The First Day

We arrived in France on a Friday morning and took off for the countryside. Because we had to see...French cathedrals! This is Beauvais, our first stop.
It was a very old and crumbly cathedral. But beautiful.
We spent that night in Amiens. This was the smallest of the three cities we stayed in. We loved it. (Cathedral picture tomorrow.) They had a neighborhood built on a canal--sort of a little Venice.
And this is the park where we ate lunch. Here is why I loved France so much. It looked surprisingly like the midwest (except for the many thirteenth century buildings...). And the climate was like home. So we came when the trees were peaking in color. AND somewhere along the way, someone was burning a leaf pile so it even smelled like home. This was all a welcome relief for me--it had been raining for days on end in Wales and in France, it was sunny all days but one. Amazingly, when we returned to Wales, we had three more gorgeous days of sunshine. My spirits lifted right up. Now, we are back into the cloudy/fog routine again. But I remember...