2015-09-06-Chartres, FR-Chartres Cathedral

Yesterday evening we met our friends Dave, Jean, Carey and Carroll, about forty other fellow travelers and our tour/cruise director, Guillaume at the Hotel Jardin du Marais where we received a comprehensive briefing on our itinerary for the next two weeks. Afterwards, we had an excellent dinner at Chez Janou Bistrot, a place that Dave and Jean were familiar with. This morning, we left Paris by bus at 8AM and arrived a couple of hours later in Chartres, about 60 miles southwest of Paris. Chartres is world famous for its magnificent Gothic cathedral which has the best preserved stained glass in all of France with exquisite, vivid colors, especially it's vibrant blue tones. In the afternoon we drove south to Amboise, an ancient historic town straddling the Loire River in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France with two castles, or chateaux, one of which commands the town's high ground over the river. After settling into our hotel on the outskirts of town, our group attended the Grand Circle Cruise Line's"Welcome Dinner" in the unique La Cave aux Foulees Restaurant Troglodyte (cave dweller) situated, appropriately enough, in a cave!