Ring Roads and Castles

Apologies to our avid followers for the gap. Friday was a travel day, and our current accommodations do not have 7x24 wifi, rather there is wifi access during the office hours of the partner vineyard and wine shop business. 

The Loire:

Our journey to the castles and vineyards of the Loire Valley by car. The plan was we would taxi to the train station we arrived in Paris and depart from there with a car rental. The idea being when our trip was over we could easily connect with our train to Zurich and our flight back home. Good plan.

What this meant was that we would have to drive thru and out of Paris. Now I know busy and backed up traffic, Canada is not immune. However, at home we stay in our lanes (we know cuz they are painted), we signal, we yield on agreed upon protocol. I know that to the seasoned French drivers (car, truck or scooter) and pedestrians, what we witness is not reckless abandonment of everything we know driving-wise, rather, an orchestrated symphony of chaos to scare the crap out of us rigid  North Americans.

Mission accomplished. I salute the Parisians. I was scared, terrified is more like it.

We arrived at the Sixt car rental express kiosk and naturally the car we reserved was not available and they need to substitute. No problem as long as it is big enough with hatch  for my bike case and our luggage. We came to an agreement on a Renault Clio cross-over like model. The hatch ended up not being big enough for the bike case, that is why we asked for 4-door model, to ensure we had an option. The bike case easily slid into back seat thru the passenger door.

Now, to get from he parking garage to the freeway (ring road express way) that will lead us out of Paris and south. That task we figured would be handled easily with the navigation system in the car. Yep, that is what we thought. Well, it took us a bit of time to transverse the French to get English set up as the language. Problem, is that appeared to be just for the female voice, everything else stayed in French. Good grief. To cut the story short, we did get a destination inputted and we did exit the parking garage with fingers crossed.

The next 30 minutes were hairy-scary. Lots of construction, a missed "keep right" or "bear left" then finally we were on the ring-road and moving at a fantastic speed of perhaps 20kph. We did with the great directions of our GPS exit the express way and made our way south then west. In total about 3.5 hours all said and done.

The Loire river kind of cuts the country in half with the valley running east-west. Home to a thousand castles, chateaus and palaces of all shapes and sizes. Hundreds of these, mostly restored during the Renaissance period are available to the public (with a fee of course). A very important agricultural region to the country and world renown vineyards.

So castles and vineyards it is then for 4 days.

Our home base is the Chinon area. Specifically the Domain De Beasejour Vineyard and B&B.

Chinon a pleasing, sleepy town straddles the Vienne River and hides its ancient streets under a historic royal fortress. Chinon is best known for its popular red wines and a great launching point for seeing the sights west of Tours. Additionally we decided on Chinon as our base because it offers a peaceful world of quiet cobbled lanes, historic buildings, and few tourists because you pretty much need a car.

Breakfast was on the terrace of the main house. It was about 17degrees with somewhat threatening skies. With the suggestion of our host we targeted two specific Chateaus to view. The first Villandry and the second Langeais. The former much grandeur and with an absolutely stunning garden. We spent nearly 4 hours there before tracking down a country farm lunch-house highly recommended by Rick Steves. We spent a full hour enjoying our hazel nut terrine, steamed asparagus, unique bacon and other trimmings before experiencing desert of 3 layer chocolate brownie, sautéed pineapple, fritters, ice cream and a dose of dark chocolate. 

The second chateau Langais is a park right on the river bank. Not a defensive structure and more of a palace the rooms were very well restored with period furnishings and the narrative very informative. Very little of the 14th century structure actually exists but the 15th and 16th rebuild was well done.


 Since lunch was quite filling, we decided to pick up some groceries on the way to our B&B for a light dinner and tomorrow's lunch.

Sunday:

Woke up to rainy weather, decided not run and slept another 45min. After breakfast we made our lunch and headed east to try to take in 3 castles.

The first was Chambord. Next about 30 min down the road we visited Chateau Cheverny.

Are attempt at 3 was a bit aggressive as we found it past 6 when we exited Cheverny. So we headed back to our base and stopped for dinner at a place recommended by our host. The French sure know how to do salads as we feasted on a very eclectic array of veggies mixed in with cheeses, egg and ham. Desert was apple crumble and a crème caramel. Finally made it back to room at 9pm. These days are just too long.