The entrance on the West side, with two tourists

Thefront is adorned with hundreds of intricately carved statues of saints and apostles, as well as the Old Testament prophets.

The twin towers rise several hundred feet in the air. They have been restored in the last century after severe shell damage in the first world war.

The Cathedral dominates the whole centre of the town. It can be seen from miles around.

We stopped for lunch at a small, family run restaurant called the Pub des Maragolles, just outside Longwy. There was a family party in the same room who had some children a bit older than Charles, who kindly lent him some books to keep him amused ... in French, of course.

Throughout our trip through France we saw numerous large cemeteries for the fallen in the first world war. This is the 30 Corps cemetery in Verdun, which heroically held out against a long siege, led by Marshal Petain.

In memory of the suffering in the war, Verdun has declared itself the `world centre of peace'. Appropriately, this is symbolised by guns (example here in a memorial in the East of the city).

The French countryside is very open and sparsely populated compared with England. We saw loads of wildlife, including this enormous flock of migrating cranes. We also saw buzzards, deer, a little bustard, serins and a red kite, among others.