The Saturday morning trip to Chartres was smooth sailing on the highway, through a small town, and then onto the highway again. There was a short toll road, but no other delays. The entry to Chartres included some round-abouts - one thick with lavender.
We lucked out on parking down a nice walking path leading to the old city. This area had some flavor of Venice with homes on small canals. As usual the streets were narrow and winding and had fairly steep inclines.
They were having their Saturday Market and it was a big one. The produce and all other products looked great. 
A little further on, we started up the stairway to the cathedral which was about halfway through Rick Steves' walking tour.
The Chartres Cathedral was one of the most beautiful we've seen.
They are doing a lot of renovation and it is quite noticeable.
Around all cities are beautiful flowers, the Tourist Info (TI) center here had every color of hydrangea.
Right down the street from the TI is a place Rick Steves recommends, Le Pichet. The sun finally came out and we sat outside and had one of the best meals ever. 
The rest of the walking tour included more narrow, winding streets and an interesting church - yes, another one. This is the Eglise Saint Pierre and they have an archeological effort going on inside. This church has "character" like no other - besides the character standing by the confessional.
Then we made our way back to the car - the way back is supposed to be shorter, but this wasn't.
Neither was the drive home... We missed a turn-off to take us the way we drove to Chartres and encountered The Toll-road from Hell!
The toll plaza appeared to be normal; there were a number of cars and 8 lanes to each of the 8 ticket pay booths - no problem, but NO... 3 or 4 lanes came down to 1 and then every car in France showed up and the odd-ball fighting for a place in the queue started! This was a total mess (CF, if you are familiar with the term). 2 hours later we got through and were on our way again. This was horrible, but the worst is yet to come.
Now that we had been driving the van for almost 3 weeks, the gas gauge was dipping below a quarter tank, so time to fill-er-up at a station close to the boat. For a diesel engine, you'd pick the pumps withe the green handles, right? You'd never put something called "gazole" in a diesel engine, right? WRONG, we pumped 68 liters (about 100 euros worth) into the van. About a half mile later, the engine started running rough and started stalling. Then we realized our mistake, we had filled the diesel tank with gasoline (called "essence" in France). We got the van back to the boat and parked it and informed Daniel of our blunder. He made sure we got the keys to his smaller car, so we weren't without wheels for our last days. The cost to drain the tank, blow out the lines, replace the filters was about 240 euros, an expensive lesson / souvenir for Lee and Di. Daniel later informed us that the van had suffered no permanent damage.
Last bike ride was along a bike path next to the boat headed towards Le Pecq. It goes along the Seine and there is a garden at the end. 
We picked Daniel up at the Le Pecq station, had Champagne and a nice wine with dinner, and heard about his adventures on a friend's boat around Croatia. We said goodbye to the boat - on a gorgeous morning - caught the train to Gare de Lyon at Nanterre and got on the TGV to Valence / Crest for the next leg - a very active leg of the adventure.
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