La Vie à Quatre Roues! Jour 15

Chartres

Up at the crack of dawn (literally!), and we were away from camp by 7.45am. With the sun only just over the horizon, it was a rather chilly but beautiful start to the day as we drove north, across the Beauce wheat plain, towards Chartres.

Once again, we’d had a change of plans and had made an early start so that we could catch a train from Courville sur Eure into Chartres, in order to avoid the hassle of driving and parking in a busy city. Having said that, it wouldn’t have been a problem as, arriving in Chartres, we found the city was very quiet with most shops and businesses being shut as it was Monday morning, not opening until 2pm, even supermarkets!

Chartres Cathedral was very impressive, home to the largest collection of preserved medieval stained-glass windows in the world, most of them dating from the early years of the 13th century. The rose windows were particularly stunning (first extra).

Back on the road again, we headed north east to La Ferté-Vidame on the Normandy border, a campsite we had chosen at random after our decision not to overnight in Chartres. What we had not anticipated was the welcome we would receive as, unbeknown to us, La Ferté-Vidame is the location of Citroën’s secret testing grounds, the campsite had that weekend hosted a 2CV rally. The campsite owner tried to persuade us to return next year when the town will be hosting the “Centenary Citroën Celebration” - M is very tempted!

La Ferté-Vidame is also home to the atmospheric ruins of an 18th century Château that was destroyed in the French Revolution (see extra). My last extra is a very personal/bizarre photo, one that I want to include in my blip yearbook: the grain silo at Courville sur Eure - I felt like I was in a scene straight out of the film Footloose!

(Backblip posted 15th September)