Day Twelve – The Adventures of Mr. Creosote – May 31, 2011

Today was our Cognac adventure day, plus we ate the largest dinner known to man. I feel like Mr. Creosote just before he had the wafer thin mint, and suspect that if I were to have one myself I might end up the same.

After breakfast this morning, we loaded up little Nancy and pointed west, stopping first in Echoisy to see the little water mill at the Domaine d’Echoisy. Not too far out of our way and apparently it’s a good place for a light lunch or a coffee on route. It’s a bit of a mission to find, off the D-road and down a little gravelled path, which is actually quite steep at times. As is our luck lately, it was closed and so all we could do was wander around for a bit taking photos. Having said that, the view is amazing and I would have very happily spent some time there sipping a coffee and listening to the sound of the wind in the trees and the water flowing through the mill race.

At this point, I realized that my decision to wear my shorts and sandals was possibly a mistake. Despite the sun, it was actually quite chilly and I was glad that I’d remembered to bring my sweater this time. I thought that as with other days, the temperature would go up as the afternoon progressed.

We drove back up the little gravel path and back onto the highway, and an hour later we were in Cognac. We actually found a little parking lot and paid our €2.50 for the afternoon. Somewhat unusually for us, the parking lot was right next to the little tourist information office where we got a several maps of the town, including directions to the little pedestrian street where we could get some lunch.

We stopped in at the first place we came to and sat down. Waitresses flew about all around us, taking orders and delivering food. We, however, seemed to be invisible. After taking the opportunity to use the facilities (it had been a long drive) we had finally had enough and left.

It was a bit of a walk before we found the next reasonable looking place that wasn’t a kebab shop. It was actually quite a nice restaurant with a beautiful terrace out the back. We stood in the entranceway again, where the waitresses had the reservations book and were picking up food from the kitchen for delivery. Again, it was like we were invisible; not a single waitress even looked at us, let alone told us she’d be with us in a minute. Eventually we got the attention of one, who told us that they were full.

Next option was a creperie down the pedestrian street that to our amazement seemed quite chuffed to see us and sat us down quickly. We both had quite tasty galettes and then a very nice caramel and salted butter crepe. Hard to go wrong, and I’m actually happy we were so completely ignored at the other two.

Next on the list was a guided tour of the Hennessey distillery down on the Hennessey Quai. We were a bit early, so after buying our tickets we went to the distillery next door, which I’d never heard of – Rouiller-Fransac. Evidently it’s a cognac that doesn’t get exported much, and when it does only to the US really. The old guy at the counter let me try the 15 year old, 30 year old, and then the 50 year old. I could have had more, but was driving so declined. It turned out to be really good cognac, much better than I was expecting. At this point, it was time for the tour next door so we told him we’d be back and walked back to Hennessey.

Unfortunately, a large group of tourists had decided that a cognac distillery tour was a good idea to bring their large brood of small children on. To be fair, they were quite well behaved given the circumstances, but still incredibly annoying for the tour.

I’m not sure what I’d been expecting of the tour, but I hadn’t realized what a massive production Hennessey is. They only grow 2% of their own grapes, and that which they buy isn’t even in grape form – they apparently buy either completed eau-de-vie (the wine which they use to make the cognac) or finished brandy itself. Complete surprise to me.

The cognac warehouses are something else though. Thousands upon thousand upon thousands of huge barrels in their endless rows, all of which are slowly releasing “the angel’s share.” Two to three percent of the volume of a barrel evaporates every year through the wood, and gives the air in the town a very distinctive smell. In the warehouses themselves it’s almost overpowering.

After the tour we got to taste some Hennessey cognac, and this is where I was first entertained and then annoyed. The entertainment came when one of the horde with the kids asked the tour guide if instead of drinking their taster on-site, if they could instead have it to take away. I’m not sure how much he was thinking he was going to get, but the look of confusion and shock on the guide’s face was priceless.

Secondly, we’ve done our fair share of champagne house tours, winery tours, distillery tours etc – basically if it’s alcoholic, we’ve toured it. At Hennessey, I paid €20 for the XO tour ticket, and Jamie paid €6 for the “Harmony” tour (it was half price as the second ticket). Mine included a taste of the XO cognac (extra old), and Jmaie’s was the regular and the VS and VSOP tastes. For the price I paid, I’d expected mine to include those as well, in addition to the XO (for the price of three tickets, I could’ve bought a whole bottle).

As it turned out, I actually preferred the Rouiller-Fransac next door so quite happily went back to buy a bottle of very nice 35 year old grande champagne. Jamie also found one of their liquor products – a mint chocolate concoction that tastes exactly like liquid After Eight mints, possibly her favourite thing ever.

