France on Fridays: Sur La Route Encore

LES DEUX AMIS EN FRANCE
On the Road Again • Friday, June 9

In the morning, we say good-bye to Honfleur and head southeast, back towards Paris and on to Provins, a walled Medieval town that is our half-way point on the way to Annecy.

We are travel-weary, having explored non-stop Paris and now Normandy as much as our cold-battling bodies will allow. This drive does not carry the same enthusiasm of adventure as the day we left Paris; still, we are excited about the open road ahead.

Sadly, it is not exactly “open” in Paris, and we find ourselves in midday traffic for hours. Traffic to flat-out stretches of French countryside to the small village of Provins takes us close to six hours, longer than the three our itinerary suggested.

At the Hôtel aux Vieux Ramparts, it is explained to us excitedly that there is a Medieval Festival that night!

We are not excited.

We must park several blocks away, outside the city walls, and cart our suitcases back across cobblestone streets. We must find food in a town that is closing down for the festival — hot dogs and hamburgers, très Français. We must sleep two stories above festive merry-makers at a Buffet Medieval outside our window. We must trek back up cobblestone streets in the morning for the next leg of our journey.

It seems like a fun town, we agree. The hotel is lovely and welcoming. A nice place to visit if there were not other things to attend to, like the five-hour drive to Annecy in the morning. An interesting stop if you are not sick, tired and just a bit ornery.

In total, we will take some 850 photos between the two of us. I have five of Provins…three of tiled roofs outside our window, one of the “Buffet Medieval” sign, and one of the wallpaper in our room. It is the last thing I see before we close our eyes, burry under pillows for quiet, and fall asleep.