Le Mans

For most Americans, Le Mans, France means the 24-hour endurance race that's been held here since 1923.

Our map study has revealed a connection here to those who live in the Dayton, Ohio area. There's a monument here to the Wright Brothers, and a street named Rue Wilbur Wright. We felt it was a little link to home.














For a few days the city is flooded with race fans and press from around the world. For the rest of the year Le Mans is a busy modern city going about its business.

Yet all the while, on a hill overlooking the center of the city, the ancient walled Cite Plantagenet looks down, its impenetrable walls containing stories it cannot tell, of lives lived here for centuries.

We've parked our car in a lot not far from the cathedral. A horse-drawn carriage is loading passengers for a ride around the ancient city. A little girl sits beside the driver while her family settles into the back.

Walking on the old cobblestone streets, I'm glad, for perhaps the hundredth time this trip, that I decided at the last minute to pack my old Ecco sandals. They're not pretty, but they've enabled me to walk all day long on any kind of surface with comfort. They're worth every penny I paid for them probably ten years ago.

Shoes were my biggest wardrobe consideration preparing for this trip After a few weeks I can honestly say that the best travel advice, right after packing light, is to wear comfortable, broken-in shoes.

Lots of steps here - we're on a hill, and the streets wind around the side of it. And this is no museum piece. The old city is fully inhabited. It's a lovely residential area. Residents' cars move past tourists. Lace curtains and window boxes filled with colorful, trailing flowers grace the windows of Renaissance half-timbered houses.

Parts of old city date to Roman times. Three towers, part of the original wall, are third-century Roman, there's a gate along the Quai Louis Blanc that's distinctively Roman, as well as the porch of the cathedral. (If you took Latin, you will remember the opening sentence to The Gallic Wars, "All Gaul is divided into three parts." Gaul was the area now known as France and Belgium.)

The Plantagenets (you remember them - English kings) lived in the palace here between the 9th and 15th centuries.

We descend the 3rd century steps of the Grand Postern and walk along the Rue St. Hilaire. At the corner there's a bride having her wedding pictures taken. Bernie and I sit on a bench and take our own photos of the bride and groom. We must have a thing about wedding photos - we have some of a wedding in London, one at Niagara Falls, and now these, which I think are the best.

We've saved the cathedral for last, and as we enter, we're so glad we're here at this time of day. The late afternoon sun shining through the stained-glass windows casts a pattern of green and lavender light on the walls - a strange play of light blends the red and blue to make light the color of chalcedony. I'll never see pale green and lavender together again without thinking of the cathedral at Le Mans.

We sit quietly. This is such a peaceful place. It's impossible to describe the vaulted ceilings and inspiring architecture and lovely stained glass without being repetitive, but each of the cathedrals we've seen has been awe-inspiring and amazing.

We keep trying to put the picture of life in the middle ages, when these cathedrals were built, up against the marvels of architecture and building of these edifices. The peasants who built them lived in one-room huts. Life was short and hard. But they built magnificent cathedrals.

There is a tour group with a guide here. I take photos but as I try to explain to the guide who's watching me, it's impossible to capture what this place is like.

We walk through the cathedral, peeking into the chapels, each decorated differently. Outside one are candles. I light one for Jacob.

We walk out quietly into the late summer evening.