No, I haven’t developed a sudden speech impediment, Twah is, apparently, approximately how one should pronounce the town we’ve visiting – Troyes. How’s a man with schoolboy French supposed to arrive at that??

Yesterday was a long, boring day in Basil, heading south. We found another lovely (expensive €15.20) aire just outside Troyes, which is essentially a small campsite with no reception. Reception duties are all handled by a computer.

This morning with were up with the lark. A slightly somnolent lark, but a lark nonetheless.

It was about a one mile walk to the beginning of old town Troyes and OLD is the operative word. Sometimes we arrive in a town that has a great write up in our guide and are disappointed, but in the case of Troyes it was the opposite. I’ve never seen so many half timbered houses in one town in my life. Apparently there was a large fire in 1524 and most of these houses were built in the aftermath.

The ecclesiastical buildings were slightly more of a disappointment. The Cathedral in large and fairly spectacular from the outside but, apart from some lovely stained glass, the inside in rather plain.

The same went for the other churches, although 12th Century Ste. Madeleine does display an elaborate rood screen, one of only approximately 100 left in French churches. The purpose of a rood screen, which was totally done away with by the reformation, was to delineate that part of the church where only clergy were permitted.

One of the other Troyes churches piqued my interest. Following Henry V’s (of England) swashbuckling adventures in France in the early 1400s and helped by the political manoeuvring of various French Duke’s, in 1420 a Treaty of Troyes was signed which made Henry V and his heirs, the regent to the King of France. As part of the Treaty Henry married Catherine de Valois, the daughter of the French King. The marriage took place in the church of St-Jean-au-Marché in Troyes. Much to my disappointment the church was small and plain and there was no reference to the high point of English ambitions in France.

Finally you will be delighted to know that France has not let me down in the “door of the day” stakes.

Tomorrow will be another travelling day and perhaps the next too, so don’t fret if your favourite blog fails to arrive in your email for a couple of days!