At this point, our parking was almost up so we walked back up through the narrow and winding streets of Cognac. By the time we got to the car, we’d had a long discussion about our thoughts on the town. For all the money that must go through it with the cognac, it’s not the nicest place in the world. There doesn’t seem to be much for tourists there other than the cognac houses – a few restaurants and a few cafes, not many nice places to sit and enjoy a glass of wine and relax. Having said that, we really only spent a few hours there and much of that was on the Hennessey tour.

Given the fiasco of dinner last night, we’d made sure to book in at a nice restaurant for this evening. We’d called La Grange aux Oies in Nieuil to book a table for 7:30 and had left a message. We made sure we got there a bit early to confirm, and it’s a good thing we had – they hadn’t called us back and we were apparently only a tentative booking.

We were 45 minutes early, so we took a walk around the grounds of the stunning chateau which is also a very posh hotel, although they have a large sparrows nest in the giant reception room and while we were poking around, sparrows were flying in and out. A quick look around showed that sparrows had spent quite a bit of time doing what sparrows do – almost everything was splattered in little white sploches, including the chairs and even the large paintings on the walls. Unpleasant.

We were still about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, so got back into the car to both warm up (it was about 14 degrees celcius at this point and the shorts and sandals just weren’t cutting it) and also to drive into St Claud for a quick espresso.

When we got back, we were just in time to be seated for what turned out to be the most indulgent and almost painful meal of my life. For €48 (€44 for me, as I decided not to have any wine, what with the driving and all) we were presented with a delicious five course meal (with an amuse bouche and final desert snack as we paid thrown in for good measure).

I think we would have been okay except for two fatal mistakes. First, I was feeling a bit dehydrated, so ordered an entire litre of Badoit to drink instead of wine. I managed to finish it all by the end of the meal. That’s a lot of Badoit to consume, and it takes up quite a lot of room. Second, when they brought the cheese cart around (this after the amuse bouche, a starter, and a very large main), Jamie asked if we could between us try each of the five cheeses. I guess the language barrier struck, and the waitress carved off five very generous slices of each cheese for each of us. I mean this was a LOT of cheese, and we would have had trouble with it even if we’d not already eaten two large courses.

Next came the dessert cart. I’d gone for the light strawberry tarte, but Jamie’s eyes were much bigger than her stomach and she had a big cup of extraordinary tiramisu plus another generous portion of lemon tarte. I’ve never eaten so much in my life. They brought little chocolate treats and cherries soaked in liquor as we paid, but I couldn’t even look at them.

A side-note about the importance of carefully reading menus in France, or anywhere really. I know the word for lamb in French is agneau. I also know the word for rice is riz. When the menu said something about ris d’agneau, I somewhat naively thought that my starter would be some sort of a rice and lamb dish. This was not the case.

Those paying attention, or who have checked the French-English dictionary will have spotted my error. Ris is sweetbreads, riz is rice. Very different things, despite the similarity in spelling. So yes, I accidentally ordered lamb brains as a starter. This after the disaster with the tete de veau in Champagne. Jamie thought it was odd, but assumed I knew what I was doing so didn’t say anything (she claims that she’d pointed out that it was lamb sweetbreads on the menu, all I heard was her saying something about lamb).

In the end, the ris d’agneau turned out to actually be quite tasty, and with the help of a few gulps of water (for the particularly brainy bits) I managed to eat almost all of it, and enjoyed quite a bit of it (not the particularly brainy bits). I realize that given my history of eating the gibbly bits of many animals (lips, chins, cheeks, stomach, tail, liver, kidney, heart, feet, brains, bone marrow, lower intestine, tongue, skin with hair still in, ears…) you may not believe that this was an accident of translation, but this is my story and I’m sticking to it. (I’ve just read that list, and am both a bit impressed and slightly disgusted, in equal measure).

Day Eleven – No Soup For You – May 30, 2011

The forecasted thunder and lighting storms were nowhere to be seen this morning, although evidently it had rained a bit overnight. I was actually a bit disappointed; I enjoy a really good lighting storm.

Our mission for the day was to explore the southern Charente. We’d loved the Dordogne so much the previous two visits, we thought the south of the Charente would be as charming. We were wrong, it seemed.

One of the things I love about being in France is the fact that we’re no longer in England. I love living in London, and think that it’s a fantastic place and the people in Britain generally are amazing. However, when I’m in rural France, I want to be surrounded by French people doing French things. We found a cute village in the southern Charente, and found a restaurant that had a large outdoor seating area under the trees in the central square in the middle of the town, and didn’t hear a French voice the entire time. Even the waitress was English. We might as well have been in Eastbourne (which I’m sure is a lovely place, but it clearly isn’t in the southwest of France).

