Here I am, back again, currently sitting in the Star Alliance lounge at Charles de Gaulle airport... cos we’re Business Class. Our transport from the hotel left at 7 am, got us here at 8 am and our flight doesn’t go til midday, so here’s my chance to bring the blog up to date re our last day in France. We left our lovely chateau to make our way to Paris. Lovely farming land nearly all the way. Near where we had been staying were Les Troglodytes which were a long row of houses and buildings where many were built back into caves on the hill face. I was hoping to see actual dinosaurs but clearly this must be the French version where they suggests the caves are that old, that dinosaurs could have lived in them.
We then have an early lunch stop at La Beauce, Chartres Cathedral. Rodin called it the ‘Acropolis’ Of France. It has beautiful stained glass windows and the huge rose window at the front is the same size as the ‘pilgims circle’ on the floor of the interior. Apparently near the end on WWII the advancing Americans were ordered to bomb the cathedral, but prior to blindly following orders, the General in charge, clandestinely checked out the cathedral and determined that the Germans had not taken it over and was able to get the order to destroy it withdrawn, so saving the church. The townspeople had removed every bit of stained glass to protect it should the building be bombed, hiding it in cellars and caves, so after the war had it painstakingly reinserted. Of recent times the interior has been restored to its original ‘white’ colour and this work is on going. What hasn’t been restored is so dark, that I thought much of the ornate carvings were timber! The frieze of the life of Christ was brilliantly done.
We grabbed a baguette at a little cafe, no wine included (which wa a first for us) and time to get back on the coach as we head for Paris. Once back in the city, we stop across the park from the Eiffel Tower for our group photo. Weather is perfect, about 21.
Past lots of famous buildings as we head to our hotel, which is the same one we started at 3 weeks ago.
At the hotel, we agree to meet with K and G for a farewell drink at a nearby bar. They are a lovely couple and we have all agreed to stay in touch. J will no doubt miss her wine buddy in G, whereas we two Karens were happy to drink any white wine placed in front of us. Doubt J will miss my eye rolling and exasperated mutterings of ‘Lord, take me now!’ When she and G would be waxing lyrical about different grapes, the regions they came from, the side of the hill they were grown on and how many hours of sunshine each blessed grape gets! And don’t start me on Tasting Notes... LOL!
Its only a quick drink as KG are heading out to the cabaret show in an hour, whereas J and I are planning an early night that has the key focus of getting our suitcases packed. So back to the hotel we go and packing is well underway. One of the flourishes (gifts) that Shona gave as all was a small bottle of champagne, so I put my bottle in an ice bucket, chilled it and that is what we had to drink during our packing saga, along with a small packet of biscuits that were another flourish we were given along the way.
The view from our room isn’t majestic, but it is still interesting.
Took ourselves back to the same little bar next to the hotel and had dinner, which was chicken risotto, however I misread the menu, thinking I would get chicken pieces in the risotto, but instead had a sliced baked chicken breast in a lovely cream light mustard sauce plus a small bowl size of risotto and a small green salad, plus ofcourse the obligatory crusty bread and a petit Chablis. Dinner was really, really good. back to the hotel and J put herself to bed at 8.30 but as I am a martyr to this darn blog, stayed up until I had uploaded most of my photos and tried to get the blog more up to date.
And there you have it dear armchair travellers. So comes to an end our French Heritage tour, consisting of the Country Roads tour plus the Normandy, Brittany and Loire Valley tour.
However, from comments provided from a couple of you, I am concerned that you may suffer withdrawal symptoms similar to jet lag, from our journeying together, so will have a further update tomorrow where I will share some of the bits and pieces of our holiday that did not make the daily blogs. I’m keen for you to meet Joe from Las Vegas and an update on Sylvia from New York...
Yes. I’m thinking something along the lines of your daily travels to your clothes line and beyond. Perhaps a daily soap opera on the birds that visit.
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