Delightful Dreux...

The purpose of our trip to France, and indeed, of the entire holiday, was to attend the wedding of some dear friends. But this is not a blog about the wedding - our friends deserve their privacy. Instead, this post in our blog just covers the town, Dreux, we stayed in for the wedding, which was nearby.

Travellers boarding the Eurostar at St Pancras Station in London.

We first travelled to Paris Gare du Nord from London St Pancras via the Eurostar, thus ticking off a long-standing bucket list item from our travel planning. The train rockets along at up to 300km/hr and is smooth and quiet. It spends about 20 minutes under the English Channel in the 50km Eurotunnel. After leaving London, it stopped at two more stations in England. Apparently there are also stops in France before Paris, but our train didn't pull up at these. France immigration checks are undertaken at St Pancras before boarding. Our train to Paris appeared to be 100% full, and there is roughly one departure every hour.

St Pancras station in the north of London is a swish, clean modern facility. It was very crowded, but we felt quite safe there with all our luggage, and easily bought some good coffee to fortify us for the journey. Gare du Nord in Paris is equally busy, but, sadly, comes out badly in the comparison. It was dirty and unkempt, and while we were waiting to organise our rental car, we came to recognise the scammers and beggars on their return visits.

Our rental was almost a people mover - it was a Citroen Picasso C4, and felt uncomfortably big in comparison to the much smaller vehicles crowding the Paris streets. In the dark bowels of the Gare du Nord carpark (it was parked on level -7), it took us a long time to find the parking brake control, and then, in heavy traffic, maybe 30 minutes to actually exit the car park. Then another hour to travel much less than 5km to the Peripherique freeway around Paris. This was not a navigational problem, our Garmin worked perfectly, just mind-blowing congestion on poor roads and really bad driving behaviour where blocking intersections is the norm rather than the exception.

Rue D'Orfeuil is a busy downtown street in Dreux, lined with interesting buildings.

Once out of the city traffic, it took less than an hour to get to the delightful town of Dreux, about 80km west of Paris. Dreux is ancient, and was known as Durocassium, a Celtic capital. The first major battle of the French Wars of Religion was held in Dreux in 1562. This town has history beyond contemplation to us Australians! Its population now is about 35,000.

View of Dreux from the hill of Chapelle Royale Saint-Louis. Eglise Saint-Pierre centre left & Le Bellfroi right of centre.

Exquisite detailing on a 250yo house in Blainville.

The centre of Dreux is an extensive pedestrian only area, which includes a large Place Metezeau where our chosen hotel, Le Beffroi, was. Cars can't approach the hotel but the Place itself is atop a large circular underground carpark. We discovered that electric bollards can be lowered by locals with the right swipe card, so they can enter the mall and service their businesses. Luckily for us, the carpark payment system was out of order and we didn't have to pay for entire 5 day stay.

The Hotel Le Beffroi sits in a cluster of shops around Place Metezeau. No-one around at midnight.

The town is replete with splendid old buildings, not the least of which are the Hotel-Dieu (12th Century) and the Saint-Pierre church (13th Century) but our favourite was Le Belfroi, a belltower started in 1512, once the town hall. It was wonderful to stroll around these historical buildings by day and night, attempting to read their attached plaques describing their stories.

Spectacular architecture in an unheralded residence in Rue du General de Gaulle.

Wooden houses in Dreux dating back to the 15th Century lean precariously towards each other across a narrow lane.

The belltower of Dreux, after which our hotel, le Beffroi, was named.

Breakfast in Dreux was taken at the Cafe Dante in the Grand Rue de M. Violette.

Dreux is overlooked but not in any way dominated by the Chapelle-Royale on a modest hill in the centre of town. It's relatively recent, being first built by the Duchess of Orleans in 1816. Older ruins on the site date back to 1142 and the Renaissance.

Chapelle Royale Saint-Louis built in 1816 by the Duchess of Orleans.

The dome of the Chapelle-Royale Saint Louis is 25m up & was constructed in 1816 using a painting by Roussel.

The Ambulatory of the Chapelle-Royale contains the tomb of King Louis-Phillipe I (d1850) and his first decendents.

Outside the wedding celebrations, we sampled several of the cafes, bars and restaurants in town. A lively market sold us fruit and coffee. We almost had to go hungry on Sunday night, when everything shut down except a bar which didn't serve food. But the patrons there were very helpful, and really tried to help. Eventually, with the help of another Aussie family in town for the wedding, we found a low-rent pizza take-away on an outer fringe of the village.

Dreux is bisected by the pretty & twisty La Blaise.

The wedding itself was wonderful. The French sure know how to enjoy themselves!

The scene of the wedding, a very pretty, very old Eglise Saint Pierre in the tiny village of Marville - Moutiers - Brule.

The wedding reception was at the Chateau de Sorel in the tiny hamlet of Sorel - Moussel.