After leaving Bordeaux, we headed further north to stay at our friend's parents house outside of a village called La Reorthe. We stayed on the back roads again and drove through many of the famous wine vineyards of the Bordeaux region. It's easy to see how the region has become famous for its wine production. There were signs for wine tastings posted everywhere. Not trusting our rusty French, we ventured on to our next destination in hopes of spending the day just relaxing and not really doing much. And that we did well. Our friend's parent's house is really lovely and quiet.
We left the following morning to get on to Paris for a wedding but stopped in a few places along the way. We passed a couple of nice Chateau's but sadly, they were closed to public viewings. One town in particular we wanted to visit was Chartres. It's a small town an hour outside of Paris and it has a beautiful cathedral. It was one of the first places I visited my first time in France and it still has the same charm but it seems to be getting more touristy.
The site of the cathedral has contained at least five different and smaller church buildings, each of which was destroyed by a fire. Apparently, fires were quite the problem in medieval Chartres and each time one came along and destroyed the place, the people decided to build a bigger cathedral. The current structure has been there more or less for eight centuries but shows marks that other problems destroyed parts of the building. In 1506, the north spire was destroyed by lightning and rebuilt Jehan de Beauce. He spent the next seven years constructing the new spire and it still stands today. The cathedral has an interesting look due to the towers being different. The inside at present is being cleaned. We have some pictures to show the dirty and the new and I must say, it will look amazing once they get it all cleaned.
From Chartres, we made for CDG airport to return the car. If you've never driven on the highways outside of Paris, you are missing a nail biting, anxiety ridden experience. There are tons of cars and everyone is flying all over the place cutting in and out of traffic to get past you at speeds that almost make your heart stop. Then, when you finally get off the highway at the airport, there aren't many signs to help you find your way to your rental car return spot. We finally managed to get there. After unloading everything, we had to lug everything into the city to our friend's house for our few days there. The Paris metro in July is like a sauna, except it smells awful. All part of the authentic Parisian experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment