Hotel du Saumon Verneuil-sur-Avre

Distance covered: 40 miles

After a much needed nights sleep we headed for a super market to buy the days food. Unfortunatelly in France Sundays are dead and everywhere is shut. So with little food we pushed on. It quickly became apparent that Olly was struggling a bit with the pace. This maybe due to the fact that he spent the night in a hammock sleep talking ...

... we went o L'Aigle to the market and had brunch there at a cafe. Bought some yummy apricots.

We also went to the hyper market for some supplies and then off to a near by lake where we had a late lunch, lazed around in the sun and the children played in the pedal boats.

A fantastic couple of days and we look forward to returning the hospitality when Graeme and Rita visit us in the south of France

... to blend modern with old town centre architecture, most notably its impressive clock tower. My hotel for the night was equally unremarkable yet provided an amazingly comfortable bed. That evening I strolled through a very quiet town centre and ate in the trendy 'Market Pub' (While the UK long ago borrowed the terms 'bistro' and 'brasserie' the term 'pub' seems to be a recent trend in France). DISTANCE FOR THE DAY: 100 km TOTAL SO FAR: 376 km

On Saturday Apr. 28th we visited the French royal home that King Louis XIV had built - Versailles. The palace and grounds were enormous and so very beautiful. Unfortunately we were not able to go inside the various palace buildings as we had not bought tickets in advance and did not have time to wait in the ridiculously long line ...

Once you enter France by car and have just left Arras heading south, it is very stupid going out on the toll-road towards Paris. I prefer the country road, it is so picturesque. Besides, it will first bring me to Amiens, a quite lively university city with a gorgeous, very impressive, one of the "must-see" cathedrals in France. Then there is ...

From Bordeaux we stayed in a small B&B in the Loire valley which was again supposed to be a pool/sun stop. Unfortunately once again the weather conspired against us, but we had a lovely time anyway, including a great French dinner with our hosts. We then headed to Troyes which is a medieval town in the heart of the Champagne region. We used this as a base to explore the region and once again thought it would be remiss of us not to visit a vineyard and taste a little/lot of ...

... trouver une job, m'ouvrir un compte de banque, c'est la guerre, maudit que c'est compliqué. Et organisation du 50 ième de sa mère. Trop drole la citrouille en cylindre et la baguette géante de 2 m. Bien plaisant. Merci pour me laisser partager ces moments familliales. Ca permet de refaire le plein d'amour et d'énergie. Pendant un moment pas de stress, ni de préoccupation, ou je dors, quesce que je mange?... Bref c'est très reposant et vivifiant. A la prochaine...

Correction, en faite ce n,est pas à Dreux que je suis mais à Tréon, un village juste à côté. Tout petit ou ya pas grand choses a faire selon moi. Mais ce fut fort agréable. J'ai passé une journée dans un lycée fancais. C'est complètement différent et ennuyeux. Mais bon ce n'est qu'un apercu je vais revenir passer plus de temps a Dreux. Direction l'Alsace!!

... for a second night in a row, this time at a Pizzeria-but we all ordered steak. I must comment that it is here that I tried crème brulee for the first time and discovered that it is my new favorite dessert! It is flan, French style. The only difference is that it is creamier like mousse, and they take a torch and crisp out the top very delicately. It was what Mandy said, "better than sex". Paul agreed-lol! After dinner we called it a night and dozed off.

so we came to this little french town called rouen because it sounded good in the book...and we're very glad we did! everythings really....french! all the houses are very old and slanted and there are old churches everywhere. its where joan of arc was burnt at the stake and theres a church built right on that spot. there is a big cathedral that Monet did a series of paintings of so every night they are putting projections of his ...