Somewhat disappointed, we got back into the car and programmed the next village on our tour of the south Charente. Actually, we set the sat nav for a town called “Montbrun”, which seemed a good distance in the direction we were generally looking to travel. The plan was to start driving and to stop in any likely looking villages that we passed along the way. It turns out there isn’t much between Aubterre Sur Dronne and Montbrun actually. The drive was pretty quick.

By the time we got to Montbrun, I was ready for an ice cream. This is easier conceived than achieved in Montbrun on a late Monday afternoon, when absolutely everything is closed. Except the Intermarche, which had lines the size of, well, lines in an Intermarche in Montbrun on a late Monday afternoon.

Again disappointed and this time ice cream free, we got back into the car and started driving back to Confolens. While the storm hadn’t arrived in the morning, it was certainly looking like it was trying to make up for lost time, with thick black clouds massing over the Dordogne. We made it back to the B&B just in time, as the thunder and rain started just as we got back.

We spent a few hours reading before getting ready for dinner. The plan was to drive back to Rochechouart for dinner at Le Roc du Boeuf, the other recommended restaurant in Rochechouart. We’d checked the opening times carefully, and as it was a Monday didn’t think reservations were essential. It probably would have been better, in retrospect, to have called.

Had we done that, we would have found, prior to the 35 minute drive that they were closed for no apparent reason on this particular Monday. Bugger. For reasons that remain unclear to us now, we decided not to drive back into the main part of the village to have dinner at the same excellent restaurant we’d eaten at a few nights ago, no, we decided to spend the rest of the evening driving frantically around rural France looking for somewhere to eat.

The only thing we could find that was open was the “Relais d’Etegnac,” which turned out to be a hideous truck stop with no restaurant that we could see. We eventually ended up at the Mere Michelet hotel and restaurant, with attached pub “Le Twickenham.” It was not good, although it made up for this by being very cheap. To be fair, for €11.50 we had reasonably passable steak au poivre with chips and a €6.50 demi bottle of Cotes de Rhone red. It’s hard to argue with the price.

After dinner we stopped in at the little bistro across the road from the B&B, and found that despite appearances, we love it. The Chez Eric bistro is run by Eric, who seems to keep it open as something to do in the evenings, and a place for his friends to spend time. It’s not posh, it’s not scenic, however it is friendly and fun. We spent a good two hours chatting with Eric, who told us about the new residents in town, the way the festival and Bastille day keep him going for the rest of the year, and other general chatter. I’m impressed with us – while we can’t necessarily speak French as well as we’d like, our comprehension is getting miles better, as we spent the entire two hours conversing almost entirely in French.

Tomorrow is set to be one of my favourite days I think – Cognac tours and tasting in Cognac itself. Hopefully the weather clears up and we get some sun. On the other hand, dark and stormy seem appropriate for Cognac, so I can’t really complain either way.

Day Ten – Lunch and Sadness - May 29, 2011

We didn’t have too much planned for today, for a change. While we didn’t sleep in, we didn’t rush too much getting ready for the day, and took a bit of extra time chatting at breakfast with Nick and Mary before packing up and heading out for the day.

The plans for the day included three main points – lunch in Nanteuil en Vallee, photos in Oradour Sur Glane, and wine on the terrace. Due to careful planning and execution, we managed to achieve all this and more (and a side note – the biggest beetle I’ve EVER seen has just flown onto our terrace – it’s bigger than my thumb – a search on google shows that it’s a Stag Beetle – a protected species in France).

We set out aiming for the nearby town of Verteuil (nearby to Nanteuil en Vallee anyway). We found it without much issue, thanks to Gazza, who rarely leads us astray. It turned out to be a charming little town, with its few shops open on a Sunday, which is unusual for this area of rural France. We picked up a couple bottles of Charentais wine for the evening before doing some further exploring. In addition to a local products shop, there is also a little working water mill on the Charente river – they are using the power for the little attached bakery it seems as well as attaching a power generator to it for the lights for the painting gallery upstairs. This whole thing is just under the big Chateau overlooking the village, so we spent a good 45 minutes taking photos of the place before packing back into Nancy (the car) and trying to find the scenic viewpoint in Les Touches as advertised on the signs.

While we found Les Touches, the viewpoint was nowhere to be seen. Disappointed, we instead aimed for a nearby Intermarche, thinking that the two bottles thus secured may not be enough for an entire afternoon and evening’s worth of sitting. Unfortunately Intermarches across the region apparently shut on Sundays and we were out of luck.

