The plan for today was to get up early and drive to Giverny, which is famous for Monet’s garden. However, with a midnight finish we decided to postpone Giverny and spend the day in Chartres, an unplanned, but much needed rest day.

Having already organised with out hosts to have breakfast at 8am the chance of a sleep in went begging. Our hosts, Anna and Francois are a delightful couple with 2 young children who speak both French and Italian, but only a little English. This made for some interesting conversations throughout our stay where the use of many hand movements and a French or Italian accent to kid ourselves it helped with our conversation!!!

For the most part of the day we walked and walked around Chartres taking in the sights and all this town has to offer. By the third lap we had both agreed that everything there is to see in Chartres we had well and truly seen.

A quick bite to eat and a visit back to the Cathedral for a few final snaps before heading back to our room to put our feet up and relax for a couple of hours. Whilst I managed to punch our some zzzzz’s, Hugh spent his time finessing his photos and writing the Blog.
Feeling suitably refreshed we headed back out to hit the shops, as most of them do not open until 2pm. Not much success but we did find Hugh a shirt that was 40% off so that ticked all of his requirements.

We had organised with our hosts to meet up at 6pm to ‘converse’ over a bottle of local organic wine accompanied by some lovely local produce. The conversation managed to flow ok with the occasional help of the iPhone.

We were fortunate enough to see the cave that lies underneath their home, and we were the first guests in which they had allowed down to see this. There were two caves, one directly under the house and the other only recently discovered which runs back behind the house and down another 11 metres. Francois hasn’t yet ventured down the tunnel to see where it leads, but we put in our claim for half of the treasures found down there.

All musty and damp, it was a fascinating little tour into the history of the old buildings of this town, and a great honour bestowed upon us by Francois.
Dinner was planned across the road at 7:30pm and the children were getting hungry so we parted ways to get organised. We had a lovely dinner of typical French cuisine which was a great way to finish out stay in Chartres.

Too tired to see the Cathedral light up again, we headed home, glad for the relaxing day as the next few days are anything but.