119. France 4

Posted byskiptondiariesPosted inUncategorized

This post features Paris, Chartres, Laon, Le Mans and Orléans from a trip in July 2025.

For this trip, I flew from Leeds-Bradford to Paris Charles de Gaulle with Jet2. At Paris CdG I took the RER train from the airport station. We landed at Terminal 3 and it’s a bit of a trek to the station – easy enough, signposted and covered most of the way – it’ll take about 7-8 minutes. The train takes about 35 minutes to Paris Gare du Nord (Paris Nord) and they run at roughly 15-minute intervals – so very convenient.

I find buying tickets for the Metro and RER in Paris confusing and the machines hopeless, despite the English language options. Much better, I think, is to download the SNCF Connect app for national rail https://www.sncf-connect.com/ and the IDF Mobilité app for Paris Metro, bus, tram and suburban trains.

IDF stands for Île-de-France – the region that incorporates Paris. So, it is logical but a bit confusing, if you’re not familiar with French regions and departments: https://www.iledefrance-mobilites.fr/

Fortunately, both apps are easy to use and you can search, buy and store on your phone as you would any transport app…

I’m a bit old-fashioned in that I like to use a separate card for city travel (Oyster in London, Navigo in Paris). That way I can tap in and out and if I lose the card it’s no big deal. Buying a Navigo card at one of the machines at the main stations is actually relatively straightforward, whereas topping the the thing up and adding tickets is a nightmare. Much easier to top up the card and add tickets by using the app on your phone…

Now then. With an Oyster card you simply add funds and use the card on bus, London overground (TFL trains) and the underground. Simple…

The Navigo card requires separate tickets for bus, RER and Metro. They can be stored on the one card, though. Bizarre…

England 1 France 0

On the other hand, with the SNCF Connect app you can buy rail tickets for anywhere in the country unlike in the UK where each TOC (train operating company) has its own app…

France 1 England 0

Balançoires et manèges…

For the return journey I took the Eurostar from Gare du Nord to St Pancras and then an LNER train from Kings Cross to Leeds. It’s about 2hr20 between London and Paris (344km/214 miles) and then about 2hr15 from Kings Cross to Leeds (299km/186 miles)…

At the end of this post are links to previous posts on France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands…

Paris

Riverside

Notre Dame
The restoration of Notre Dame is nearing completion – although it reopened to visitors in December 2024, it is expected that renovations will continue into 2026…
Hotel de Ville
Hotel de Ville
The greffe du tribunal des activités économiques de Paris opened in 1865…
La Conciergerie – the former medieval fortress was used as a holding cell for nearly 3,000 prisoners, usually awaiting the guillotine, during the Reign of Terror. The most famous prisoner was Marie-Antoinette, who spent her last few weeks at La Conciergerie…

Street Scenes

Place de la Bastille
I stayed at the Citadines Bastille Marais on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir – which is a great location. It’s a 2 minute walk from the Richard-Lenoir metro stop in one direction and 2 minutes from the Bréguet–Sabin metro station in the other. It is on Line 5 and only 5 stops from Paris Nord, 4 stops from Paris Est, 3 stops from Quai de la Rapée (for Garde de Lyon) and 4 stops from Gare Austerlitz. It is an 8 minute walk from Place la Bastille; 18 minutes from La Place de la République and an easy 20 minute walk to the Quai Henri IV…
It’s not luxurious but the room was perfectly adequate – spacious, with a little kitchen and a good bathroom…
You can look up to Bastille from the room’s balcony – there is an excellent market every Thursday and Sunday in the park…
La Place de la République
An ornate water fountain
The Cheval Blanc Hotel
Rue de la Monnaie
L’église Saint-Eustache – it was built between 1532-1632 and houses the largest organ in France

Montparnasse and Austerlitz

Montparnasse is a horrible station. The layout is unecessarily complicated and the direction signs confusing. It is also a very busy station.
If arriving by the Metro keep going up – the mainline train platforms are above ground. If departing by the Metro then keep going down
I eventually got the hang of it – which is just as well as trains to Angers and Bordeaux go from here, so I’m going to have to use this station again…
Austerlitz is a building site but still open and running. It will be restored to former glory when the building work is finished but in the meantime it’s a mess…

Chartres

Chartres is the administrative capital of the Eure et Loire department. Trains take about 1hr15 from Montparnasse and one of the stops on route is Versailles Chantiers – where you can get off to see the palace…