We decided instead to head to Nantueil early to explore the town a bit. It turned out this was a very good idea, as we spent about 30 minutes looking for a place to park. While it may be one of the most beautiful villages in France, it’s not one of the easiest to leave a car in. The medieval layout of the old village does feature some parking areas, but it’s quite popular and they were all full.

After far too long driving up and down very narrow streets, we gave up and parked next to the river outside of town. We walked back in and spent some time taking photos and looking in the old church in the middle of town. Fortunately the village shop wasn’t quite closed for the lunch hour and we managed to secure two more bottle of wine for our afternoon and evening enjoyment.

(Another incidental side note, as I’ve had quite a bit of the wine purchased today – both Jamie and I have decided to be cremated, in an effort to avoid accidentally becoming zombies. I’ve eaten brains already on this trip and didn’t enjoy them. I wouldn’t want to spend my afterlife being obsessed with the eating of same).

Wine secured, town explored, and photos taken, we sat down for the most extravagant and extended lunches of the trip thus far. As its Mother’s Day here in France, it was set menu only, with the only choices being meat or fish for a main course, and a full cheese platter or baked goats cheese after. The other three courses weren’t up for discussion.

Our two and a half hour lunch of glory included a first course of foie gras in chantilly crème with onion confiture and little gingerbread cakes, followed by a second course of scallops on salad. Third course was maigre for me (a meaty white fish, not sure what the English translation is) and veal in forestiere sauce for Jamie (forestiere sauce is a creamy mushroom sauce basically). Next was the cheese course, finished finally by strawberry millefeuille. All this, with a bottle of rose wine and a bottle of sparkling water, a kir for Jamie to start, and coffee for me to finish for €100. Definitely worth the money, and highly recommended.

Extraordinarily full, even for us, and extremely hot (it was in the high 20’s or even the low 30’s at this point) we made a carefully slow yet steady beeline to the blissful air conditioning of the car. Next on the list was Oradour-sur-Glane, a stop we actually considered skipping due to the heat and the lateness of the day. I’m glad we didn’t.

One day, June 10th to be exact, in 1944, a company of Nazi SS entered the town of Oradour Sur Glanes. Theories abound as to why they were there, or what their intentions were upon entering. What is known definitively is that of a town of 648 people, only 6 survived. They rounded everyone one up, separated the men from the women and children, and massacred them. The men were shot in several groups and then burned. The women and children were locked into the church. There was gunfire, and then the church was burned with all those left alive inside. Those that survived the massacre did so by running for the forest early – mostly children – and one woman who managed to jump out of the window behind the altar in the church.

The town was left more or less as it was that day in 1944. There are shells of buildings which have stood unoccupied for 70 years, fireplaces halfway up walls, twisted frames of beds and radiators and singer sewing machines strewn throughout the ruins. Rusting cars sit on the road and in garages, power lines sag down the road and the pavement is slowly disintegrating.

It’s been left as it was as a memorial to those that lost their lives, and as a reminder of the brutal inhumanity that mankind can inflict on others. Not a pleasant afternoon, but deeply moving. Perhaps more so than the horrors of the work camp we visited a few years ago in Sachsenhausen – this was a living town that stopped one sunny day in June 1944. Voices silenced forever – men, women, children, families. As the signs in the village say – never forget.

This was a bit of a sombre way to end the day, and we drove back to Confolens feeling a bit down. We opened a bottle of wine on the terrace and spent some time reflecting on the day. We’ve pretty much been here ever since. A takeaway pizza from up the road for dinner, a few bottle of local wine, leftover donuts from the market yesterday, and the most amazing view across the river and into Confolens to see us through the evening and night. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday.

Day Nine – Comedy Cars and Tinny Voices - May 28, 2011

After a long and interesting conversation at breakfast with our B&B owners Nick and Mary, we decided to skip the weekly market in Confolens and check out the nearby St Junien market instead. Evidently Confolens is just barely large enough to hold a weekly market, but too small to make it a big one. On the other hand, once a month they do the big on here, unfortunately it’s not this week.

The St Junien isn’t actually that big either, but big enough. We’d enjoyed our picnic lunch the other day so much that we had decided to repeat it today, so after an exploratory tour around the market, we picked up some more roast chicken (this time with stuffing), carrot salad, a lovely loaf of bread, some little donuts, and a big block of very tasty cheese. As a bonus, the cheese seller gave us a rose for Mother’s Day, which was nice.

I’d parked in a 2-hour parking zone, but our car didn’t come equipped with one of those little cardboard parking disks that show when you arrived, so my OCD kicked in and I didn’t feel at all comfortable leaving the car there, even having written a little note to explain when we’d arrived. We didn’t spent much time in St Junien after buying supplies, instead loading them into the back and setting Gav-o in the direction of Rochefoucauld and its little chateau for a picnic break.

