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.

Wonderful London...

The Buxton Memorial (emancipation of slaves in the British Empire) with the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Before heading off to Paris, we spent the best part of a week in London as a jet-lag cure. This city never fails to amaze, so large, so vibrant, and so diverse. History that is so awesome to Australians for whom anything older than 200 years is inconceivable! Buildings of such beauty. The pomp and ceremony surrounding the monarchy. The superb underground public transport system that works so well!

Not all Scots agreed with the result of the recent referendum?

Our hotel was the Hilton Doubletree in Westminster, easy walking distance to the Abbey, and a good central location. It was a modern building, but built in London hotel style, with small but functional and adequate rooms. Ten minute walks could get us to any of Westminster, Pimlico, St James Park or Victoria tube stations, so we had lots of choice.

Attractive chessboard architecture on this large public housing estate in Westminster.

They say walking in daylight is the best remedy for jet-lag, and we did that in spades from the moment we arrived. It seemed to work, although our skies were more grey than blue. The weather was warm, and although some rain was predicted every day, we only saw two or three very short showers the entire time.

Buckingham Palace as seen from St James Park.

As a pedestrian in London, we were impressed with how relatively light the vehicular traffic is. We don't know if it's the congestion tax or what, but London seems to avoid the traffic gridlock in every street which afflicts inner-city Sydney. (We said the same about Boston earlier in the year.) Sometimes, the only vehicles in sight are buses, taxis and commercial vehicles.

Stunningly beautiful Leadenhall Market arcade, very popular with business people at lunchtime.

Lean pickings for a fossicker along the banks of the Thames.

The 87 storey Shard is the tallest skyscraper in Europe.

Guitars for "free strumming" are scattered around London.

Amazingly, our Oyster Cards from 8 years ago still had their value, and all we had to do was top them up. Tube travel in London is not cheap, but using Oyster Cards is half the price of buying tickets.

Closing time at Thomas Farthing as seen from The Plough in Bloomsbury.

The new Canary Wharf station on the Docklands Light Rail.

Our travels are usually in Winter, so we were unprepared for the hours of daylight here! It's full daylight at 5:00am and not dark until nearly 10:00pm. Even then, the twilight is so bright. Frankly, we did not see much "night-time"!

The start of Regent Street seen from Piccadilly Circus.

A very relaxing place to have lunch just out of the incredible hustle of Oxford Street.

For us, it's always a high priority to find good coffee every day. This activity is not as straight-forward as it is in Sydney, but wherever we were at coffee-o'clock, we looked around (part of the adventure) and managed to find somewhere, and the quality and taste were always excellent. And you can easily avoid those accursed take-away cups too.

Good coffee was quite easy to find in London, this in a very unpretentious cafe at the Barbican.

July 7 was a sober day in London, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the underground and buses. About 50 people were killed. The anniversary featured strongly in newspapers and TV news, there was a ceremony at the memorial in Hyde Park, and a minutes silence was observed in the city at 11:30am.

We enjoyed the Bow Bells at noon on Cheapside.

Getting your shoes cleaned here is GBP4.5 but includes conversation.

We didn't attempt anything adventurous in food. The Hilton had an excellent buffet breakfast, so lunch was an apple from a roadside stall. We were usually too tired for a serious dinner experience, but, missing them now in Sydney, we were determined to find a Wagamama one night. Yelp gave us out-dated information and bum steers. We had two failures before successfully finding one quite near our hotel, in Victoria. Delightful to enjoy Wagamama's approach to fresh produce, now lost to our home town!

Brightly enamelled buckets and cans are a historical characteristic of London Canal boats.

Heavy traffic at a bottleneck on the Regents Canal near Kings Cross.

An artist captures an idyllic scene at Little Venice in Paddington.

Public art and white swans in front of Kensington Palace.

Selfie at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Garden.

The Albert Memorial, a truly beautiful monument in Knightsbridge.

Our love affair with the London Underground collapsed on the last day when they went on strike, the crews resisting rosters associated with proposed 24 hour operation. We always planned a taxi to St. Pancras Station, but with no tube, taxis were in short supply, giving us a scare for a while. Getting the 5km to St Pancras in the morning peak took almost an hour - the traffic was heavier than usual due to the strike, and the roads were clogged with cyclists, joggers and pedestrians.

No public transport system is more impressive than the London Underground, except when it goes on strike!

Cobbled lane and converted horse stables in Kensington.

Wimbledon fans lounge on patriotic cushions before this large screen at Victoria.

Late afternoon bright sunshine and spin bowling at Vincent Square.

Public piano at StPancras Station.

A very grey dawn greets Big Ben from Westminster Bridge.