Thursday 12 October
Still grey and cool 16 - 17 Celsius (low 60’s)
Drove to Chartres, got a bit flustered finding the hotel that we were looking for, booked into the Mercure Chartres Centre Cathédrale Hotel - nice place, bit more money (to be expected) - cripes 1:30 already; if we want lunch it is now or never. First cafe we came to was a Japanese restaurant, we kept walking. 2nd place looked cool, the daily special was paella which I had
shrimps, mussels, squid, tuna, chicken, and sausage - real good
Joan had a quiche - ham and cheese. Getting to be a joke, she is not a big fan of ham and cheese but in the past few days, a ham and cheese croque, ham, cheese and egg crepe, and a ham and cheese quiche - think she is real sick of ham and cheese.
Back to the underground parking, dragged our luggage up to our room - a good thing about big cities, the hotels have elevators. relaxing now, will stay here till Saturday, already booked a room at Versailles, and Paris has been booked for months - we coast from here on
Friday 13 October
so Friday the 13th - no big deal
Walked over to the same cafe we had lunch at yesterday - we are regulars now, the chef/owner greets us and we shake hands (if I ever come back to Chartres this is my home base)
like always Joan has a cafe au lait, today with a croissant - I had my beer.
The local church including the old arch from Roman times is a block from our hotel and a few blocks behind it the grand cathedral - now hidden by fog (as will be exposed later)
the streets are serpentine -forget NY’s grid - after 2 minutes you have no idea where you are
eventually found the catherdal, which should have been easy but was a major pain; a very cool building - 176 stained glass windows which were meticulously dismantled for both world wars - stored and re-assembled - a heck of a lot of work.
Notice the whiteness of the columns - the cathedral is undergoing renovations - once known for the “Black Madona” she is now white. Seems years (centuries) of pilgrims with smokey torches stained everything -the contrast between the old and the restored is amazing; here the upper part is restored and the lower part shows centuries of exposure
Surrounding the main alter was a wall of carvings depicting biblical history - whatever you believe the detail of the carvings is amazing
The oldest house in the town - dating to the 11th century I believe is the salmon house
A timbered house now used as the tourist Info office, there are wood carving of St Michael slayjing the dragon as well as more mundane things like snails and grapes (escargot and wine? - sounds like a good lunch to me)
We ran into this bag of potato chips - Joan knew about them, Some farm outside of town grew potatoes, the farmer hand cut the chips and salted them with salt from the Ile de Ré - whoa we were just on the island a couple of days ago, these are supposed to be real special potato chips
We have not opened the bag yet so - no comment ….
so when the fog finally cleared the Cathedral from the outside showed the the famous two spires - the only complete cathedral anywhere I believe, even Notre Dame de Paris does not have two spires - the one one the right a more austere 12th century spire - while the one on the left a very more ornate 16th century art work
We were going to have lunch up town - did not work out - ran back to our home base - Le Marigny - had a good lunch and the chef/owner sat down at our table and said he would make us a special breakfast tomorrow - either he has a farm or he has a connection to a farm … he has very special eggs (we saw him dealing eggs to the locals - not to mention that Joan’s salad for lunch included egg with a different color yolk, almost a pinkish tint like a sunset) - always great to have a bistros chef/owner as a friend - and that is my gift
So now we are back in our room, too tired to hit the town - the hotel sold us a bottle of Cote de Provence for our room (and then a second) and so I am writing this as Joan gets some rest
Saturday 14 October
A beautiful morning - went back to Le Marigny for our café and beer. The owner made me scrambled eggs with ham and gruyere cheese, very light and fluffy, not sure I could taste a difference from our eggs though. Instead of going directly to Versaille we stopped at Rambouillet - a small town with a Chateau the has been used by kings and presidents for hundreds of years from Francis the first to Charlesthe tenth, Louis XVI, Napoleon, and the summer residence of all the French presidents for 120 years.
