(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Bonjour! Join me as I take you on an adventure to France… …yesterday evening we arrived in Chartres, just south of Paris.
We have managed to get past the Paris Ring road with comparatively few delays and been spat out the other end back onto the main motorway south. I will sing praises of any French government who can ever make as direct as possible motorway that would by-pass the Paris Ring road.
Presently if you wish to avoid it, the alternative north/south routes involve either going through Rouen, adding a full 120 kilometers extra to your journey or taking the smaller provincial “B’ roads (or in the French case: “N” roads) which are slow, often single laned, winding and often already congested with everything from trucks to tractors wishing to avoid the toll motorways.
We are pleased to have left the Parisian morning commuters behind us and to be past the half-way point of our journey.We have an excellent night’s sleep and are looking forward to breakfast in France.
Once again I am surprised and delighted to see that the level of service here is so much better than I would have expected. Maybe it was because I was on crutches? Possibly, … but to be honest, judging from last evenings reception and room service experience I rather think that the management here have invested in some good staff training which the employees have actually taken to heart.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Little Mr., typical six year old, is adamant that a novelty plastic spoon picked up in a Birthday party gift bag last week (and currently sitting filthy in the back seat of the van because after he ate yogurt with it soon after we started out yesterday) is the only spoon he wants to eat this mornings yogurt with. He’s adamant he wants the yogurt too.
Himself leaves the hotel dining room to retrieve it from the van and get it washed, so I’m alone in the dining room supervising what the kids are wanting to put onto their plates. I’m pleasantly surprised when staff offer to carry glasses of orange juice for me and offer to fetch anything that we might need bringing to the table.
They were an excellent help and made the whole breakfast procedure run far smoother than it otherwise would have and they were even friendly and seemed completely happy to be of help too! Bravo!
The kids do well with breakfast and in fact after the delight of the service I was rather surprised when the only thing that let this place down was the cooked part of the breakfast menu. Sorry, the bacon was only just “ok” and those scrambled eggs and sasuages really were not palatable at all.
It wasn’t only Himself and I who thought so either, Little Mr has recently taken a shine to scrambled egg but refused point blank after the first mouthful. I don’t blame him, none of us found ours nice enough to persevere with.
The fruit, yogurt, pastries and rolls were however well up to the standards we have come to expect when in France, so we didn’t leave hungry at all, and the individual tea-pots are something that we have never seen before in all our French travels so well done there too.
I don’t usually start my day with hot chocolate but the French do it so well that it’s become a habit of mine each time we are there now and this does not disappoint: served in the typically French style: a wide mouthed cup/bowl sans handle and truely, it is a divine way to start your day.
Who needs “French Toast” when you have this? (for the record, I’ve never seen French Toast on any French breakfast menu, …ever.)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Shortly after breakfast we are packed and ready for the road again… I would highly recommend the Novotel Chartres, it’s clean, comfortable, good value for money and the grand bonus: the friendly Staff have made us keen to repeat the experience.
