We have just got back late Tuesday afternoon from a week in France we flew into Paris hired a car and drove to Chartres through the Paris rush hour and down the motorways which took about 2 hours. We arrived at the hotel which was a ex Catholic Monastery after driving up some very narrow cobbled streets in the old quarter and I was helped in by a stranger who then helped us with our bags, we thought at first he worked there but once inside we could see he was a priest who told us he had a church in Illies Cambro and invited us to visit. Later that night we went for something to eat in a restaurant close to the city square and ordered Galettas a kind of pancake with fillings in and what we didn't know till later was that it contained buckwheat which Jun is allergic to,  so her throat started to close up and her body came out in lumps and rashes we had to dash back to the Hotel find a Hospital and then drive there and we spent over two hours before she was seen examined and given an injection.

 Jun was ok the next morning once so we spent the next day looking around Chartres and went to Mass and Vespers on the night in the Cathedral, it is a magnificent building and the rose windows are wonderful, there was also a light show being projected onto the outside of the cathedral with music and that took your breath away to see and hear it.

 The next two days we spent driving, we visited Illies Cambray as we wanted to meet the priest again who had his church there,  he had also told us it was where Marcel Proust spent holidays there as a boy and his famous novel was about the town "In search of lost time". Unfortunately he was not at his church when we visited and the house of Marcel Proust was closed. We then drove to Chateudun that was a lovely place as well, then to Bonneval all very old towns with lots of history. The second day out we drove to Orleans that was a bit difficult driving through with lots of security about, we visited the Cathedral and home of Joan of Arc but that also was closed, wandered along the river looking at boats and walked around the old city area. We then decided to drive out and visit a medieval village about 30 minutes outside the city called Combleaux that was really nice walking along the river/canal and seeing all the lovely buildings and soaking up the quiet atmosphere , then back to Chartres via Chateudun again. Got back to Chartres in rush hour and  we used Juns Google map  it kept telling me to go this way and that way, all either no entry roads or pedestrian areas before we realized we had it on the walking app instead of the driving app, we nearly caused chaos haha. The next day we set off to take the car back to the airport, we had run into a few yellow jacket protestors on roads  usually camping on roundabouts disrupting the traffic etc, but it was mainly ok and when we came off the motorway at the toll booth there was a large group of them and lots of police, they had taken the toll booths over and were  letting everyone go through free, the police just stood by doing nothing.  We called to Versailles on the way back driving through the forests to get off the main roads some beautiful countryside and quaint villages. This was followed by the sharp contrast of driving north through Paris and after dropping the car off we took the train into Paris for the last 3 days, there wasn't any demonstrations while we were there but a huge police and army presence as well as lots of evidence of damage to buildings, shops ,banks, cash machines etc.

We visited the galleries, The Orsay  was amazing as was the smaller Orange, we also visited The Grand Synagogue but the man said its closed today can you come back tomorrow and we said no we are going home and have walked miles to get there so he arranged a private viewing for us with this other man who explained to us its history, let us take photos and even opened the room at back of altar to let us see the Torhas. We also visited the Basilica Sacra Cour another beautiful church and on the Sunday night went to High Mass at Notra Damme after which we went to a Turkish local café. There was also a famous restaurant Jun wanted to visit The Chartier apparently been going for well over a hundred years, very busy and you had to share tables it was like going back in time...although they didn't have much in the way of vegetarian meals, Jun had snails followed by duck. On the last night we walked around the Champs Elysees and towards the Eiffel tower.

We did both agree Paris had changed a bit in the last 10 years since we were last there, it had become a lot dirtier and there was a huge increase in homeless people  wandering around going through dustbins and refuse bags and begging which was very sad to see and also the weather the whole week had been either below or just above freezing so it must have been awful for them.