Another Day, Another Cathedral

We left our very well designed aire de camping car in Troyes soon after 09:00 and set the controls for Bourges. It’s a Sunday so driving was easy, light traffic and no trucks. We soon came across a Super-U which was both open and had ample space in the car park for Frodo. Needing at least fresh milk, in we went. Francine’s been getting withdrawal symptoms from Ricard and we managed to fix that, too. (Mind you, it isn’t Ricard weather at the moment and it’s the weather that needs fixing.)

That was the highlight of the day; from here things went downhill. We were soon driving through the cloud, which was on the deck. The temperature was pretty much on the deck, too, registering 12°C and occasionally 13°C going across country, which ordinarily would have been nice except we couldn’t actually see the country through the murk.

Then one of the villages that we needed to pass through was blocked but, it having first of all frozen requiring a reboot, the on-board satnav kept trying to get us to return to the blocked village. Using vintage maps left behind after the Nazis were kicked out, primary navigatrix Francine took over. Sometimes the old ways are best.

Finally, after 240 rather stressful kilometres we arrived at the Borges camping municipal at 13:45. Reception didn’t open until 14:00 and a French caravan was already waiting to book in blocking most of the short approach road. We reversed into a small parking area opposite and waited for the office to open and for the bouchon to clear so we could get to our pitch, which would best be described as adequate; at least it was flat.

We had a lunch of bread and rilletes and wandered into town for a look-see.

PXL_20240602_135152972Bourges has another cathedral and a very tall one at that. We wandered in to have a gawp in the customary manner. I always find myself conflicted in such places. Whilst I think that spending generations building such huge edifices in honour of a non-existent omnipotent being was a complete farce, I can’t help but think that the world would actually be a more mundane place without them.

Inside, the ceiling was a very long way up and the stained glass must be some of the most impressive we’ve seen, with a lot of very rich blues dominating.

PXL_20240602_135606874 (1)PXL_20240602_140320885PXL_20240602_140605510

20240602_163224We set about finding the old town which proved to be a little more difficult than we expected but we eventually triumphed. There were some timbered buildings but I wouldn’t exactly go overboard.

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Posted in 2024 Summer