Packing List for Chartres, France: What Women Should Bring

Photograph: The west front of Chartres cathedral by Itto Ogami, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Chartres is a cathedral town in northern France, the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region, about 90 kilometres southwest of Paris. It is built on a hill on the left bank of the river Eure, with the cathedral of Notre-Dame at the top, and its two spires can be seen from miles away across the flat farmland of the Beauce, the plain long called the granary of France. The town rewards a slower day than that, and the cathedral rewards a second visit in different light.

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The photograph above looks up at the west front of the cathedral under a blue sky with light cloud. It shows the great rose window above three tall lancet windows, the two towers rising on either side with spires that plainly do not match, green copper roofs along the side, and a few old houses and a street lamp at the edges. It shows the outside of a building whose point is its inside. The stained glass as it is meant to be seen, lit from behind, is not in the frame. Neither is the labyrinth set into the floor of the nave, the crypt beneath it, the old town running down the hill to the river, the bridges over the Eure, or the town lit up at night. Each is described below.

What Is Here

The cathedral was mostly built between 1194 and 1220, after a fire on the night of 10 June 1194 destroyed the earlier church and left only the crypt, the towers and the west front standing. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1979 and called it the high point of French Gothic art and a masterpiece. What makes it unusual is how much of it is original: most of the medieval stained glass survives intact, and the architecture has changed little since the early thirteenth century.

The two spires in the photograph are three and a half centuries apart. The plain stone pyramid, about 105 metres high, is the older one, completed around 1160. The taller and far more ornate spire, about 113 metres, belongs to the north tower: lightning destroyed the earlier north spire in 1506, and the architect Jean Texier rebuilt it in the Flamboyant style between 1507 and 1513. The green roofs are a later story again. A fire started by workmen in 1836 destroyed the old lead and timber roof, and it was replaced with copper on an iron frame, which is why the roofs are green rather than grey.

The west front is the oldest face of the building. Its three sculpted doorways, the Royal Portal, were made between about 1145 and 1155 and survived the 1194 fire. Most visitors still go in by the two side doors; the central one is opened only for processions on major festivals. Above them, the three lancet windows in the photograph hold the oldest glass in the cathedral, made around 1145 and restored since: the Passion of Christ on the left, his life in the middle, and the Jesse window, his family tree, on the right. Above those is the west rose, about 12 metres across and made around 1215, showing the Last Judgment.

The Glass, the Labyrinth and the Crypt

Inside, the cathedral holds more than 160 windows, and the photograph shows none of them lit. Chartres has fewer plain or grey windows than later cathedrals and more densely coloured glass, which makes the interior darker but the light deeper and richer. Give your eyes a few minutes after you come in from a bright square before deciding what you can see. Then look for the window known as the Blue Virgin, Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verriere, in the first bay of the choir past the south transept; its upper part dates from around 1180. The particular blue of the Chartres glass is famous in its own right, and how it was made is not known.

The labyrinth is in the floor at the centre of the nave and dates from the early 1200s. Unlike a maze it has a single path, which pilgrims walked as an image of the long road to salvation. Usually chairs stand over it. On certain days the chairs are moved so that it can be walked, and the cathedral's own site is the place to check which days those are rather than anything printed here.

Beneath the building is the Saint Fulbert crypt, completed in 1025, U-shaped and about 230 metres long, and within it the small Saint Lubin crypt from the ninth century, the oldest part of the cathedral. The relic that made Chartres a pilgrimage church is the Sancta Camisa, believed by the faithful to be the tunic Mary wore at Christ's birth, which the cathedral acquired in 876.

Recommended Tours and Experiences

The Town and the River

The old town runs down from the cathedral to the Eure, which splits into three branches here and is crossed by several bridges, some of them old. The streets are steep and narrow, and they give way to wide shaded boulevards around the edge of the old town. Remains of the old fortifications line the river in places. The best known of its gates, the Porte Guillaume, stood until the retreating German army destroyed it in the night of 15 to 16 August 1944.

That week is part of why the cathedral is still here. On 16 August 1944 an American officer, Colonel Welborn Griffith, questioned an order to target the cathedral, which was believed to be a German observation post. He went and checked it himself, found it empty, and had the bells rung as a signal not to fire. He was killed the same day at Leves, near Chartres, and the town was liberated on 18 August. Part of the old town had been destroyed by Allied bombs that year.

Two museums sit close to the cathedral. The Musee des Beaux-Arts is in the former bishop's palace next door, and the Centre international du vitrail, a stained glass workshop and museum, is about 50 metres away and is the place to understand what you have just looked at. Away from the centre, the Maison Picassiette is a house that Raymond Isidore covered inside and out with mosaics of broken china and pottery. None of the three is in the photograph.

Chartres is also the end of a walk. The poet Charles Peguy revived the pilgrimage route from Paris before the First World War, and since 1982 an association has organised an annual pilgrimage on foot of about 100 kilometres from Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres, with about 15,000 people taking part each year. If you visit on the day it arrives, the town will be full.

The town is sometimes lit in the evenings, in an event called the Chartres Light Celebration, when the cathedral and many buildings across the town are illuminated. The photograph cannot show it. Its season and hours change, so check with the town before you plan an overnight stay around it.

The Weather: Cool, Grey and Often Dry

Chartres sits on an open plain and its weather is moderate in most months. At the town's weather station the average high in July and August is about 25 degrees, and in January about 7 degrees, with nights averaging around 2 degrees. Rain is modest, roughly 600 millimetres a year across about 109 wet days, with the late autumn and December slightly wetter than the rest of the year. Sunshine runs to around 1,790 hours a year, from about 230 hours in July down to about 64 in January.

