29 April - Arrived in Spain

Clear skies and sunshine as we left St Flour on our final leg of the journey south. 

We had a pit stop after about an hour at services looking out to the medieval town of Château de Severac. We'll have to put this on our list of places to visit on future trips.

28 April - Chartres and Saint Flour

After a filling early morning buffet breakfast we had a 30 minute drive to Chartres.

At 9am Chartres was empty. A visit to Chartres Notre Dame without hoards of tourists was lovely. I need more practice at selfies to avoid the double chin 🤣!

Just us and one man and his dog by the cathedral.

The stain glass windows were amazing - photo doesn't really show what they were like.

On our potter around the town we came across a honey shop with different honeys on tap. Makes a change to the usual barrels of wine and port.

A quiet sit down in the main square.

Meringues given with your coffee!

Then it was back on the road behind one of the many 'convoi exceptionelle' that we came across today. We were amazed what they allow down the country roads.

Weather was a bit overcast by the time we got to Saint Flour for our overnight stop. This is looking up to the old town.

This is looking down from the old town to where our hotel is - just left of the bridge.

Our old telephone boxes get everywhere!

Tomorrow we'll make the last stage of our trip, via the Milau bridge, to Roses. Hope to arrive mid afternoon.

27 April - Off to Spain - overnight in Dreux

Off to Spain!! Up at 5.30am, left just before 6am, through Dover ferry customs (no queues as finger print scanning tech not yet ready) and parked up before 7am waiting for the ferry to arrive (only 4 cars waiting in front of us). Decided to have a coffee in the cafe and lounged there until the first call for passengers to return to their cars. 

P&O were being a bit keen this morning as we headed out to see our car all on its own as everyone else had boarded!!! No panic though as literally a dozen cars and a school coach trip on board.

Loads of space and seats overlooking the bow. As usual brought our own pastries from Sainsbury's for breakfast 😊.

On the road again by 11.30am with 4 hours of driving to Dreux - our first stop on our journey down. We've not been here before so it was lovely to have plenty of time to explore.

Typical French architecture 

Saint Pierre Church, in the middle of town, currently having some restorative work.

There were some lovely murals

A spot of light refreshment before heading back to our hotel for dinner. 

Tomorrow we're continuing south via Chatres to Saint Flour.