The Fi and Vi Log: France 2015 Part 3: Chartres and Getting to the Farm

It rained on our last evening in Versailles, bringing much needed relief from the heat. The proprietors of our B and B told me that it hadn’t been so hot in at least 25 years. Later we learned that we were in France during a record-breaking heat wave not just in Western Europe, but in the world. Our drive away from Versailles was much cooler and more pleasant. We decided to stop in Chartres on the way to the farm in Amboise because we wanted to do something touristy with our day (we wanted to go to Giverny from Paris but it did not happen as it was too far out of the way) and Chartres was sort of on the way.

I’d like to mention that there are many designations for the roads in France. There are A roads that are mostly major highways, often toll roads, and often the fastest way from place to place. There are D roads that can be highways or country roads or lanes and can be fast or slow, scenic or not. There are also C roads, I’m not sure about B roads, and E roads, but the E roads are really just A roads. And it seems every single road has some number designation, even little streets in a town. Some road numbers overlap with each other and almost everywhere has many ways to get there. Often, signs will indicate different roads going seemingly in different directions but with the same destinations. Traffic circles will indicate that a town can be reached by making the first right, or the second, or the third, or all three. We had a hard time exiting Charles De Gaul Airport because there were multiple signs with different road numbers all indicating the lead to Paris. Also, the signs never give a direction such as north, south, east, or west, they give the name of a town along the road. That means that we also needed to know the names of towns on the way to where were wanted to go. So for example, we didn’t take N10 West, we took N10 to someplace on the way to Chartres until the signs said “Chartres” and tried to stay on what seemed like the primary roads. Our AAA map was invaluable, until I discovered that my phone’s GPS worked.

It was very quiet when we got there and parking was easy to find. We wandered into the town and did not see many people. We came upon a restaurant and asked about a table, but the man told us he was full and that more would be open tomorrow. We could see that he was not in fact full, but figured he did not want to serve us, so we continued on, up the hill, toward the cathedral, where we saw a number of eating establishments. We chose one that had no other customers and it was a great choice. The guy was so nice and helpful, the food was very good, homemade dessert, and it arrived quickly. After lunch, we went to the cathedral and spent some time wandering around it and climbing the many stairs up the tower.

Here are the photos:

Where we had lunch:

The rose window:

Many carvings:

Fiona wanted to light a candle. She didn’t really understand that you are supposed to pick a saint and say a prayer, so we let her light a candle for Mary:

Taking a break on the stairs:

The lady at the bottom said there are about 300 of them.

Views on the way up":

Peek-a-boo:

I too would have a funny look on my face if a sheep was humping my leg:

Views from the top:

Designated location for dogs to do their business:

After our pleasant stop at Chartres, we continued on toward Amboise. There were many roads we could have taken, but we wanted the most efficient one. I don’t think we took it because we did not see signs for the road number we wanted. Instead we had to decide whether we wanted to approach from the east or west (both ways were equidistant) and looked for signs for the most major towns in either direction. We managed to navigate in fairly efficient way.

It was not too difficult to find our way, and the owners of our rental gave excellent directions. On our way, we came upon the first of many fields of sunflowers: