Jehan De Beauce Chartres

Tres bien...<br><br>Drove down from Dover and pulled in at the Relais Beaucoeron Hotel and restaurant which is actually an upmarket truck stop. 10E for the nigh unless you dine in and then camping is free.<br><br>What value...for the grand total of 13E pp we were treated to a three course meal ...

... and vegetables.<br>After the main meal we got a variety of cheeses: potent Roquefort, amazing Brie from a farm that Helen accounts for, and a few other choices all on local baguette, and they serve it with butter to add to your cholesterol count. For dessert a Courchavel cake made with raspberries and crepes(we've never seen anything like it), then topped the meal off with espresso. During the meal we had 3 rounds of ...

... well aware of the difficulty of having the stick in the wrong place, and while trying to concentrate on driving on the opposite side of the road, the last thing you need is to be looking for your gear stick. A quick car change and we ended up with a cute little Mercedes automatic, which was much more to our liking. For the rest of the day we have been wracking our brains to give it a name but yet nothing good has come to us, so for now it will remain nameless (feel free to ...

... Personally I don't trust the garage at all so I'm waiting to hear from Diamond to see if they'll send out an independent inspector, but even so it's more than likely the car is going to be written off - it's ******* oil &amp; the airbag went off on the drivers side which is usually bad news. We've got a hire car at the mo - AA cover paid for that as well - so we're gonna carry ...

Once again I was away by 07:30 in a heavy fog that caused me to be grateful for the excellent lights on my bicycle. I shunned the scenic route - nothing to see! - and took a direct route that left the GPS totally confused as it tracked my progress across a completely blank screen: a new road had opened recently so was unknown to the software. But I trusted my map and guidance from a young man waiting at a bus stop and pushed on, with a brand new motorway to my right. (Drivers of ...

... 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

... in towns today The cathedral has three large rose windows: one on the west front with a theme of The Last Judgment, one on the north transept with a theme of the Glorification of the Virgin, and one on the south transept with a theme of the Glorification of Christ. Statistics length: 130 m width: 32/46 m nave: height 37 meters; width 16.4 m Ground ...

Another gorgeous day yesterday, and our rain chance for tomorrow has been cut from 80% to 40%. The gods of Europe appreciate the time we put in through snow and sleet and ice over our holiday trip and are rewarding us with mostly clear skies but a few puffy clouds. We'll take the 55 degree weather too, even though it is still cold with the breeze, but almost hot enough to take your coat off in the sun! Yesterday we got up for the rush ...

... who can see any of that? All one can see is the beloved glass. During both World Wars, each and every piece of glass was removed, wrapped, labeled and put away for protection. Beloved glass. Chartres Blue is coined color from the glass. I took 173 pictures. Don't worry. I won't post but a few. The interior glass ones didn't turn out well. I needed a tripod. (Note to family, take your tripod when you visit ...

... euros that would give us a day pass and roundtrip train tickets, and considering buying a day pass at Versailles is 20 Euros it's quite a deal. So half an hour later we're walking to Versailles from the train station and 5 minutes later when we arrived at the entrance, the lighting was just beautiful for some photographs. After about 15 minutes of going photo happy we go into entrance 'A' where we realize we get free audio guides for all the areas that have them ...