Lovely days out in Normandy

Villeray made a good base for some exploring and the weather was so beautiful we were able to make the most of it. On Saturday we headed for Honfleur, which was rather further than we’d anticipated but it was well worth the effort and the drive through the countryside was also lovely. The place was buzzing, with a large Saturday market and all the shops open. The many restaurants lining the picturesque quayside were full to bursting and there was a large wedding going on in the church, though the bride was having to wait in the car while a van carried out some unloading in the narrow streets. Mindful of a large dinner waiting for us at the Moulin we avoided the temptation to go for a huge lunch, I had some delicious oysters and John half a lobster, washed down with a couple of glasses of Muscadet.
On Sunday, another stunning day, we drove over to Alencon which was a really pretty town, dominated by a large castle and an uninspiring river. We had a good wander around before driving through exquisite countryside to St Generil, which is billed as one of the most beautiful villages in France. Hard to live up to quite such aggrandisement but it certainly was very pretty, set high up above a bend in the river and surrounded by woodland and steep limestone gorges. Many people were enjoying such a fine Sunday to picnic by the river and take in the scenery. We drove with the top down through lots of other pretty places and across rolling farm land though I was trying to use the back roads so spent rather a lot of the drive looking at the atlas rather than the scenery! The classification of the roads in the atlas – red, yellow or white, seems to bear no resemblance to the actual size and state of the road which led us more than once into tricky situations on very narrow tracks but John is such a good driver that he managed it all without a scratch.
Monday we went over to Chartres and had a really good walk around the old town and look at the cathedral. I couldn’t persuade John to climb the hundreds of steps to the North tower – he isn’t keen on heights or steps but the view from the hilltop was still pretty amazing. Monday is closing day in France – it would appear that apart from bread, cakes and flowers, no-one needs anything from Saturday lunchtime to Tuesday morning no matter how large the town. Chartres is really quite a big place but it was still amazing how much was shut and Nogent le Rotrou was almost completely closed down when we moved on there for another look round! However, we enjoyed Chartres without the need for much shopping – I managed to buy a jumper in Monoprix as my summer wardrobe has been struggling to cope, especially in the mornings where the temperature starts off around 3 degrees, despite the sunshine. In Nogent we were after a bottle of local cider to drink on our terrace, as the restaurant wanted more euros for that than the wine! We did manage to find one in Leader Price, which surprisingly was open (the one in Vertus didn’t open on Mondays), for just over one euro. It was lovely sitting in our little garden, surrounded by fruit trees drinking it.