Hotel find in Normandy: La Chaîne d'Or
Sep 28th, 2004, 07:32 AM
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Hotel find in Normandy: La Chaîne d'Or
On our first night in France recently we stayed at the charming La Chaîne d'Or in Les Andelys. It's a restaurant-avec-chambres, our favorite category in the countryside: a fine restaurant with a small number of rooms for overnighters. Our room cost around 90€, and breakfast was, I think, another 10.
The hotel is delightful, with pretty rooms of good size. Set on the banks of the Seine, the hotel has great river views--all day we had Impressionist landscapes right in front of us. Swans and egrets abound, and it's fun to watch barges making their way to the sea.
Our friend remarked that the restaurant looked just the way a French restaurant in the country SHOULD look--warm yellow walls, white tablecloths, and lovely old gleaming wood furniture. Tall French doors opened to the riverbank. The food was excellent and the service impeccable.
The town of Petit Andelys is very pleasant and picturesque, great for walking around. Above the town are the ruins of Château Gaillard, definitely worth visiting, as is the church of Notre-Dame over in Grand Andelys.
La Chaîne d'Or is about an hour's drive from the Charles de Gaulle airport and is well located for visiting Lyon-la-Forêt and various abbeys in the region. It would be a fine week-end trip from Paris.
The hotel is delightful, with pretty rooms of good size. Set on the banks of the Seine, the hotel has great river views--all day we had Impressionist landscapes right in front of us. Swans and egrets abound, and it's fun to watch barges making their way to the sea.
Our friend remarked that the restaurant looked just the way a French restaurant in the country SHOULD look--warm yellow walls, white tablecloths, and lovely old gleaming wood furniture. Tall French doors opened to the riverbank. The food was excellent and the service impeccable.
The town of Petit Andelys is very pleasant and picturesque, great for walking around. Above the town are the ruins of Château Gaillard, definitely worth visiting, as is the church of Notre-Dame over in Grand Andelys.
La Chaîne d'Or is about an hour's drive from the Charles de Gaulle airport and is well located for visiting Lyon-la-Forêt and various abbeys in the region. It would be a fine week-end trip from Paris.
Oct 1st, 2004, 08:15 AM
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Underhill, I assume this is too far west to stay if we wanted to spend an afternoon at Giverny then head for Beaune the following morning. ?? On the map it looks like only another 8 miles, but the drive from Vernon to Beaune may seem long if it's our first experience on French highways. What do you think?
Oct 1st, 2004, 08:23 AM
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Les Andelys was only about an hour's drive from CDG; Giverny would have been about halfway. You could stay in Les Andelys overnight and have a reasonable drive to Beaune the following day; we went from Bayeux to Bouilland, near Beaune, in about half a day, which included a LOT of road work slow-downs. From Les Andelys the trip should be something like 3-4 hours, most of it on the easy-to-drive autoroute.
Oct 1st, 2004, 09:13 AM
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Thanks. It sounds encouraging. When I read "The Secret Life of the Seine", the area sounded intriguing. Plus, I've always liked the stories about Richard the Lion-Hearted. I didn't want to have to expect too much of my husband on our first freeway foray, but that does sound like a nice place to stay.
Oct 13th, 2004, 04:26 PM
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