On the way we passed by Rochechouart again, so stopped so that Jamie could take some pictures of the chateau there from down below, which is apparently the best viewpoint. We did, and then noticed a sign pointing to a restaurant which we’d been thinking of trying. I followed the little road into the countryside, expecting to see the restaurant at any second, but no such luck. We eventually came to an intersection of three roads – as there was no one about and I’d had enough of driving aimlessly, I pulled over into the wrong lane at the side of the intersection to turn around.

Of course, the instant I did this cars arrived at two of the other roads leading into the intersection. Then, the comedy show of four wheel drive dune buggies started pulling around from behind me and past the bewildered onlookers. It felt like watching one of those little clown cars, from which 37 clowns somehow climb out of. There must have been 25 of the damn things driving past me, all the while I’m parked on the wrong side of the road in the middle of a three way intersection, unable to move. Classic.

Eventually, the last of them passed by and I could get out of there. I put it in first, dropped the clutch and flew up the mountain back to the top of Rochechouart, back to more or less where I’d started.

From there, we drove the rest of the way to Rochefoucauld to find our picnic venue. We couldn’t find one. We briefly considered just sitting at one of the benches, but with all the roast chicken and drippy carrot salad, it would have been a mess and almost impossible to eat so back into the car we went.

This time, we cleverly set Gav to look for a park nearby to Angouleme, our eventual destination for the day, with the expectation that they’d have somewhere to sit and eat there. Fortunately, we weren’t able to put this dangerous assumption to the test as we found a rest stop on the highway just outside the city. Lunch was excellent.

The rest of the drive into Angouleme was uneventful, other than the rather successful decision to disregard Gav’s suggestion that we turn down a random side road rather than follow the well marked signs for city center. The main city center is cleverly positioned at the very top of a hill (we’ve noted that the French and Italians love doing this, I think to make Jamie and I sweat a bit trying to find a wine bar at the top), so nice and steep for me to practice my hill starts (I’m getting good at them).

We got up to a point and I gave up on the narrow and steep roads – I saw a sign for a parking lot and swerved in. It actually turned out to be just at the very edge of the old town, which was what we were aiming for in the first place, so very well navigated on my part I thought.

Angouleme turned out to be a much more interesting town that we’d expected. Lots of pedestrian streets, loads of cafes and bars to choose from. Not what I’d call a gourmet place with very few places appearing to offer anything other than the average, but quite nice nonetheless.

We spent a very relaxing day wandering the streets, taking photos and looking at the adverts in the windows of all the immobliers (real estate agents) for local deals. We were forced to stop a few times for medicinal refreshments, which provided us the opportunity to indulge in two of our favourite hobbies – drinking wine and people watching. There is no end to either in Angouleme as far as I can see.

We’d found what looked like a good restaurant on one of the little pedestrian streets and Jamie phoned for reservations later in the evening – we think it was called “Les Artistes” or something similar. Another café and hour of people watching later, it was time to return for dinner. We sat outside in the little terrace behind the restaurant and enjoyed a very tasty dinner. Unfortunately the sun had started to go down and while the shorts and short sleeved shirt I’d left with in the morning had been excellent all day, in the shade with a bit of a breeze blowing they weren’t quite up to the job.

Leaving Angouleme, or at least the parking lot turned out to be more of a challenge than we’d been expecting. We found our parking lot and the car, but when we tried to put the ticket in the machine to pay, it read it a few times and then spit it back out again, saying something about being unable to read it. We tried a few more times, then went in search of another ticket machine to pay. We couldn’t find one. We returned to our original one and pressed the assistance button. A tinny voice bellowed out at us in French, and we explained in our best French what the situation was. More tinnily bellowed French, and we understood that we were to proceed to the exit.

Once there, the options were limited. There was a gate across the exit, but next to it another pay machine. I got out and tried to pay again, with the same result. I pressed the assistance button at this new machine and explained again that it wasn’t reading. Another long stream of incomprehensible French. I tried putting the ticket in the exit machine reader. Nothing, but I got yelled at in French again. Tried to pay again, more yelling. Eventually, the guy said something about mailing the ticket, which would help in the long run, but not in getting us out of the parking lot. More yelling, this time about a white box.

After some time, I realized that the voice wanted me to put the ticket in the little white mailbox on the far wall. I figured that I wouldn’t have a ticket at all if I did that, however the ticket I did have was useless so I wouldn’t be much farther behind, and if worst came to worst we could simply live in the garage for the rest of the holiday, or until someone came to rescue us.

As soon as I put the ticket into the mailbox, the voice came back yelling something else. I got back into the car, and as soon as I did that, the barrier rose, as if by magic. We drove forward towards freedom.

