En route to the UK

On Monday, May 8th, we set off for our annual car trip to the UK. As usual, the boot is filled with wine for James and Helen and this time, the back seat of our little car is taken up with the Moses basket which is on its way back to the UK, refurbished for Helen and Nick's baby.

May 8th is a fête (bank holiday) in France celebrating the end of the war in Europe in 1945. In towns and villages, everyone gathers at the monument du morts (war memorial) at 11am and children carry flowers which are then place on the monument.

Lorries are banned from the roads for the day and so our journey was much more pleasant than normal. The service areas on the motorway were packed with lorries waiting to be allowed to drive again..

We left a colourful terrace and 21 degrees prepared for the cold and wet in London.





We followed our normal route up France along the A75 over the magnificent Millau bridge (which we have crossed so many times that we don't bother to slow down any more) through Orleans where we leave the motorway for a while and stay the night at Chartres in a convenient hotel with private parking.

We had rain for a lot of the time that we were driving, but fortunately it stopped before we reached Chartres and we had some blue skies for the photos.

After a rest, we set out for a walk and dinner.

For once, the square wasn't full of sculptures and so we had an unusual view.





Nearby is the old Post Office




As always, we stopped to take photos of the Cathedral. Can you believe that the American army was ordered to destroy this magnificent building?



Thanks to the bravery of one man, it is still here for us to enjoy.





This is the south face with its buttresses and the sundial











It was near to closing time, so we didn't go inside on this occasion, thought we have visited before.

The old part of the town is well worth a walk round



This is the Maison au Saumon (House of Salmon) in the Place des Poissoneries with a detail of the salmon below







This is the Escalier de la Reine Berthe with a detail below








This house is very close to the Escalier




We then set off to find a beer. This proved to be rather more difficult than we envisaged. We only found one bar open, and as you can imagine, it was full. On our travels, we passed the Logis Claude Huve which is in a narrow street and is so tall and thin that we were unable to fit all of it in one photo.








We ate a splendid meal at Le Tripot, a small restaurant that we had tried to eat at on several occasions, but had only succeeded once before.

Today, Wednesday, we travelled from Chartres to Calais and took the Eurotunnel. We are now on our way to James in Hackney where we will stay for 3 nights..

Pat and John on tour