Lost in France?

Would you believe it....we are here travelling around France and we didn't have a road atlas.  We do have a sat nav so we aren't completely clueless.  Today we said our goodbyes to Ger and Sian and started travelling south.  We had looked at Ger's road atlas the previous night and decided to head to Chartres.  I have driven through the city about three years ago when I was touring France on my own and I knew it had a majestic Cathedral but I couldn't find anywhere to park the van, so I didn't stop.

This time we parked on the outskirts on a supermarket car park.  We called into the supermarket and I purchased a fairly compact road atlas.  The sat nav is good at getting us to places but we need the overview of the route and also an idea of the locality when we get somewhere.  We didn't need to consult the map to cycle into the city, we had been able to see the Cathedral from about 10 miles away and now we just looked for the twin steeples to find the centre.

It was another bright and sunny day.  Fairly cool out of the sun but who's complaining.  There seemed to be some sort of Scout and Guide Jambouree taking place outside the Cathedral as they all were gathering with their heavy rucksacks.

The Cathedral was seriously ornately carved inside and out.  Definitely in the top ten French Cathedrals but I was also wowed by St Aignan's church in the Historique Quartier.

It was older and was definitely 'faded glory' but it was totally empty (unlike the packed Cathedral) and it had real character.

We did walk around the city centre too, not just visiting the churches.  You will be thinking that I am a Churchaholic!  I admit I have got a problem because I can't pass one without going in but I am getting therapy and I am cutting back to an average of four per day!

As expected France began to close down for Sunday afternoon and rather than staying at Chartres we travelled on to Chateaudun.  We found an 'aire de camping-car'.  It was in perfect position in the shadow of the Chateau and next to La Loir river, which is a tributary of the Loire.  It couldn't be a better position and it's free!  

Not bad hey!

The town itself was lovely too.  We managed another two church visits too!

We found a load of conkers on the floor under a tree and we improvised our own version of boule by having a competition to see who could throw the conkers into a litter bin about 10 yards away.  Janice won, so I'm in a sulk!  French kids can't play conkers like we do in the UK otherwise there wouldn't have been so many lying around.

Chateaudun seems to be famous for the defence of the town by an assortment of 1,000 locals against the attack of 12,000 Prussian soldiers in October 1870.  As normal the French were valiant but ultimately defeated and then they later celebrated their courage and turned their defeat into some kind of delusional victory!  Sorry France, I didn't mean to cause any offence, honest!

Our evening meal was rather more simple than we have had the last couple of nights.  We were overindulged by our hosts and need to slim down before we are overindulged again by my brother David and his wife Wendy later this week.  So, no booze tonight either!