Two things follow for packing. The cathedral is a large stone building that does not warm up quickly, so you will want a layer inside it even on a mild day. And the FCDO notes a summer risk of higher than normal temperatures in France, which matters in a town where the climb up from the river is steep.

When to Go

Spring and early autumn give you the most comfortable walking and, in the case of the glass, long bright days for the windows. Summer brings the longest days. Winter is cold and grey, and the cathedral is quieter then, which suits the labyrinth and the crypt.

Getting There

The Gare de Chartres has frequent train services to Paris, which is why Chartres is so often a day trip. By road, the A11 motorway connects Chartres with Paris and with Le Mans. Check current SNCF services for your date before you plan around them, because the FCDO notes that industrial action in France can be frequent and can disrupt public transport.

Is Chartres Safe for Women Travelers

France carries no advised-against area, and Chartres is a quiet provincial town with an ordinary low urban risk picture.

US State Department travel advisory: the France advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.

UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.

The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in France, and its terrorism wording is the strongest it uses: terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in France, with shopping centres, entertainment venues, sporting events, transport hubs and crowded gatherings named as possible targets. The everyday risks are more specific than that sounds. Pickpocketing is organised on the Paris Metro and on trains, typically in pairs with one person distracting you, and the FCDO records SERIOUS ASSAULTS on RER lines B and D, which matters because line B is the train most visitors take from the airports. Drink spiking is named with the drugs rather than hinted at: be alert to the possible use of date rape drugs including GHB and liquid ecstasy. Strikes and demonstrations happen at short notice and can stop trains and close roads, usually peacefully. And wildfires affect the south in hot dry summers.

For Chartres itself, two points from that advice stand out. The FCDO lists places of worship and crowded places among possible targets for terrorism and tells visitors to be vigilant in public places and to follow the advice of the French authorities, so keep an eye on your surroundings in the cathedral square as you would anywhere crowded. And the FCDO notes that thieves and pickpockets operate on the Paris Metro, on RER lines and at mainline stations, which is exactly where a day trip from Paris begins and ends.

Three further points from the same pages are worth carrying. You must be able to prove your identity when asked, or within four hours at a police station, so keep your passport or another accepted ID with you. And the FCDO notes an increased likelihood of demonstrations across France, sometimes at short notice, with authorities able to impose localised curfews, so follow local news.

Around the cathedral square, carry your bag across your body rather than on your shoulder and do not get distracted around tourist attractions and cash machines. Drinks served in French bars are often stronger than those in the UK, according to the FCDO, so buy your own and keep them in sight. If your room is near the river, the FCDO suggests checking the French flood watch service, vigicrues, for current flood risk.

The Chartres Packing List

Pack for a long day on your feet, on stone, moving between cool interiors and an open square.

A merino wool base layer is the foundation in every season. Under a shirt it takes the chill off a long hour inside the cathedral; in winter it is the warm layer for the walk down to the river. Merino stays fresh across several days of wear.

Add a fleece jacket as a mid layer you can put on inside the cathedral and take off in the square, and a packable rain jacket for the grey days, which arrive in every month.

The old town is steep and the cobbles are uneven, so your feet do most of the work here. Merino hiking socks keep them comfortable through a day of standing and climbing. Comfortable walking shoes are advised and are not linked, because the only shoes in our register are hiking boots and trail shoes, which are more than a town needs; any supportive pair you have already broken in will do.

For a winter visit, a merino beanie and merino glove liners make an hour in an unheated stone building and a wind across the plain far easier. A light scarf you can wear indoors is useful in every season.

Essential Resources for Women in Chartres

Emergency numbers: 112 for any emergency, 15 for a medical emergency, 17 for police and 18 for fire. 114 is the emergency number for deaf and hard of hearing callers, by text, chat, video or fax.

Medical care: ask your accommodation on arrival where the nearest hospital emergency department, the urgences, is. For anything minor a pharmacie, marked by a green cross, will help without an appointment and can direct you to the duty pharmacy out of hours.

Official health authority: Sante publique France, the national public health agency, covers the national guidance, which is the right level for a provincial town with nothing medically unusual about it beyond long days on foot and summer heat.

US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Paris.

Official tourism authority: Atout France, the national tourism body, covers the national picture. For cathedral opening hours, crypt visits, the days the labyrinth is uncovered and the evening illuminations, check the cathedral's own site and the town on arrival rather than anything printed here.

US State Department travel advisory: the France advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.

UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.

France is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident, which means you pay the same patient share a French resident pays rather than nothing. That is not the same as free and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. French hospitals are excellent and a pharmacie, marked by a green cross, handles minor problems without an appointment and will tell you where the duty pharmacy is out of hours. Tap water is drinkable everywhere. Dial 15 for a medical emergency or 112 for anything.

Solo women safety assessment: Chartres is an easy, calm town to visit alone, by day or for a night. France has no advised-against area and the old town is compact. Apply ordinary care with bags and drinks, carry ID as French law requires, and watch local news for strikes and demonstrations that could affect your train back to Paris. The real risks are small and physical: steep, uneven streets, summer heat, and the theft that targets travellers on the Paris end of the journey rather than in Chartres itself.

Reading On

Most people reach Chartres from Paris, and the same day-trip logic applies to Versailles and to Monet's garden at Giverny. For another cathedral city in northern France, Rouen is the natural comparison, and the chateaux of the Loire Valley lie further into the same region. The France travel guide for women is the hub, and the travel packing guide covers the system this list is built on.

If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.

For why a cool stone interior and a warm square on the same afternoon both argue for thin merino layers rather than one heavy coat, see our guide to the best merino wool base layers for women, and the full range is in the Roman Trail collection.