Cathedral of Notre Dame

Building of the cathedral began in 1145, it was badly damaged by fire in 1194 and rebuilding was completed in 1218 – it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site…
The cathedral has astonishingly lovely stained glass windows…

Around The Cathedral

Jean Paul Chartres
The courtyard around the cathedral
The courtyard around the cathedral
The courtyard around the cathedral looking towards the musée des Beaux-Arts
Le musée des Beaux-Arts – originally built in the 15th century as an episcopal palace, the current building is largely 17th and 18th century and houses the Museum of Fine Arts…

Walkabout

Intriguing mural and trompe l’oeil
This remarkable building was built between 1923-8 as the post office. It is now the media library (Mediatheque de Chartres) and remains open during the restoration work…
The war memorial
The grand railway station…

Laon

Laon is the administrative capital of the Aisne department and is 1hr40 by train from Paris Gare du Nord. Pronounciation is interesting: the a is silent and the n in “Lon” is swallowed – I can’t think of an English equivalent but swallowing sounds or the ends of words is a feature of several European languages…

Arrival

The impressive view from the station…
On leaving the station there is this bit of street art. It is easy to see what it represents, less easy to see why, though…
265 steps – 18 flights – pace yourself by counting the flights rather than the steps

Around the Cathedral of Notre Dame

Balloons and Umbrellas

Street Scenes

The impressive church of St Martin is closed to visitors as you’d expect in a tourist town…

City Walls

Le Mans

Le Mans is the administrative capital of the Sarthe department. The TGV takes a mere 54 minutes to do the 208km journey from Montparnasse…

Cathedral of St Julien

Regarded as one of the finest examples of Gothic-Roman architecture in France, the cathedral of St Julien was built (or evolved) between the 9th and 15th centuries. It was badly damaged during a fire in 1134 and rebuilding lasted 24 years – although it continued to evolve after that. Interestingly, different websites give differing dates for its period of construction. It should get a special award just for its flying buttresses…
It has some of the oldest stained glass windows in France. King Henry II was baptised here…

Plantaganet City (Cité Plantagenêt)

The historic quarter of Le Mans is dubbed “Plantaganet City” – the link between the Plantagenets and Le Mans was established in 1128 with the marriage in the cathedral of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou Matilda, widow of the German Emperor. Matilda was heiress to the English throne and their son, the future Henry II, was born here in 1133. In 1152, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine and was crowned King of England in 1154…

Other Churches

The church of Notre Dame
The church of St Benoit

Street Scenes

Orléans

Orléans is the administrative capital of the Loiret department. It takes 1hr4 from Gare d’Austerlitz. Bear in mind that Austerlitz is a building site at the moment – it will be great when it is finished but it’s taking a while…

Arrival

It’s only a short walk to the city centre – so why am I giving you directions on how to get there? Well, on arrival at the station there aren’t any direction signs. So, on arrival at the station, go up into the unimaginatively named Place d’Arc shopping centre and there you will find signs pointing to centre ville…
Et voila! And there is Joan of Arc…

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc or la Pucelle) was born in 1412, burned at the stake in Rouen, in 1412, accused by the English of heresy, and canonised in 1920…
Joan of Arc led the French army to a significant victory over the English at Orléans during the Hundred Years War…

Cathedral of the Holy Cross

Big Squares, Wide Boulevards

Small Squares and Side Streets

Regions and Departments

France is split into 13 administrative regions and then further divided into 96 departments. The visits to Chartres, Laon and Orléans enabled me to visit 3 “new” departments thereby taking my tally to an unimpressive 30 out of 96. The departments are numbered 1 to 95 but, just to confuse, Corsica is split into 2A and 2B. There are also an additional 5 overseas departments. https://about-france.com/regions.htm

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

01 Ain (Bourg en Bresse); 03 Allier (Moulins); 07 Ardèche (Privas); 15 Cantal (Aurillac); 26 Drôme (Valence); 38 Isère (Grenoble); 42 Loire (Saint-Étienne); 43 Haut Loire (Le Puy); 63 Puy de Dome (Clermont Ferrand); 69 Rhône (Lyon); 73 Savoie (Chambéry) 74 Haute-Savoie (Annecy)

