Vacation Day 2

(this is an archive blog of our 2007 European Vacation)

A long night’s sleep does wonders. Getting up fairly early, we go to the breakfast serving area of the hotel, a quaint, beamed second-floor room above the office with a coffee and croissant bar.  The hostess had just visited the southwestern U.S. last year, seeing the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks.  It seems the southwestern U.S. is considered a very exotic place by Europeans, who also have a fancy for the Native American culture. She visited Phoenix and San Francisco with her husband and children but their most favorite spots were the national parks.

After breakfast we headed south, reaching Orleans in about 30 minutes.  Our chosen route was to Tours (the “s” is silent), with a visit to the ten castles located along the Loire River between Orleans and Tours (a recommendation that we visit this area was made by Xavier). But first, let’s get lost in Orleans! By the time we found our prescribed route, we had also found the cathedral of Orleans – but there was not a parking place to be had within the several blocks of the cathedral. As we later discovered in a book of the Chateaus of France, there are some spectacular castles in this area but we saw only one of the ten up close. It turns out that Xavier’s description of the castles being located on the river was not exactly the way it was – at least from the road we saw only one on the river and another we saw through the trees about a kilometer away from the river. Even though we slept for about seven hours (our body clocks were way out of kilter by this time), we were not rested enough to go hiking through castle grounds; we were more interested in seeing the countryside – and that was a lot easier J. Besides, we had been on the road for about four hours and covered only about 150 kilometers. With our destination being the South of France, we were not making very good time through the countryside.

We sped through Tours, heading back through the countryside towards Chateauroux, hoping to get a place to stay there that second evening in France. We had not converted any dollars to Euros yet. While I have been told it is cheaper to buy Euros in the US than it is to sell dollars in Europe, the one place I checked at DIA put a conversion rate of $1.46 per Euro, an eight cent premium over the prevailing market conversion rate. Plus he wanted another $5 just to do the deal. As I said, “No thanks,” he told me “good luck” with a knowing inflection in his voice. But it turns out that buying Euros in France is less expensive than doing the conversion at DIA. In any case, in France the most likely place to get money converted is at their post office, La Poste.

As we circled around Loches, a moderate-sized town about half-way between Tours and Chateauroux, we decided to stop at La Poste before they closed for the day to get some Euros in our pocket – it was only mid-afternoon but we didn’t know when we would happen by a La Poste office later that day. The clerk in the office told us that while she could not convert the funds, the central office in the center of Loches could. So she gave us directions to go back into the city center (we had arrived at her office following the highway by-pass around the city).  It was a busy town, lots of traffic and a minimum of parking spaces.  But we found one right by the door of La Poste.

With Euros in hand we headed out of the city once again.  But as we were leaving town, I decided to turn left towards the castle up on the hill just adjacent to city center (“just because we’re on vacation, we can do this,” I said).  Winding through the streets, we came upon the west entrance to the castle complex, finding one of several parking spots about 50 meters from the gate. Inside the castle walls we found shops, restaurants and apartments – as we might imagine were there a millennium ago, serving different food perhaps, and appointed with different furniture certainly, but in those very same buildings! We came upon a cathedral that was built in 1045-1060. It had been renovated (much more so than we plan in our new church) in 1160 by none other than the Count of Anjou, the husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine, an ancestor of ours on my mother’s side. Nearby we found the “keep”, the defensive structure of the castle complex. With fresh Euros in hand, we paid the 7 Euro entrance fee and started walking through the “keep” – down the stairs into the dungeons, into the dungeon where the Duke of Milan, the patron of Leonardo DaVinci, was held for eight years by a 16^th century Count of Anjou.

Back up the stairs to the torture room, then on up to the top of the smaller tower, where we could see the entire surrounding city of Loches – except for that part of the horizon blocked by the taller walls of the “keep” – which rise some 180’ about the castle grounds.  The walls of this keep are the tallest remaining of any castle in Europe. Six meters thick at the base and one meter thick at the top, there are a lot of “volunteer hours” invested in building this fortress! Enclosed in those walls were the stairs to the top floors of the keep – long since collapsed into the bottom of the structure.  But the beam holes in the wall defined the locations of the floors of each level, somehow giving a sense of what it might have been like to hold a cross-bow as a defender of this enormous structure. On the upper levels of the keep, they’ve built steel catwalks to some of the defensive positions, vertical slits in the wall through which bowmen could fire at the attackers of the fortress – of which there were many over the many centuries the place was occupied.

As we were taking the tour of the keep, reading about the various kings and would-be kings that held this spot, we realized that it was Jean Sans Terain (otherwise known as John Landless to the French and John Lackland to the English) that held the castle (and then lost it) during Richard the Lionhearted’s detention by Leopold in 1193.  It was John Lackland (or King John of Robin Hood fame), the youngest son of Eleanor of Aquataine, that was our direct ancestor.  And this was one of only two castles in France that held any connection to our family – and we “just happened upon it.” Linda insists that we were led to it because of the “series of fortunate incidents” that landed us at the castle gate.

During our visit to Loches, our camera's battery dies so we ended up with only a couple of photos of the cathedral and one of the castle grounds overlooking the city, none of the keep.  Ah well, an excuse to visit the place again in the future. And this was another opportunity for Linda to forgive me for not preparing more completely for our trip.  I could have bought an extra battery for the camera, but noooo, I had to save a few bucks and get one on the internet – too late to receive it before we left for Europe.

But with lots of memories in mind, and nearing four o’clock in the afternoon, we headed east to Chateauroux. But the lack of sleep caught up with me. We took a side trip off the highway into a barley field – which was in full seed but not yet ready to harvest. Finding a spot where we could back the car off the road, I caught about 20 minutes of sleep while Linda read a book.  The afternoon breeze was blowing through the barley, giving a wonderful fragrance to the air. Waking up refreshed, we headed east once again. A few kilometers down the road, we passed a sign that said “Chambres de Hote”. Following the signs back into the fields for about a kilometer, we found a farmhouse that didn’t quite suit our fancy for a place to stay that evening. Back to the highway!

About ten kilometers further east we came into a village – it was now about 6:00 pm and we were both getting tired of driving.  We passed by a very large golf ball sitting on a tee. Of course, it was the sign for the village golf course.  So we followed the drive down into the course to the clubhouse.  What a beautiful golf course it was! Nestled in a forest, the fairways were a deep, lush green and the greens  were as well-groomed as any I’ve seen. The late afternoon sunlight drove the greens deeper into the spectrum. It was obvious they had no lodging, but I went into the clubhouse to ask if they knew of any bed & breakfast nearby (of course, only one person spoke English but she was very helpful). Another person there suggested to her that the house about 3 kilometers north of the village had rooms for rent. She started to give me instructions on how to get there, but the fellow offering her advice indicated he would take us there instead.

So into his truck he hopped and off we went into the countryside, along a one-lane blacktop road through fields of grain waving in the breeze. What a gorgeous evening. A pheasant cock popped out of the grain field about 50 meters ahead of us, then turned and went back in – but not before we passed by to see his bright green head and red neck as he ducked into the stocks of grain (or should I say “he pheasanted into the stocks of grain”?).

It had begun to drizzle by the time we arrived at the chateau, which also had a sign that said “Chambres de Hote” on its front gate. The hostess did not speak English but our guide made the point that we needed a place to stay that evening. Not surprisingly, no other guests were there that evening. She led us upstairs to a musty-smelling AND wonderful bedroom full of antiques with a private bath, overlooking a lawn which opened out over the trimmed hedge into the fields south of the chateau. Exhausted and famished, we went back into the village to find a place to eat. With one restaurant not appealing to us, we found a little grocery, bought some dried bread/crackers and went back to our chateau where we had some brie cheese and wine.

During the night the rain became more persistent. Upon waking at 5:00 am (body clocks still playing tricks on us), the smell of rain in the farmland was wonderful. The large cedar trees in front of the  chateau glistened in the gray light of the cloudy morning. Deciding to forego a cold shower (apparently they had not yet turned on the hot water for the tourist season), we packed and made ready to depart.

With our arising so early, we thought the hostess had not yet prepared our included breakfast. So we loaded our several bags back into the car. I wandered the grounds of the chateau taking pictures of the lawn, the trees and the surrounding buildings. When I got back to the car, I saw the hostess peeking out the window.  So I went to the kitchen door of the chateau to apologize to her as best I could for our being up so early. As I was trying to make the point that she didn’t need to fix our breakfast, she was trying to make the point that the breakfast was waiting for us on the dining room table.  Luckily, she made her point before I made mine J.

Croissants made in France surpass any I’ve had here in the U.S. They are flaky, buttery and oh-so tender – well worth the trip to France for them alone.  She had home-grown strawberries, great coffee, several flavors of jelly – I’m guessing made in her kitchen – and orange juice.  As we ate our breakfast in that very old dining room (I really wanted to ask her about the history of the chateau), she was doting on us, all decked out in her knit suit and gold necklace, presenting herself as best anyone could at that hour of the day! Fully filled, with an “au revoir”, we bid her goodbye and headed off into the rain, to the highway three kilometers south, then to Chateauroux about 12 kilometers east, and then points south along the A-20 freeway.

We have met so many wonderful people in France. Our hostess this night spoke not one bit of English but she made us feel so welcome in her home. The many antiques in her home were there for our enjoyment, and apparently not a bit of worry on her part for the treasures she had exposed. The fellow at the golf course chose to lead us to our lodging rather than risk our getting lost. The many people along the way who pointed us in the right direction as we discovered we were lost.  It reminds me of that farmer who was tending fields along the road that was asked by a traveler, “What are the people like in the village ahead?” The farmer answered with a question, “What are they like where you come from?” The first traveler along the road answered, “They are unfriendly and rude,” to which the farmer said, “You’ll find the villagers here the same, unfriendly and rude.”  To a second traveler who asked “What are the people like in the village ahead?” the farmer asked the same question. The second traveler said, “The people where I come from are friendly and helpful,” to which the farmer answered, “You’ll find the villagers friendly and helpful here, too.” And the farmer was right in both cases.