining there so we could enjoy being outside. The gardens are located behind the Luxembourg Palace, built in the 17th century for the mother of King Louis XIII, but now housing the French Senate. The gardens are the second-largest park in Paris and they contain numerous fountains, pools, and statuary. It's also famous as a location for Parisian children to sail model boats (we didn't see any when we were there) and it has a puppet theater, too (no shows were on while we were there).

Saint-Sulpice Church.

After walking through the gardens, we headed to the church of Saint-Sulpice, a large 17th- and 18th-century church. It was very stark inside, with lots of plain grey stone which (for some reason) reminded me a 19th-century train station. The church was featured in the book and the movie of The Da Vinci Code, in which Dan Brown makes all kinds of ridiculous and historically inaccurate claims about it. In fact, there's even a small sign in one corner of the church which alludes to "a recent best-selling novel" and corrects the mistakes that novel made about the church. (I've never read the book or seen the movie so I had no idea about any of this until I read the sign informing me about all this!)

We continued up the street looking for the market of Saint-Germain, which turned out to be a big covered mall with a Gap store in it, not the open-air market Lisa expected to find based on her reading of medieval literature! Fortunately, all was not lost because we walked over the church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres (although on the way there, the sky opened up and we got drenched). Saint-Germain-des-Pres was originally a monastery founded in the sixth century and broken up following the French Revolution. The 12th- to 13th-century church still stands and is used as a parish church. The interior is almost entirely painted in greens and blues and probably gives one a good idea of what a medieval church would have been like.

The Thinker by Rodin.

We then took the Metro to our hotel, way up on the north side of the city and, while far from the city center, directly above a Metro stop. After dropping off our bags, we headed back out to the Rodin Museum. It's undergoing renovations right now so not everything was on display, but all the major works, like The Thinker, were out. I was surprised to learn that The Thinker was originally part of a much larger work, The Gates of Hell, based on Dante's Inferno and The Thinker was supposed to represent Dante himself. Then again, I don't know much about Rodin's work, so I shouldn't be that surprised, I guess. Unfortunately, we thought we couldn't take pictures inside the museum, so we can only show you the gardens outside, which we got kicked out of at 6 when the museum closed.

The Gates of Hell by Rodin.

While waiting in line to get in to the museum, two pairs of Americans behind us in line struck up a conversation. Two were middle-aged women from Texas and the other two were newlyweds from Chicago on their honeymoon. They were rather annoying, playing the kind one-upsmanship game that the woman we met in the Tuileries with Chris played: "Have you been to this site? No? Oh, we did, and it's fantastic!" I'm not sure if I found them annoying because I'm not used to dealing with Americans in France or if I would find them annoying if I met them on the street in the US!

Anyway, after Rodin, we went back to Notre-Dame. There was a mass going on inside, so we didn't walk around much, just stood and watched the mass. As soon as it was over, the cathedral closed and they were serious about getting everyone out - they started turning off the lights on us!

Us with Paris in the background.

Following that, we took the Metro to the Montmartre neighborhood (famous, among other things, as being the home of the Moulin Rouge) and had dinner a nice little restaurant. We left around 9:30, threaded our way through pushy street vendors, and climbed all the way up the hill (lots of steps - more than the hills of Rome!) to see Sacre-Coeur.

Sacré-Coeur.

Sacre-Coeur is a Catholic basilica built, with state funding, between 1875 and 1914 as a monument to national unity following the French defeat by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War but, more importantly, as a kind of national penance for the killing of thousands of French citizens during the Paris Commune uprising of 1870-1871. Many of the communards were trapped in old gypsum mines in the hill of Montmartre and killed by French government forces. In retaliation, the communards killed many of the hostages they held, including the Archbishop of Paris. The basilica is a huge neo-Byzantine domed building and no pictures are allowed inside. There was a mass going on when we there and it was by far the quietest church I've been in here in France. There are some big mosaics on the ceiling, but really what stands out for me is the strangeness of the architectural plan - all squares and domes and half-domes, with few of the long straight lines of Gothic cathedrals.

Mass finished at 10:30 and they closed the church so after getting a few pictures of Paris at night from the top of Montmartre, we climbed down the stairs (much easier than going up!) to the Metro, the hotel, and bed.

Bonus picture: Fight Club Jesus.

Our Week with Laura: Part One

A lost boot in the Rennes cathedral. The sexton did not
look pleased when I handed it to him.

Less than two days after Chris left, Laura arrived, so we didn't have much time to start missing American company!  We went to the market, bought food for the week, and then met Laura at the train station.  We came back to the apartment for our traditional baguette sandwich lunch, which allowed Laura to get over the transatlantic flight in a much more relaxing way than jumping head-first into Paris's best.  She had brought two pounds of jelly beans and some Reese's cups, and we dug in.  It rained most of the day, so we didn't do very much.  We cooked a traditional galette dinner so that Laura could know what our regional food was like and then went to sleep to prepare for Sunday sight-seeing.

Tulips at Thabor.

Abbey church by the Thabor Gardens.

Sunday, we ventured out into our very wet city and saw the major churches, educating Laura about the different architecture and time periods.  We went to the abbey church in front of it, which seemed to be a residence for homeless people, based on the man inside as well as the odor of the place.  We also went to the Thabor Gardens themselves, which are absolutely gorgeous and where a presidential polling station was very active.  Laura educated us about some electoral information since she works for and international electoral company and took lots of pictures of the process.  It was very good for us because otherwise we might have missed out entirely on the local election process.

Watching election results come in.

That evening, we went back into the city to Town Hall to watch the election results come in.  It was another local experience that also gave us the opportunity to see inside one of the city's great buildings.  We should have arrived a bit earlier to see if there would be more of a crowd, but still, it was very interesting to see the percentages come in and watch the people react a bit to them.

Some of the only blue sky Laura saw in France.

Monday I took Laura to Mont-St.-Michel, which was my fifth time there.  It was quite nice because it actually didn't rain there the entire time.  We visited some of the shops and made a thorough tour of the frigid abbey before eating our picnic lunch while watching the hoards of tourists arrive to storm the castle.  We were glad we got there early!  We didn't stay the whole day because we wanted to get back to see the opera highlights of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Rennes before English Club.  

A view of the opera house in Rennes.

The opera was all sold out, and Aaron was especially disappointed, but the woman at the desk said someone might come in with extra tickets.  A very nice lady came in with exactly three extra tickets, and she worked for some sort of organization that couldn't accept money.  We were able to enjoy the opera, and the tickets were a gift!  It was very good, and the space inside was also very pretty.  The other funny event was that two non-French girls beside me were in very intense concentration throughout the opera.  During one break though, one of them nudged me and asked if I was French.  I said no, American.  She said, "Well, I just can't understand anything they're singing!  Is it French or what?"  So I then explained that no, it was in fact in Italian.  I'm not sure she enjoyed the opera any more than before, but she was happy to know she wasn't crazy.

Aaron and Estelle at English Club.

We then went on to English Club where Laura got to meet Estelle, my friend who practices her English with me and with whom I get to practice my French.  We had a very good time discussing language, idioms, and other cultural information.  We didn't stay too terribly long, though, because we had to leave early for Paris Tuesday morning!

Aaron, Laura, and I all agreed that someday we should have houses with
wisteria growing on them.

Our Week with Chris

Our egg guy's new truck.

We arrived home Friday night and Saturday was kind of a rest and recovery day after three jam-packed days in Paris. Lisa and I went to the Saturday market, though, and it was nice to see all our favorite vendors. We had a nice chat with the people we buy apples from (they both held up the rest of the line just to talk to us!) and the guy we buy eggs from had purchased a new truck in our absence. He was very proud of this truck.

Free water outside the Franco-American Institute.
That's the American part.

Sundays are pretty slow days around here since most everything is closed. In the afternoon, though, I took Chris into central Rennes to show him around the city a little bit. We saw many of the same things as when Sarah was here (the cathedral, the tourist office, the outside of the city hall and the opera) but we also went into two churches I'd never seen before: Saint Sauveur (which was small and dark, but had several worshipers inside) and Saint Aubin (a modern, late 19th/early 20th century neo-Gothic church which was smaller on the inside than I expected).

