Situated near the centre of the old town, it was in an old building that had been very tastefully refurbished.
It was the first time on this journey that we actually had a decent-sized shower.
A short walk to a well-stocked supermarket completed our day and gave us the necessary stores we needed for our stay.
As we had moved into provincial France, it was very noticeable how laid-back the smaller towns and cities are.
We had trouble coming to terms with the fact that between midday and 3pm the streets of these small towns are almost deserted. We assume this is nanny-nap time for most of the locals.
The only shops open seem to be the cafes and the bars; busy streets just become deserted, and commerce resumes in the late afternoon and continues into the evening.
Saturday afternoons and Sundays are like a journey into the past — the streets are almost deserted, unlike in the larger cities where the locals seem to party non-stop.
The old part of the smaller cities and villages of France are all so full of history and Bourges is no exception.
The city has history, predating the birth of Christ.
It has a current population of about 65,000, covers 68 square kilometres and is approximately 169 metres above sea level.
Like the other older towns we had visited on our trip through the southern foothills of France's central mountains, the streets of old buildings seemed to go on forever.
Although these areas seem small, the winding, cobble-stoned streets can be quite confusing. Who knows where we could have ended up if it were not for the GPS app we had loaded on to our phone.
A city of art and history, Bourges is proud of its monuments, which include its old streets and half-timbered houses, the Jacques Coeur Palace and the Saint-Etienne Cathedral, which is listed on the Unesco World Heritage list.
Bourges is one of the greenest cities in France, with 135 hectares of marshland in the heart of the city and more than 50m2 of parkland per inhabitant.
Bourges seemed to have a few French travellers but generally is not geared for “international” tourists — something we really appreciated on our travels through this and the other areas we visited.
As we hadn't been able to find a calendar or a practical memento since we had left the UK, we decided to do the touristy thing and go looking for souvenirs on our last day in Bourges.
We did a search on Google and found what we considered to be a souvenir shop. Not surprisingly, even with all the travelling we have done, we still occasionally fall into the trap of taking things at face value.
The journey across town included a really neat park, a couple of landmarks we hadn't yet visited, and in due course we ended up where Google had placed what we thought was a souvenir shop.
Imagine our surprise, we ended up in a cemetery — gullible fools we are, we didn't realise that Google's translation of souvenirs became memories and, yes, Google had directed us to what we found was the local avenue of memories.
Our next stop was another lucky dip. We set off to Vichy, on another very good French train. Why Vichy? It just seemed to be a good idea at the time . . . it was, but more about that later.