No where near the size and opulence of Versailles still it is a formidible chateau with several hundred square kilometers of grounds, including a lake, formal gardens, and tree lined paths. Many trees are trimmed to squares (or cubes actually)
This late in the year the flowers were going to seed, which Joan helped herself to of course.
and just happened that today was some reinactment with many people in traditional period dress
Outside the chateau grounds the town had its market day, everything from hardware to food. Mostly I noticed the food, skinned whole rabbits, boudin au calva (blood sausage made with calvados)
and scallops sold with their row (common in europe, never see scallops with the orange row in the states)
We had lunch in town, sort of ordinary - Joan had confit de canard (duck braised in fat) and I had sausage and ham hock with lentils.
Then on to Versailles - checked into our hotel, same bartender we knew from 2 years ago. strolled around a bit. cocktails in a nice café, then dinner in a different café near our hotel. She had onion soup, I had frog’s legs and linguini - the frogs were small but there were 4 and they were nicely prepared.
The chateau Versailles is huge, makes the old castle at Rambouillet look like a tiny cottage. Louis had canals dug so that he could be gondola-ed around like in Venice. On the main canal is a boathouse with a restaurant; tomorrow we will have lunch there (we usually do when here) and then set off for Paris.
Sunday 15 October
Walked from the morning café to the Chateau - the early morning sun on the gold was blinding
out behind the chateau one of the many fountains in the formal gardens, and in the distance the main canal - that was our destination. The frogs in the fountain are all gold leaf
When we got to the canal, this fountain, and looking back at the chateau, the same fountain as above
At the canal no more of King Louis’ gondolas - just row boats for rent, and a good restaurant (inside) and a less expensive outdoor garden dining - we always eat outdoors
Then we bid farewell to Versailles, drove to Charles de Gaulle airport to return the rental car, and then the crowded, hot train ride into Paris. Checked into our usual Hotel de St Andre des Arts, A walk up the Rue de Baci where we shared a cheese platter and a bottle of Brouilly, then Joan had an ice cream while w listened to some street musicians play jazz. Great to be back in Paris.
Monday 16 October
I am declaring a day off (if she lets me). For 18 days we have been marching from palace to cathedral, to historic sights. Really good stuff but I need a day to do nothing but sit in a cafe, drink wine and watch people go by.
SUCCESS - she was agreeable. A very long lunch at Cafe de Fountain de St Michele (the fountain at the metro stop is in my opinion the definitive Saint Michael) sadly the water was not running at the fountain, water shortage due to global warming.
we strolled down the street not straying from Rue Saint Andrés des Arts / Rue de Baci - bought a few post cards, had wine at a few more cafés.
Joan ducked into a private courtyard to look around (so much for privacy) the courtyard had (what I think was a grecian fountain, also dry)
Dinner was next door, formerly Gli - Gline
I never remember the new name but nothing has changed in the past 15 years, interior or menu - only the name (which I will post tomorrow) the head waiter Tomas always greets us like family:
goose paté, cappachiio with foie gras and caviar, 7 hour lamb, beef Bourguignon, 3 desserts, 2 calvados and coffees - good to be back in Paris!
Tomorrow is back to the city at large, my rest time is over
Tuesday 17 October
No pictures today (forgot to charge the phone and had not taken the Fuji camera with me in the morning). Not much to talk about either. Joan knew I was starting to complain more about walking so much so we so we got on a tour bus. Took us to all the big tourist places: Tour Eiffel, the Louvre, the Invalides (where Napoleon is entombed), Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame de Paris, the opera house, etc, etc. After lunch we got a different bus to Montmatre and Sacré Coeur - same price, there were 4 routes one price go where you want. Funny thing about the Opera house, we passed it at least 4 times - and every time i pictured Walter Mathau and Cary Grant having a shoot out from the movie Charade. Lots of city traffic, and nothing that we hadn’t seen before - Joan was not thrilled but I learned a few historical facts. Since she devours guide books that was probably nothing new for her either. I felt bad - will try to make it up to her.
Wednesday 18 October
Our last full day