Vegetarian Haggis for Tuesday's dinner!

On Monday, I went with Chris to Mont-Saint-Michel, an obvious must-see for anyone who comes to visit us. Unfortunately, Lisa had to stay home and tutor as well as practice her French with some locals. I thought it was supposed to rain, but it turned into a surprisingly nice day as we ate our picnic lunch outside. It was very crowded, too, much more so than when we went in December or with Jimmy and Jenny in January. There were lots of families with little kids there; I guess that's what you do on your two-week Easter vacation - take your kids to Mont-Saint-Michel! Other than that, though, there wasn't much new for me. On my fourth visit, it all seemed like old hat. Changes are coming, though. April 28th was the last day that cars could drive out on the causeway and park at the foot of the mount. Now you have to park some distance away on the mainland and take a shuttle. This is all part of the plan to remove the causeway by 2014. After we returned to Rennes that afternoon, we met Lisa and went to English Club, which was rather sparsely attended, what with it still being Easter vacation and all.

Parliament tour with Gobelin tapestry in the background.

Tuesday, we went to a lunch-time piano concert. Chris really likes classical concerts and this was the only one we could find in Rennes during his week here. There were plenty advertised for the week after he left, though, and all I can figure is that Easter vacation means the art scene in Rennes shuts down, too! Anyway, it was a benefit concert for Rennes' sister city in Japan and it was put on at the International House of Rennes (which always sounds to me like "International House of Pancakes"). Lunch was included in the price, which was nice, and the pianist was pretty good. He played Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin and he got better as he went along - there were several missed notes in the Beethoven, but the Chopin sounded near-perfect. After the concert, Lisa and Chris took the tour of the parliament building (the same one we did with Sarah, but with a different tour guide, so Lisa learned a few new facts) while I came home to get groceries and start on dinner. We re-created the vegetarian haggis we had at Henderson's in Edinburgh (recipe here), and rather successfully, too, I might add!

Stained-glass window in Dinan.

On Wednesday, I went with Chris to Normandy to see the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach while Lisa stayed home to tutor and missed out on yet another opportunity to visit her favorite region of France. Turns out, it's much harder to get to without a car! We took a train to Bayeux, then waited half an hour for a bus that took us to the cemetery, about a half-hour ride. Again, it was supposed to be a cold, windy, rainy day, but we managed to avoid most of the rain and it was actually partly sunny most of the time we were there. It was very windy, though, which dampened the experience a bit! Since I'd seen the cemetery and the beach in January with Jimmy and Jenny, I wasn't expecting much new. But Chris and I joined a free guided tour, led by a retired British history teacher who now works at the cemetery, and I learned a few more things about the site. He showed us the "wall of the missing," the grave of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. who landed at Utah Beach at age 56 and died of a heart attack a month later, and the graves of two brothers who inspired "Saving Private Ryan." It was very interesting and I'm glad we did. Unfortunately, though, we were on a tight schedule because there was only one bus back to Bayeux and the train station all afternoon!

Us in Dinan.

Chris left Thursday afternoon to spend the night in Paris before flying home early Friday morning. Before he did, though, we all took the bus to Dinan Thursday morning. I had been there with Sarah, but Lisa hadn't been back since our first trip there way back in September. It was another cloudy, rainy spring day in Brittany (although there were some occasional breaks in the rain). We saw quite a bit of the town - the ramparts, the churches (in one of which the organist was practicing), and the stores.

Hurdy gurdy player in Dinan.

Plus, we discovered that Thursday is market day in Dinan, so we enjoyed that for a bit. It's different from our Saturday market in Cesson in that there were more vendors of clothes and jewelry and crafts than food (which is the opposite of our market). We also were serenaded by a guy playing a hurdy gurdy.

Where Aaron got his Baedeker.

