After breakfast we went into Cambrai town, having had our appetire whetted as we drove through last night. We spent a couple of unplanned hours looking around and having coffee. It was a comfortable place and not too big. Very attractive architecture, fascinating town hall clock that does things.
We eventually left well after 1pm, with about 3 hours driving to get to Chalons en Champagne for the night, perhaps with minor distractions on the way. After trying to get diesel at a couple of supermarket fuel outlets and having all 3 cards refused by the machine, we ended up in another town and another supermarket fuel station, with cards refused again. Gill marched into the supermarket to sort it out – no, we have to wait until the man in the payment booth was back from lunch. Then a very nice lady customer suggested that she could pay with her card and we could give her cash. We were so grateful as we didn’t think we had enough diesel to get us a lot further, and this saved us waiting for another hour. This all added to another unplanned delay. Then we were out of there.
On the way, we saw this nice, very tired old chateau.
Then, just for a change, we stopped at a lock and a lock keeper’s cottage with character, and the need for a lot of work.
Well, there was this interesting shape on the skyline and as we got closer, we realised it was a big cathedral. Here comes another unplanned stop. We turned off the road we were on (suppose we couldn’t turn off a road we weren’t on), drove to the edge of town and then up and up and up, until we drove through the old town and reached the cathedral. We didn’t realise we were in the town of Laon. The present Laon Notre Dame Cathedral dates from the 12th and early 13th centuries. Gothic style. We were lucky that the organist was practising, and to hear the bass pipes was amazing. There goes another hour by the time we had a look at some of the old streets. By this time, it was around 4pm and we still had 2 hours driving to go. It was well worth it.
We were pleased when we finally got to the hotel and we could relax.
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