This was our basic room at Hotel Paon in Tergnier – it was a clean and quiet place to stay and we’d stay there again. We ate at the local Turkish – again! The salads and meat dishes remind us of the simple grills we enjoy at home. No rich fancy sauces smothering the otherwise good food!
It’s taken us sometime to get used to not having a bread and butter plate to cut our morning baguette or croissants on. Seems the culture here is to use the disposable place mat as a plate. This results in lots of crunchy crumbs lying on the place mat and on the floor!!!! Very messy!!
This is the Hotel Paon, not the most distinguished hotel we’ve stayed at but adequate.
Leaving Tergnier and its lochs this morning.
These metal sculptures have some symbolic meaning for the locals of Tergnier however the meaning was lost on us.
The Tergnier Museum had an exhibition on about the French Resistance and the role women played in it during the 2nd WW.
This is the exterior of the magnificent Laon Cathedral.
And this is the beautiful interior.
Here are some details about the Architecture of the cathedral.
Pilgrims have been passing by Laon Cathedral for a thousand years en route to Santiago de Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem.
The outlook from the heights of this old bastide town are over the farmlands below. Any army approaching the town could be seen well in advance of an attack!
Walking down the 295 steps from the old town to the new town. The new town was established at the lower level when the French rail infrastructure was developed. A funicular rail system has been put in place to assist people to move between the two parts of the city; the old city at the high level and the new city, including the railwaystation at the lower level.