Gav-o played his silly little trick of sending us down a very small side road in the middle of Angouleme, but after we worked out what he was up to, we retaliated by following the well marked signs out of town. We got back to Confolens just as the sun had set and have been enjoying the quiet relaxation of reading and writing for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is French mother’s day and a Sunday, so we’re not expecting much to be open. We’ll see how it goes.

Day Eight – Leavetaking and Arriving - May 27, 2011

We got to sleep in a bit later than usual this morning, as today was another travel day. After a night of extremely poor sleep (having been woken constantly by Jamie who claimed that I was “snoring” extremely loudly all night), we were scheduled to check out of the B&B at Loches and make our way south into the Charente.

As a side note, I’ve never really been a snorer, however my father is (to the degree that he need specialized medical equipment to be able to sleep through the night, mainly because without it I suspect my mother would kill him). As I rarely snore, when I do I end up with an incredibly sore throat. I’ve developed a theory that there is no way that chronic snorers can go through life with this sore throat all the time. They must develop calluses on their throats. I have named these calluses “snalluses” (snoring calluses). I expect that this term will soon enter popular usage, and that I will be paid royalties. I hope to retire next year, or the year after. Wish me luck.

We must have made more of an impression on the B&B owners than we’d realized, as they gave us a bottle of local wine as a gift to remember them by, and asked that we keep in touch and let them know how the rest of our trip goes. I think we’ve ended up making some friends in the Loire that we hope to have for a long time.

We packed our cases and said our final goodbyes before loading up the car and heading out of town. As before, we programmed Gavin the Sat Nav to avoid all toll roads and major routes so meandered down into the Charente. As we went, the scenery changed from very flat with field upon field of corn, reminding us of the Canadian Prairies (well, not quite THAT flat) to rolling hills and forests, more like the Dordogne even further south.

We found Confolens without any problems, but couldn’t immediately see the B&B. After a bit of walking around, having parked the car for ease of searching, we realized that we were on the wrong side of the old bridge across the Vienne. At this point, we quickly found the B&B, which was closed until after lunch. Classic.

We were both starving by then so decided to leave the car and the bags where they were and have some lunch ourselves. We decided this just outside a hotel which also had a terrace restaurant, so it seemed natural to go in there for a bite to eat. A shared toasted goats cheese salad and paysanne pizza later, we were ready to try the B&B again.

They were open this time around, and Nick the owner showed us around. As we were the first of the guests to arrive, we were given the choice of rooms – we of course went for the giant one with the little balcony over looking the street and bridge. It’s a massive room, very nicely decorated, with a little seating area off to one side – perfect for reading and writing after dinner.

We moved the car, got settled in, opened a bottle of wine and our books and enjoyed a few hours of relaxing in the sun after the drive. Eventually the sun started to sink towards the horizon and it was time to head out for dinner. Nick had recommended a restaurant in the Hotel de France in nearby Rochechouart (about a 30 minute drive away), so we programmed Gazza and were off.

Dinner was excellent, as it turned out. We both had the €20 three course “Limosin” menu which featured all local products – especially featuring the locally famous “cul noir” pork (literally translates as black bum). The village was beautiful and after dinner we took a bit of a drive around, stopping very briefly to look at the chateau at the end of town. I think we’ll have to stop by again later in the week when we have a bit more time to explore more.

The sun was really starting to drop, so we decided to turn back and head home to Confolens. Despite a wrong turn on one of the country lanes, we made it back in good time. We didn’t get our fantastic parking spot back, but managed to find a place just down the road. We’re both very much looking forward to spending the rest of the week exploring this new region of France (well, new to us at any rate).

Day Seven – Tours of Tours - May 26, 2011

Today’s mission was a bus trip into one of the bigger cities in the Loire – Tours. We’d been told by Jean Claude at the B&B that parking could be a bit of a nightmare, and that the bus from Loches to Tours was much easier than trying to work around the infrequent train schedules.

After breakfast, we made the brief walk up to the train station to buy our bus tickets (not the most intuitive situation, but there you have it) and soon after, boarded our bus and were away.

The ride took about 40 minutes and dropped us off at the train station in Tours. Not far from there was the tourist info centre, where we collected our always useful free tourist maps and headed for the sights of Tours.

Tours features many boring and not memorable streets, but a few fantastic mostly pedestrian streets which are lined with ancient (and occasionally not so ancient) buildings. It’s a university town, so the average age is somewhere in the early 20’s and everyone seemed to be having a good time. It certainly would have been a different university experience than we had in Canada – wine and/or coffee in a café in a square surrounded by medieval buildings seems so much nicer than in the Student Union building.

