Chartres Cathedral

Chartres is the cathedral other cathedrals are measured against: after fire took the earlier church in 1194, the town rebuilt at miraculous speed - the essential structure rose in barely a generation - which is why the building reads as one coherent Gothic thought, flying buttresses to vaults. Its glory is glass: around 170 medieval windows survive, the fullest ensemble anywhere, saturated with the deep 'Chartres blue' that glassmakers have chased ever since, telling scripture and trade-guild life across thousands of panels. Two utterly different spires frame the west front - one plain Romanesque, one flamboyant 16th-century - and the nave floor carries the famous labyrinth, walked by pilgrims when the chairs are cleared on set days. The cathedral guards the Veil of the Virgin relic that made it a pilgrimage power, and it entered the UNESCO list in 1979 among France's first inscriptions.

What you actually see

• The stained glass - some 170 medieval windows in unmatched blue.
• The two spires - Romanesque restraint beside flamboyant Gothic.
• The labyrinth - the nave's medieval pilgrimage path, walkable on set days.
• The sculpted portals - the Royal Portal's serene 12th-century figures.

When to go

Any season - the glass performs on every bright day, and the interior asks no weather. Fridays in the warmer months are the usual labyrinth-walking days when the chairs come up, and summer evenings light the old town with projections.

Honest expectations

An hour's train from Paris filters the crowds - Chartres feels calm beside the capital's sights. Ongoing restoration has brightened some bays and scaffolding migrates around others; the labyrinth is usually chair-covered outside its set days, so check before building the trip around it. Bring binoculars for the high windows.

Nearby

The old town's tanners' quarter on the Eure, and Paris an hour away.