The campsite I stayed in overnight at Chartres had a really late check out of 2pm, meaning that I could leave my camper in the campsite and walk to Chartres city centre without worrying about parking - winning! I did just that; it was about a 3km walk, a bit of it by the banks of the Eure river.
While walking up to the very noticeable and imposing spires of the great Chartres cathedral, I was distracted by some very pretty houses and gardens along the banks of the river in the lower town. Of course I had to go have a poke around, before continuing uphill again...
As I mentioned earlier, the main drawcard of the city of Chartres is its cathedral, which is quite an imposing sight and its position on the top of a hill means that you can see it from a long way off. This cathedral is UNESCO heritage-listed as well as being considered one of the top 10 most beautiful cathedrals in France (incidentally, I have visited 9/10 of these!) as it represents the high point of French Gothic architecture. Sadly, I did not see a lot of the inside, being that it was Sunday and parishioners were streaming in (I did pop in and have a quick look but ducked out before the church service started). It was quite impressive on the outside as well. Most of the current structure was built between 1194 and 1220, and I'm constantly surprised that a) buildings so old have lasted and b) how people used to make sure beautiful buildings.
You'll notice that the spires are quite different from each other. This is mostly due to the fact that the original ones were destroyed and rebuilt at different times and so reflect the architecture of the time they were rebuilt (the right one is older and was finished in 1150, while the left one was rebuilt in 1513).
After taking a good look around the church, I had a wander through the rest of the city. A lot of it was closed, being a Sunday, but I managed to find one shop open that sold my favourite tea so I bought a pot of it! I also picked up a sandwich and something sweet to eat.
It was time to head back to the camper for a spot of lunch before driving again. I walked down along the Eure for a bit, it was so pretty... I got back to the campsite and ate my sandwich, then made myself a cup of tea - this happened so rarely these days that it was a nice treat!! I sipped it while eating my tarte, then left the campsite.
I drove about 2 hours to my next campsite for the night, getting there pretty early, about 3:15pm. The reason was that I wanted to be at my first stop for tomorrow really early because it was a place I'd wanted to go to for ages, and was quite touristy. Yep, I was finally going to go to Monet's house in Giverny!
On the way up to the campsite in Saint Marcel, I saw a sign for an old church and I thought I would go and have a look. I was bumping down the dirt road, thinking that maybe this wasn't a great idea, when I finally found it. It was privately owned but I had a wander around the outside. There were some signs around about it, but they were in French and my Google Translate wasn't working too well so I couldn't even tell you where it was. It was really nice and peaceful though, and a nice excuse to stretch my legs!
Campsite: Camping les Fosses Rouges (Saint Marcel)
Rating: 7/10. Fairly basic campsite. I quite liked the toilet/shower configuration, as you got a room with both rather than going to a bathroom with stalls. It was really miserable weather when I was there, windy and rainy, so I didn't get to see any of the other facilities. Sites could have been a bit more private