In which Sid and Doris decide not to make a dash for home.
On paper it looks very tempting. From Dijon to Chez Bonkers is just 9 hours if you go on the motorway. So if you leave Dijon at 9ish you could be home by 6ish. Or 8ish at Mini speeds, and then you’d be in a cold house with no dinner organised and COMPLETELY MAD from the motorway noise.
One final night in France was obviously needed, and we opted for a town close-ish to Calais – in fact, so close that we’d never bothered to stop there before (“let’s just press on, we could be home by 8ish etc”). St Quentin is very proud of an Art Deco building spree that it had in the 1920s/30s, and it is so proud that they have produced a very smart walking trail booklet. We got there after another lovely drive through French scenery, and here is the now-customary pause to admire the views and the fabulously empty French roads. Empty and often straight, but somehow completely different from American empty straight roads.
We drove into St Quentin looking for architecture, and there is plenty, in many styles not just Art Deco. Even the Office de Tourisme is spiffy. We went in, and the chap got out the walking tour booklet, and then said “But above all you MUST absolutely MUST see the Basilica, especially its Truly Amazing Stained Glass Windows. Hurry, it closes soon, go there now!” and gave us a whole booklet about the Basilica. (In the rush I didn’t get a picture of the OdT but here is someone else’s, thank you very much.)
Well, we got there at 16:43 along with some other would-be Basilica-marvellers and it was shut. We rattled the door grumpily and after a couple of minutes a set of ladies emerged and pointed triumphantly to the sign which says Basilica Shuts at 17:00 and under it in small letters Last visit 15 minutes before closing. Which it was, now. Domage.
Harumph. However then we noted that Basilica Opens at 08:00 and as Sid and Doris have not been ones for the Dawn Departures on this trip, we are going to go after it gets light and we can actually see the colours in the TASGWs. Dawn comes late in this bit of France because they are on GMT+1 to give them long lovely evenings, and so we took advantage of those to do the rest of the walking tour and to admire the town carousel.
Every town in France has a carousel. There must be some special rule mandating one if your population size is over 1,000 or some other smallish number. These video clips show the Dijon one and the St Quentin one.
The carousels have excellent opportunities to play “conveyance of the day” (I nominate the submarine!) although a purist might argue that they are slightly light on traditional pipe organ oompah music. Says the woman whose town doesn’t even have a very good children’s playground.
I leave you with the cliffhanger – Will Sid and Doris Visit The Basilica? Will the Stained Glass Windows be Truly Amazing?
I hope that doesn’t stop you getting a good night’s rest. Sid leaves you while listening to not enough live jazz music in this evening’s restaurant.