France

We awoke at 5.30am, unable to sleep any longer in the freezing cold pre-dawn.  We fervently resolved to start looking for accommodation much earlier from now on.  We drove back into Chartres and to our delight found a bar/cafe/restaurant that was open.  Looking around the other patrons we saw shift workers nursing after-work beers and bleary-eyed, rumpled individuals with fingers curled stiffly around hot coffee that made us suspect we were not the only ones to have slept in our car overnight.

I felt a deep gratitude for the cheerful proprietor of this magnificent establishment when croissants and a huge bowls of hot chocolate and coffee appeared before us as if by magic.

Two hours later, warm with full bellies and feeling almost human again we set off to visit the Cathedral and it almost seemed worth it because we had the entire cathedral to ourselves for the next two hours.  It is one of the more beautiful cathedrals we have seen, even with it's strange, mismatched towers and has a rich history and we gaze for a long time at the magnificent, vivid blues of it's stained glass window.  The cathedral itself is in need of some TLC, it is covered in a layer of black grime and there are signs of wear and tear though the presence of scaffolding on the north side portals suggests that work is underway. 

A colourfully wrapped bundle in the morning sun on the main steps was revealed to be a man dressed incongruously in a medieval style jester's outfit and we wondered how he survived a night that was undoubtedly even less confortable than our own.

We spent an interesting half hour wandering the ancient back streets near the cathedral and were particularly fascinated with the bulging, leaning walls of one of the nearby buildings - it seemed either a masterful piece of engineering or an engineering disaster.

We left Chartre about 9.30 or 10am and drove on towards Blois where we planned to spend the next night though we both became very tired very quickly so paused for a break at Chateau Chambard.  Some of the walls are hung with large faded, moth eaten tapestries with minute stitching and I pause to think of the women who wrought them, probably centuries ago, working over months under a frail light - yet there is rarely any mention of the artist's name.  The town itself proved to be a quaint little place as well and we spent over an hour there before continuing on to Blois again.

As soon as we reached Blois we found a hotel and Pete had a short nap while I had a shower before walking through the steep, winding medieval streets to the Chateau.  We were intrigued to see that the entire interior walls were handpainted on canvas and even the floor tiles were handpainted.  Some of the furniture was easily a match in ornateness for any that we had seen in Versailles.

We emerged from the Chateau to the sound of some eerie music and the slightly surreal sight of large animated steel dragons emerging from the windows of a house opposite.  Although we felt a little silly we stood grinning foolishly at this spectacle until they reversed their movement and retreated back into the house, windows closing and verandah rails repairing behind them. 

We had a light dinner and converstation with a German girl from Bordeaux over some much needed wine in a bar near the hotel before retreating gratefully to our hotel for sleep in a real bed.