The best part of the trip for me, though, was that I happened to see a Baedaker guidebook in the window of an antique store and we went in for a look. This one was in French, from 1903 and for Paris. We saw that the price inside the front cover was "650" so we asked the proprietor, is it six hundred and fifty euros? To which he replied, "No, no six euros and fifty cents!" That's about a quarter of the price of the one I bought in Cambridge, so we snapped it up for my ever-increasing collection! After walking around, we went to a little tea shop to get out of the rain, before heading back to the bus stop to make sure Chris got back to Rennes to collect his bags and get to the train station on time.

Chris on his way.

It was an all-around good visit from Chris (and we hope had a good time, too!). Even though we're now repeating a lot of things with our visitors, it seems like there are always a few new things to discover at these places, keeping them interesting for us, too.  We look forward to seeing Chris again soon stateside.

Sarah and Lisa's Visit to Paris

Window open at Notre Dame, just in case you need to
make a quick getaway!

To conclude Sarah's trip to France (and our time with visitors), Sarah and I (Lisa writing here), went to Paris for two days so that Sarah could see the capital.  She climbed the Eiffel tower while I was still in Rennes teaching, and then we went to the Square Saint-Jacques (the only time we got a bit turned around and the only place we weren't allowed to do sit-ups!), Notre-Dame, walked all around the Palais de Justice while seeing if we could get into Sainte-Chapelle (we could, but we chose not to), the Arc de Triomphe, the Père LaChaise cemetery, the Tuileries gardens, and the Louvre.  I was very proud of myself for not getting too lost anywhere and for figuring out maps without my geographer husband!  I guess he's taught me something this year.

Square Saint-Jacques, where sit-ups are strictly forbidden.

The Square Saint-Jacques marks one of the routes that head toward Compostelle.  We've visited many cities along the way, and each has seashells marking the path along sidewalks and buildings (we've seen them in Chartres, Tours, Mont St-Michel, Nantes).  At the Arc de Triomphe, we saw an official ceremony of some kind, though what kind, we don't know. 

Hotel de la Porte Dorée.

We stayed at the Hotel de la Porte Dorée as recommended by David and Lily, and it was an excellent choice!  They had bookshelves full for guests on every floor and adorable rooms.  We especially enjoyed the artwork in our room as well as the unique, antique furnishings.

The cemetery was a good way to start Thursday even though it took a while to find the graves.  We visited Chopin, Poulenc, and Apollinaire.  Poulenc was good for both of us since Sarah, a pianist, plays his music, and since I, a lover of Apollinaire's poetry, like the poems set to Poulenc's music.

Sarah taking a picture
of Chopin.

Lisa with Apollinaire.

Sarah's favorite sculpture in the Louvre.
Winter, embodied.

We had absolutely gorgeous weather and enjoyed lunch in the Tuileries gardens while looking at statues and people-watching.  We figured out Sarah's return journey to the airport and then forged our way through the keychain vendors to get into the Louvre, where we saw the Mona Lisa, a lot of sculptures, and an exhibit on some Greek and Roman discoveries in the Rhône river.  All in all, it was a great tour of the city in two days.  It was sad to say good-bye to Sarah because it's the last family time we'll have until Aaron's brother Matt comes and because it was so good to become better friends with Sarah.  We miss her already and look forward to our other visitors in April! 

March is Visitors' Month

This post is written jointly, just for your information and, of course, reading pleasure.

David and Lily in the rain at Fougères.

David, learning all about the history
of Fougères through the children's
information sites.

Much of March was spent hosting visitors, whom we were very grateful to have. First, Lisa's brother David and his girlfriend Lily came for about four days (plus another two and a half in Paris). We showed them around Cesson-Sévigné and Lisa took them to Fougères. This time, the castle was open and they got to go in, but it was cold and horribly rainy! Lily and David also went on their own to Mont-Saint-Michel one day (it helped that Lily speaks French!). It was very nice to have them here and to show them a little bit of Brittany. We made them the traditional dinner of cider, galettes, salad, a cheese course, soup, and baked apples, and by the end we all had eaten too much!  After their days here, Lily and David went to Paris for a few days where they enjoyed picnics in the park and art museums as well as venturing up the Eiffel tower.  It was good to have family time even if that involved what was sadly typical weather.

