We stayed Saturday night in Blois (pronounced “blwah”), and spent the first half of Sunday checking it out. Blois straddles the Loire River, is another member of the Joan of Arc fan club, and is home to about 50,000.

Now this is definitely not unique to Blois (it's rampant in Paris and probably throughout France) but there is dog shit absolutely everywhere! In Paris though I don't think I've ever seen bags made available to clean your dog's shit up. They are available in Blois however but such is the typical I-don't-give-a-damn attitude of the French that they evidently aren't used.

Another grey winter's day!

The main attraction in Blois is Chateau de Blois (yup, Castle of Blois), perched on a hill in the centre of the city.

Out the back of the chateau there was some social gathering for exotic car owners.

Everything from old dungers to Audi TT's to Ferrari 360 convertibles.

Meep meep!

Even the fuzz turned up, but they impressed nobody.

Anyway, the chateau was the residence of several French kings, and comprises of several buildings constructed from the 13th to the 17th century around the main courtyard. After going into two chateaux yesterday we didn't bother going into this one, so I've stolen the panorama above instead. True to form, it has something like 564 rooms with a fireplace in each, about a 100 of which are bedrooms, and 75 staircases. Dear me.

As for the rest of the town I really liked it! I can't really say why, but I just did. As Blois is built on a pair of steep hills, winding and steep pathways run through the city, culminating in long staircases at various points. Needless to say, the city's population have strong thighs.

Blois Cathedral overlooking the rooftops.

A cafe dedicated to Jimmy.

Something for kids.

More of those half-timbered buildings scattered around (a la Normandy).

Yup, nice place.

Once we'd had enough of avoiding dog shit we hit the road again towards Paris, with one more detour to make...

...the town of Chartres about 80kms southwest of Paris. And yes that really is her hair colour.

Chartres is best known for its cathedral, which is currently covered in scaffolding to ruin my photos. Again, every town's gotta have one! Notice each of the two towers of this one has a different design to the other - it's been pointed out to me that this is unique to the cathedral (at least in France). One of the towers and most of the city was destroyed by fire in 1194, and was subsequently rebuilt.

The cathedral is famed for its stained-glass windows, most depicting some sort of historical story. I'll admit they're impressive but their depictions are completely lost on me.

Chartres also has a very cute Old City area, with buildings that are bound to fall over any moment now.

Other than that there really wasn't anything else of interest here, so with that we headed back to Paris, in time to see the hourly show of lights from the Eiffel Tower.