Brittany

22 Côtes d’Armor (St Brieuc); 29 Finistère (Quimper); 35 Ille et Vilaine (Rennes);
56 Morbihan (Vannes)

Bourgogne – Franche-Comte

21 Côte-d’Or (Dijon); 25 Doubs (Besançon); 39 Jura (Lons le Saunier); 58 Nièvre (Nevers); 70 Haute-Saône (Vesoul); 71 Saône et Loire (Mâcon); 89 Yonne (Auxerre); 90 Territoire de Belfort (Belfort)

Corsica

2A Corse du Sud (Ajaccio); 2B Haute Corse (Bastia)

Centre – Val de Loire

18 Cher (Bourges); 28 Eure et Loire (Chartres); 36 Indre (Chateauroux); 37 Indre et Loire (Tours); 41 Loir et Cher (Blois); 45 Loiret (Orléans) 

Grand Est (Alsace, Champagne, Lorraine)

67 Bas Rhin (Strasbourg); 68 Haut Rhin (Colmar)

08 Ardennes (Charleville-Meziere); 10 Aube (Troyes); 51 Marne (Chalon-sur-Marne);
52 Haute-Marne (Chaumont)

54 Meurthe-et-Moselle (Nancy); 55 Meuse (Bar-le-Luc); 57 Moselle (Metz);
88 Vosges (Épinal)

Hauts de France (Nord Pas de Calais, Picardie)

59 Nord (Lille); 62 Pas-de-Calais (Arras)

02 Aisne (Laon); 60 Oise (Beauvais); 80 Somme (Amiens)

Ile de France (Paris)

75 Paris (Paris); 77 Seine et Marne (Melun); 78 Yvelines (Versailles); 91 Essonne (Evry); 92 Hauts-de-Seine (Nanterre); 93 Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny); 94 Val-de-Marne (Créteil); 95 Val-de-Oise (Pontoise)

Nouvelle Aquitaine (Aquitaine, Poitou-Charentes, Limousin)

24 Dordogne (Perigeux); 33 Gironde (Bordeaux); 40 Les Landes (Mont de Marsan);
47 Lot et Garonne (Agen); 64 Pyrénées Atlantiques (Pau)

16 Charente (Angouleme); 17 Charente-Maritime (La Rochelle); 79  Deux Sèvres (Niort);
86 Vienne (Poitiers)

19 Corrèze (Tulle); 23 Creuse (Gueret); 87 Haute Vienne (Limoges)

Normandy

14 Calvados (Caen); 27 Eure (Evreux); 50 Manche (St Lo); 61 Orne (Alençon); 76 Seine Maritime (Rouen)

Occitanie (Midi-Pyrenees, Languedoc)

09 Ariège (Foix); 12 Aveyron (Rodez); 31 Haute-Garonne (Toulouse); 32 Gers (Auch);
46 Lot (Cahors); 65 Hautes-Pyrénées (Tarbes); 81 Tarn (Albi); 82 Tarn-et-Garonne (Montaubin)

11 Aude (Carcassonne); 30 Gard (Nimes); 34 Herault (Montpellier); 48 Lozere (Mende);
66 Pyrénées- Orientale (Perpignan)

Pays de la Loire

44 Loire Atlantique (Nantes); 49 Maine et Loire (Angers); 53 Mayenne (Laval);
72 Sarthe (Le Mans); 85 Vendée (Le Roche -sur-Yon)

Provence – Côte d’Azur

04 Alpes de Haute Provence (Digne); 05 Hautes Alpes (Gap) 06 Alpes Maritime (Nice); 13 Bouches du Rhone (Marseille); 83 Var (Toulon); 84 Vaucluse (Avignon)

Overseas Departments

971 Guadeloupe (Basse-Terre); 972 Martinique (Fort de France); 973 Guyane (Cayenne); 974 La Réunion (Saint-Denis); 975 Mayotte (Mamoudzou)

Note: prefecture or administrative capital shown in brackets – those that are emboldened are featured in the posts

Charles Wells

Charles Wells, the Bedford family-owned brewery, has 19 pubs in France including an astonishing 7 in Bordeaux. This link will take you to their website: https://www.wellsandco.com/pubs/wells-and-co-france

Previous trips to France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands

108. France: 3
106. France 2
13. France 1
19. Belgium
115. Luxembourg
51. Netherlands

One thought on “119. France 4”

  1. Love Le Mans old town Barnaby. Did you get to see the art projection at night? (La Nuit Des Chimeres?) TB

    Reply

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