Chartres Fête de la Lumière

I returned to Paris from Italy to find that my normal interim hangout at Passage d'Enfer is not really habitable right now due to a plumbing problem. What to do? Where to stay for a couple of weeks until I can move into my new apartment on October 1st? I don't have a solution yet, but my first impulse was to take a short trip to the countryside. It was Friday, and I knew the Chartres labyrinth is only open on Fridays. Why not go back there for the weekend?

I didn't realize that this was one of the busiest weekends of the year, the grand finale of the Festival of Light, and most places in town had been booked months in advance. I lucked out, however, and managed to find a place to stay.

I've taken pictures of the cathedral before, but it never occurred to me to take a ferris wheel ride


to get an even better vantage point:


Here's the south facade of the cathedral during the day. Remember this image - you'll see it again later.


After darkness fell, I wandered through town taking photos of some of the 28 illuminated sites. Imagine my surprise when this nondescript building:


was transformed into this after dark:


or the mediatheque (public library) which looks like this during the day:


was repainted in several different motifs, all accompanied by music:


Later, I heard applause coming from near the cathedral. I saw a spotlight illuminating the rose window in the south facade:


It wasn't until I drew nearer that I could discern an ethereal aerial dancer walking up the face of the rose window and then plunging into space as she wove a web of magic in the spotlight.

It took my breath away.


And that was just Friday. There were different events on Saturday night, but the image of the celestial dancer on the cathedral was the most stunning of all.

Lucca group

Here are my traveling companions for our fabulous Lucca excursion. We are near the marble quarries above Colonnata and Pietrasanta.

Anne, Magdalene, Margie, Elaine, Dee, Tracy

At our farewell dinner:

Visit with Inger Sannes

We meet Dee's friend Inger in the town of Pietrasanta where Inger has her studio. We start with lunch, sitting outdoors at the tiny Trattoria Filippo. We don't chose from a menu, we've entrusted Filippo with all decisions regarding food and wine.

Inger begins telling the story of how she came to be here - how she left a career in Stockholm as a management consultant at IBM and followed her heart and hands as her intuition guided her to a career sculpting in marble in Italy. She moved here nine years ago - at the age of 49 - with the unconditional support of her pediatrician husband and her three grown children.


Following a delicious lunch, Inger takes us to the studio where she shares facilities with several other sculptors. Along the way she has described the learning process that she has undergone, and shows us plaster models of earlier work.


Later, she dons protective gear as she demonstrates the process as she continues the work on a current project:



The work is extremely demanding physically, working in the heat, holding the heavy, noisy drill bit, marble shards flying. Inger tells us that she didn't want to wait for retirement to pursue sculpting as a "hobby" - she wouldn't have the physical strength required.


We leave Inger to her work, completely in awe of her commitment and her success. You can learn more about her work here.

Lucca

My visit to Lucca with five friends from my writing group in Boulder is partly about tourism, and partly about writing and visiting with several of Dee's friends who now live here.

Here's an aerial view which shows the boundaries of the ancient walled town. Sorry, I didn't take this photo.


The wall around the town is high and wide and is a great place to stroll or jog, ride a bike, or simply sit on a bench and enjoy the view


We are staying in a small hotel across the street from the birthplace of Puccini. Music is everywhere and there are nightly concerts of operatic arias (Puccini wrote La Boheme, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, etc.) Our hotel is smack dab in the historic center, with the church of San Michele at the corner of our narrow street:


You don't drink tap water here, but there is a fountain nearby where the locals fill their water bottles.


I climbed the tallest tower in the in town to get this perspective. Notice how narrow the streets are!


Lots of churches and towers here:


Here's the cathedral which will be the focus of the Volta Santa, a religious procession done by candelight this evening

Augsburg, Germany

Tracy was born in Augsburg, Germany during her father's stay in the military. I met her at the airport in Munich and we rented a car to explore her birthplace before traveling to Italy to meet up with our writing group. When checking out cars to rent, we asked about something "fun to drive" and ended up with this car:


Yes, it IS fun to drive!


Of course, while in Germany, do as the Germans do:



What? You were expecting churches or museums?

Cinque Terre

Wow! Tracy and I are having so much fun!! Too bad I don't have an internet connection. I am sitting in an internet cafe in Cinque Terre so I don't have time to tell lots of stories or the abilitity to load photos right now.

Check back in a few days when I've had a chance to load some photos of Tracy and me driving in our convertible through Germany, Austria, and Italy. Woohoo!

Packing

I'm packing to leave Paris again. I moved out of the apartment on rue Flatters and I'm taking the train to Munich tonight. I'll be meeting Tracy, a friend from Boulder, at the Munich airport when she arrives early on Sept 2nd. From there we will rent a car and explore southern Germany and northern Italy before joining four other Boulder women in Lucca, Italy on September 8th.

Stay tuned for more travel stories!