Bourges was one of those “passed near but never visited” places so the decision was made to give it a go. There was an Aire near the town centre, which sounded hopeful, but we made the error of not checking the up-to -date information. Hence our arrival at what had been the aire, and was now part of a large area of roadworks, oops! However, there were a couple of other vans parked up so maybe they had the same 2014 Book. Feeling safe enough we walked into town, picked up- yes, you guessed- a walking tour map of the town, and started with a visit to the rather magnificent Cathedral, dedicated to St. Etienne, or St. Stephen to you and me.
St Etienne’s Cathedral was built between the late 12th and late 13th Century and has some rather special stained glass windows, reminding us of Chartres Cathedral. A quick count of the seats indicated that the congregation can exceed 1000!.
Bourges also had some quaint cobbled streets to wander, but we were getting a tad hungry by this time. Now we appreciate that “lunch” in French restaurants tends to be 12 till 2/ 2.30 but we can usually find somewhere that’s open all day. Hmm, not in Bourges, it seems. So our tour was cut short by hunger and we returned to the van. Having now done some research we found the address of the current Aire and headed out to find it. Well, it was quite a way out of town, and basically a very scruffy car park next to some out of town type stores. We had a quick look around and observed a couple of vans turn up then leave and we understood why. We expected it to get “busy” late at night, and just didn’t feel at all comfortable there. So reluctantly we bid farewell to Bourges for this trip. We didn’t even stay to have lunch in the van.
Where to stay the night? We opted for Vierzon, another town we recognised from roadsigns. A few km along we found Vierzon and its Aire- another free one! The borne was out of order, but we had sufficient water for a day or so. No vans were parked in the signed aire, preferring a patch of ground near the footbridge which took us into town.
Vierzon was an odd town, with several shops up For Sale or To Let and quite a few groups of males loitering or sitting outside bars. This would not be a place where we’d extend our stay, one night was enough.