Fougères intramuros and seen from across the moat.

The next week, my (Aaron writing here) cousin Sarah came and stayed for about ten days. She did an awful lot on her own, too, largely because Lisa and I had to work (obviously) and couldn't accompany her everywhere. She went to Mont-Saint-Michel by herself as well as the Paimpont Forest west of Rennes which is supposed to be the legendary forest of Brocéliande where Merlin is buried. Lisa took her to Vitré one day and I went with her to Fougères so that I, too, could see the castle and the little late medieval church next to it. It was a pretty impressive site and still mostly intact. We also visited a more recent church, St. Leonard, in the upper town which was nice, too. As Sarah said, she was on the "church tour of France" while she was here!

Rennes cathedral, interior.

Saint Amand.  Sarah wanted to know why he was giving
us the finger.

Lisa and I also did a couple things with Sarah in Rennes that we hadn't done before. We went to the cathedral here which is a 19th-century construction done more in an Italian basilica style than a French Gothic style. It's a beautiful space and we also got to see the tomb of one of the first bishops of Rennes, from the sixth century. That week, Andrew (our friend/colleague/son), invited us over for a dinner of traditional galettes and lots of conviviality.  He is a delightful host, and it was a good way to spend time together and to introduce Sarah to French cuisine.

Parliament of Brétagne.

Original entrance hall, Parliament.

The next week, we all took a tour of the Parliament of Brittany building. It was built in the 17th century to house the court of appeals for Brittany as well as offices for tax assessors (the regional court of appeals still meets there). In 1994, the building caught on fire as part of a strike and had to be largely restored and rebuilt. On the tour, we only saw five or six rooms, but they're all decorated with ornate wall and ceiling paintings and one has several tapestries (which we were created after the fire based on the original designs). It's a great building and I'm glad we did the tour, although it was all in French, so Sarah didn't understand any of it and I only understood parts of it! The guide barely took a breath, so there wasn't much time for Lisa to translate. We also had a very strange young man on the tour. When we entered the parliament building, we had to empty our pockets and go through a metal detector. He had TONS of stuff in his pockets and it was all odd things, like a tennis ball, some rope, and a few books. He also consistently lagged behind the rest of the tour, being the last one out of a room as we walked and he even pulled out a newspaper to read during one stop on the tour. We were vaguely concerned that he was looking to case the building for some not-so-peaceful purpose. It was very strange.

Ceiling, Parliament.

Modern furniture in an old-fashioned room, Parliament.

Aaron with window from Chartres for scale.

On the weekend, we went back to Chartres and this time we got to see the stained glass museum, which turned out to be about a lot of windows and a very out-of-date exhibit in the basement that was supposed to stop running two years before.  It was still interesting and gave us the chance to see reproductions of the Chartres windows that were too high to be accurately read from inside the sanctuary.  Our hotel was very cool, as it was an old monastery and had a book sale, where we over-indulged on Old French and Latin books.  It seemed like all the octogenarians had emptied out their shelves for this sale, and we were grateful!  The other cool thing about the hotel was that the year prior, an American group of pilgrims had built a labyrinth out back to mimic the one that was inside the church and which is almost always covered with chairs.  We got to end our visit there with a nice walk through that.

Sarah and Aaron in the labyrinth at our hotel.

Crypt, Notre Dame de la Couture.

Notre Dame de la Couture,
Le Mans.

On the return trip, we had a long enough layover in Le Mans that we finally got to see a bit of that city where we've spent collective hours, but only minutes at a time.  The church we visited was actually quite beautiful, with no aisles.  It felt very open as a result.  We ran into the sexton and complimented him on the church, at which point he offered to light up the crypt for us, which was very old, much older than we expected.  We can now officially say we've been to Le Mans!

Stay tuned for Sarah and Lisa's Visit to Paris.

Bonus Picture: Sarah and Lisa's favorite moment from the Parliament tour.
Dog Sees Pigeon, Boy sees Dog, Mom sees Boy.  On your mark, get set, go!