DAY 3: Compiègne (Alfred Hotel)

We woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 3.30am, and had to wait around until 7am for the hotel breakfast. But it was worth the wait because it was really good – fresh crunchy croissants, lots of different types of bread, beautifully thin slices of ham carved from the bone, lots of different cheeses and pastries and remarkably good coffee, even though it was from a machine. I realised it was my first coffee in 24 hours. Perhaps that’s why it tasted so good!

We then set out to see the sights of Compiègne. Although it was cold, there was no wind and, eventually, a bit of sun appeared, so it was quite pleasant. We soon realised it is quite a small town – as we were able to walk to all the main sights very easily.

There is a beautiful town hall in a square with a Christmas market (that wasn’t yet open, but looked like it would be fun) and a lovely old gothic cathedral – Eglise Saint-Jacques (or the Church of St James). Jim wasn’t very interested, so I went inside by myself. It was a little eerie – as I was the only person in the entire echoing cathedral. No tourists or priests or anything, but it was fascinating! They had a side chapel full of reliquaries, including glass-sided caskets with the bones of a number of saints. The information sheet said they also had a couple of fragments of the true cross and two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, but I couldn’t quite work out which casket contained them. Perhaps they were so precious they weren’t on display! Not bad for a church in a relatively small town, eh?

Apparently the kings of France used to come to Compiègne regularly, so there is an imperial palace and a forest the kings used to use for hunting. The palace is closed one day a week and, of course, it happens to be on Tuesdays (today). It sounds wonderful because Napoleon enlarged it and Josephine redecorated the whole place, so it should be suitably extravagant. We may stop in and see it tomorrow morning before we leave Compiègne.

On our walks around the town, we bumped into a ruined structure called the Joan of Arc Tower – and it turns out she came to Compiègne three times and was captured while here in 1430 and handed over to the English to be eventually burned at the stake. Amazing! It's not surprise that Joan of Arc features quite a lot in art work and statuary around the town.

Jim in front of the Joan of Arc Tower

We visited a couple of parks that had been recommended, but they were both rather dreary and underwhelming. It didn't help that everything was a bit muddy.

There was also a small museum I wanted to visit – but it was closed between 1 and 2 (for the curator to have lunch I suppose!) and that was just the time we wanted to go in. The French take their lunch breaks very seriously.

So we went off to have lunch ourselves, at a restaurant in the Town Hall Square – where they determinedly spoke no English. Jim had a burger and asked for the meat to be cooked ‘medium’. It arrived totally red in the centre and slightly cooked at the edges. He realised he will have to ask for ‘well done’ in future. I had something called an Italian salad, which turned out to be cantaloupe, prosciutto, hard boiled eggs, buffalo mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, grated carrot and corn – all with no salt, pepper or dressing of any kind. Rather strange! We asked for water with ice – and the water bottle came in a bag of iced water. We gave up at that point and just accepted what we were given.

After that, we came back to the hotel for a rest - before venturing out to dinner at an Italian restaurant in the evening. It was very disappointing! We had arancini, which were good, but the main pasta courses were a bit odd and quite underwhelming. Jim had rigatoni a al truffe (with truffles) but it also included a dollop of sour cream and some uncooked ham just thrown on top. Mine was Fettucine Boscaiola, which turned out to be mincemeat, mushrooms and peas - and was just dull.

We've now returned to the hotel - determined not to go to sleep too early!