It was almost lunch by the time we ended up getting to Tours, so after a brief wander to get our bearings, we found a decent looking crepe place in the main square in the old part of town and sat down for a very tasty lunch. The threatened rain managed to hold off and when the sun ended up coming out, it turned out to be quite warm.

After lunch, we felt that we should explore some more, and so did just that. It turns out there isn’t actually that much that’s vastly interesting in Tours, outside the medieval pedestrian bit, at least that we could find. We walked through the covered market, but as it was after 2pm by this point, it was almost entirely closed (as was to be expected). The rest of the streets we found looked like French city streets everywhere else, so we turned back into the medieval section.

Having been slightly disappointed by the rest of Tours, we felt that an ice cream was the only way to regain our equilibrium – at least this was the excuse we used this time (I can almost always find an excuse for ice cream while on holiday). Unfortunately, the ice cream alone didn’t quite do it and we were forced to find a bar back in the main square and have a very relaxing time drinking a carafe of wine in the sun.

I mentioned the sun there. The forecast had been for cloud for the day, and potentially heavy rain. We’d both brought our umbrellas, and in the morning I had been kicking myself for forgetting to bring my sweater along as well, as it was a bit chilly. By the time 3pm rolled around, the sun was out and it was warm. Given the forecast, neither of us had thought to put sun screen on, and I managed to get quite a good sunburn on the back of my neck. Not bad enough to be excruciating and therefore worthy of any sort of sympathy, just bad enough to be annoying (in my house, no blood or no bruise equals no sympathy. Unfortunately I’m enough of a walking disaster area that I end up getting quite a bit of sympathy, even given the rules).

Feeling sufficiently relaxed, we thought that we should at least look at the Tours cathedral before taking the bus back to Loches. It turned out to be stunning. They had the most amazing stained glass windows, and unusually, almost every one of them had a big plaque explaining what each pane was depicting. It was interesting to be able to read the description and then look up at the light pouring through to see what the artist had intended all those hundreds of years ago.

The bus ride back was relatively uneventful, other than a slightly crazy, smelly, and very greasy-haired older French guy getting on at the second stop and sitting next to the young guy directly in front of us. This wouldn’t have been unusual, except that the bus was more than half empty. The poor young guy had to move his bags, and then deal with the old guy moving around, trying to get the air vents to work, farting (which we had to deal with as well sitting directly behind him). To add insult to injury, the old guy almost wouldn’t let the young guy out of his seat at his stop. Very bizarre.

Back in Loches, we stopped in at the B&B to freshen up and have a quick chat about the day with Jean Claude. I didn’t feel like driving for dinner (the few carafes of wine throughout the afternoon having something to do with this) so we made reservations again at the golden wheat sheaf (of course the name is actually in French, but I forget what it is – that’s just the translation), having had such a good meal there the other night.

Unfortunately history didn’t repeat itself for once. Our starters were good – eggplant and goats cheese for Jamie and confit duck and foie gras terrine for me. Jamie’s main course was also excellent – a special of the week of guinea fowl and local white asparagus. Mine, however was not so good. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I ordered it.

Grilled sea bream with the skin on, paired with chorizo and tagliatelle is not a natural combination. I could have lived with this, if it weren’t for all the little sharp bones which had been left in the bream, or the countless scales which had not been removed from the skin. I ended up leaving two of the three fillets on the plate (picked through the first, made an attempt at the second, and didn’t bother with the third). The pasta with chorizo had also been sitting for a while whilst we finished our entrée so it was a bit manky by the time I got it, so didn’t actually eat that much of that either.

I think the servers didn’t quite know what to do, as they kept walking past our table, refusing to make eye contact. The pile of bones and scales on the side of my plate was fairly obvious, as was the amount of food left. Eventually one of them took courage and asked if we were finished, and cleared. Interesting, no one asked if we’d enjoyed it.

Oh well, not all meals can be winners. After a final coffee, we came back to the B&B to settle in for the night. Our last day in the Loire was very nice, and I think we’re going to be sad to be leaving. On the other hand, we’re very much looking forward to the next leg of our grand French adventure – a journey into La France Profonde – Deep France.

Day Six – The World’s First Staircase, and Other Wonders - May 25, 2011

Today was market day in Loches, so after breakfast our first mission was to explore. Our overall plan was to wander around the market for a while and pick up some supplies for a picnic lunch at one of the chateaux around. It turns out the market in Loches is actually quite large, given the size of the town, and it took us longer to explore than we’d expected – it seemed to sprawl over most of the pedestrian streets and alleys.

