Bike tour 2023: Visit to Chartres

20-21 May: Chartres light shows, Picassiette House, cathedral
After cycling seven days in a row, a rest day was to Chartres to visit more than welcome. It will probably be my last rest day this trip, unless the headwind is so relentless that I have to take another.

Chartres and Lumières  Every evening at nightfall until 1am, light and sound shows are projected on Chartres' famous historical buildings, bridges and river quays. Although I was quite tired on Saturday night after another day of headwinds, I walked into town to get something to eat and see some of the light shows.

I think it has become trendy in central France to present these light shows. I also saw them in Orléans and Bourges and I read that they are also on the castle of Blois to be seen.

Maison Picassiette
Sunday morning, after a longer-than-normal night's sleep, I cycled to Picassiette House, a unique 'art brut' work of art and an example of naive architecture. It was indeed an extraordinary and surprising house to visit.

The story behind it: It was the home of Raymond Isidore and his wife. Raymond was born in Chartres in 1900. In 1924, he married Adrienne, who was 11 years older and already had three children. He bought this piece of land and built a house on it for his family. During walks, he was attracted to the shimmering and colourful shards of broken crockery and started collecting the shards. In 1938, he told his wife that he had a nice idea to decorate the house and he started covering the entire house with mosaics, paintings and sculptures of iconic landmarks in France and elsewhere. Not only the house and rooms, but also chairs, tables, the oven, to even his wife's sewing machine and other small household objects.

For Raymond, this was his passion; he literally put his 'soul' into it - he built a 'soul room'. It was a lifelong ongoing work of art. In total, he collected 15 tonnes of multicoloured crockery and unusual stone rubble and worked on it for 33 years.

Raymond's nickname was 'Picassiette', which is a contraction of Picasso and Assiette (plate). He is a man who 'worked' his dream, day in and day out.
After all the majestic and exorbitant cathedrals and castles I visited, this creative and fun house was a welcome breezy and inspiring place. I spent three times the advised visiting time of 25 minutes in it.

Atypical visit to Notre-Dame cathedral (Chartres Cathedrale Notre Dame)
Chartres cathedral is a must-see. And it will probably be the last of the series of cathedrals I have visited in the past 10 months. So after a light lunch, I walked up the 80 steps that led to Notre-Dame. On the way up, I saw many people of Indian origin on the streets. When I reached the cathedral square, I heard why there were so many: the Sri Lankan Catholic Tamil community was holding a pilgrimage today with a church service in the cathedral. They filled the entire nave. Tourists were not allowed during the service, which was to last until 6pm. I walked to a stall handing out authorisation bracelets and explained that today was my only day in Chartres and that I had cycled +6,000 km to help preserve Tibetan culture and traditions. The nice Sri Lankan man behind the table was impressed and gave me a bracelet with a very broad smile. Asian people are usually very kind-hearted and compassionate. Thank you!

Because of the church service, I could only visit the side aisles. The famous 'labyrinth' under the central dome was not visible as it was full of chairs. But I really enjoyed the Sri Lankan interpretation of a Christian mass, their melodious singing and prayers and their colourful clothes. And for good measure, I took a picture of the labyrinth from a postcard in a nearby tourist shop.