Barbizon
is possibly the most pleasant village on the planet and with home prices
beginning around a million euros (yes, I checked), it should be. The Barbizon School of painting,
created by John Constable in the late 1800s, took painting out-of-doors and
into the fields and forests around Barbizon where painters like Jean Francois
Millet (The Gleaners) made nature and
common people the center of their pieces.
Their homes have been converted into boutique hotels and trendy
restaurants and mosaic reproductions of their most famous pieces hang on the
stone walls around town.
We
actually stumbled upon Barbizon when we couldn’t find a hotel in
Fontainebleau. We probably
couldn’t have afforded one in Barbizon either, but the Manoir Saint Herem,
which was being renovated put us up for only 50 euros. Sometimes you get really lucky.
Chartres, both the town and the cathedral, are steeped in
history. As you drive into town
the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres dominates the city but you lose sight of
it as you climb the winding streets.
Suddenly, there it is – the best-preserved and most complete version of
Gothic architecture. Pilgrims
still make their way to Chartres to see the Sancta Camisa, said to be the tunic
worn by Mary at Christ’s birth.