We bought some very strong and smelly local goat cheese, another variety from somewhere else (I really should start writing this sort of thing down as I go, my memory is getting progressively worse as I age), a lovely loaf of bread, some chefs salad (apparently salad consisting of grated carrot, peas, corn, and other assorted veg in a dressing is a chef salad – who knew?), and two chicken legs/thighs from the chicken roaster man (one in every market – absolutely indispensable).

We loaded the aforementioned into Nancy and set of for Chenonceau (incidentally, upon confirming the spelling, I’ve just discovered that Google Maps street view has outdone itself at Chenonceau – it appears they used a handheld device rather than the normal car-mounted jobbie, and you can now take a complete virtual tour of the outside from the comfort of your home). After a relatively short drive, we arrived and found ourselves a free parking space in the parking lot located just outside the chateau.

While it wasn’t quite what I’d expected, it was beautiful. For some reason I had an image in my head of a château which was anchored to the land at one end, and in a lake at the other, if that makes sense. I guess from the angles of the photos I’d seen, they didn’t really show the other side of the château, as it actually ends on the far side of the river. It even includes a door and some stairs down from the far end of the main gallery which spans the main floor. As an interesting side note, we’ve been told this evening that during the Vichy government, the river that Chenonceau girds marked the boundary between French and German France – evidently going into the gallery from one end out the through the other effectively put you in a different country. Having said that, I’ve not actually confirmed this anywhere, so don’t take it as gospel fact.

There was only one fee to get in, which gave us access to the huge gardens and the house itself (well, there were two fees, but the other included access to the wax museum, which I wouldn’t have gone into unless threatened with the pain of death, or quite frankly the pain of pain). In retrospect, I’m quite glad at the pricing scheme, as if it wasn’t for that we probably wouldn’t have gone inside, having been a bit unimpressed with Chambord the previous day.

As it turned out the kitchens in Chenonceau were worth the price of admission, if nothing else. They occupy a massive amount of real estate in what isn’t a huge house really. Incredibly interesting. Also, had we not gone inside, we would have missed the most entertaining conversation, possibly of all time.

The guidebook provided makes mention of an interesting fact about the staircase in Chenonceau. Evidently it was the first straight staircase in Europe. It seemed that some hapless tourists had either misread this, or had fundamentally misunderstood the meaning as they were having an extremely long and involved conversation about what they possibly could have used to move between floors in buildings prior to this.

Evidently, they had thought that the guidebook was saying that this was the first staircase in the world, ever, and instead of questioning this were trying to work out if this could possibly also be the first building in the world with more than one floor, or if ramps had previously been used, or other mechanisms. They were fairly certain that there were castles built before Chenonceau, but weren’t sure where. Jamie and I, on the other hand, were fairly certain that we were witnessing the beginning of the end of the human race.

Both bemused and somewhat appalled, we finished our tour of the inside of the chateaux before going back outside to find the farm and vegetable/flower garden. Both were lovely, although there weren’t as much veg as I would have expected. They did, however, have four donkeys, which is always entertaining.

After exhausting ourselves with the chateau, vegetable patch, and donkey exploration, we spread out our picnic lunch and had what turned out to be one of the best meals so far on this trip. There’s something magical about eating under a clear blue sky on a warm spring day in rural France, next to a beautiful chateau, that just makes food taste better.

After lunch, the nearby town of Amboise was on our agenda. A short 20 km drive later, we found more convenient parking (I’m getting good at that) and then followed the signs towards the chateau on foot. I’m not sure if we missed the interesting bit of town, but even after a fair bit of wandering about all we could find was one street full of naf tourist places. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to back to Amboise. We’d paid for two hours of parking, but only spent an hour before driving back to Loches for an afternoon glass of wine at the B&B.

This time, we had decided to be upfront and have the wine on the terrace. One of the owners sat down to chat with us, and we ended up having a very pleasant two hour conversation, mostly in French to my delight (as I’m trying to practice as much as I can). The owners are absolutely lovely, and have made us feel a bit guilty about smuggling in our contraband wine up to our terrace for our evening enjoyment. Not guilty enough to not do it, as that’s what we’re currently doing, but still.

Having spent the last few days gorging ourselves on rich French food, we decided tonight to go a bit lighter and have a pizza for dinner. There is a pizza place on the Grand Rue which didn’t look too bad, and it turned out not to be. It also turned out to be pretty much the cheapest meal we’ve had here, if you don’t count the picnic lunch. I don’t know that I’d necessarily recommend it for a gastronomic feast, but not bad for pizza.

Back home and a final glass (or two) of smuggled wine on the balcony as we clean up our photographs and write down our thoughts for the day. Tomorrow looks like it’s going to be a self-guided bus trip into Tours, to see what the big smoke around here is like. Should be a good day.