Day Five – Chambording It – May 24, 2011

Today we were up at a far more reasonable hour – Le Logis de Bief has breakfast hours between 8am and 10am, which means an extra half hour of sleeping in. Doesn’t sound like much, but very important as it turns out. Breakfast, as usual in France, was the Continental Special, this time with a soft boiled egg added for good measure. No soldiers though, which was too bad.

Our mission for today was a tour of at least one of the Chateaux of the Loire valley, Chambord in particular. We’d passed relatively close to it on the way in yesterday, but we were on a mission to get to Lôches at the time and didn’t stop. Located not too far from Blois, it was a pleasant drive back, with a quick stop in the charming Montrésor for some photos.

It took about an hour and a half to get to Chambord, but it was well worth it. It was once the hunting lodges of the Kings of France, and man did they do the hunting in style. I’m not sure how many rooms the place has, but I can tell you that they didn’t spare any expense on chimneys or windows. Surrounded by a moat/canal, it is absolutely stunning from the outside.

As with so many things, the outside may have been the best part. We wandered around for a while, taking many photos and having a very tasty (if expensive) ice cream before paying the €9 each to go inside. If you’re into large, mostly empty rooms, full of furniture which seems too small, beds which have canopies taller than a two story building, or hordes of unruly and quite frankly bored children, then this is possibly heaven on earth for you. For us, it was a bit boring.

They have quite a nice double helix spiral staircase, and some nice art on the walls, and quite a lot of antlers and skulls on the walls (oddly mostly from Hungary and Romania from the late 50’s and early 60’s – not sure what the deal was with that). Other than that, not much I’d go out of my way to see. You may call us shallow, being more impressed by the exterior beauty and dismissing the interior splendour, but I’m okay with that.

Having had enough with the kids and other assorted hordes of tourists (okay, to be fair it wasn’t that crowded – not anything like Versailles in the summer for example), we got back into the car and set the sat nav for Blois for a quick exploration and possibly a drink. Lunch was also beginning to enter our thoughts.

We made it to Blois in good time, and found some valuable free parking on the Blois Sud side of the bridge. The cost of this was a 10 or 15 minute walk along the river to get to the bridge itself, but this seemed well worth avoiding paying the fees for parking or having to deal with driving into the town itself.

It seems that pretty much everything in Blois that might serve food shuts down after about 3pm. We had made it there at 3:30 and were absolutely starving. The only thing that seemed to offer any promise, after having checked in a few likely looking bars and cafes, was a Subway just over the bridge. I’m ashamed to admit that in our hour of desperation, we succumbed to the siren call of the sandwich made fresh for you, by dedicated and highly trained sandwich artists.

Blood sugar somewhat restored, we felt up to a walk to the Chateau in the middle of Blois. I’m sure it’s quite impressive, but after the glory of Chambord it seemed quite lacklustre. I guess the Count of Blois couldn’t be seen to be outshining the Kings of France.

The bright ray of light in the Blois Chateaux experience was the spectacular display put on by the Magic House of Magic (or with a name similar) directly opposite. To our amazement and wonder, FIVE golden fibreglass dragons with animatronic mouths and one with a giant animatronic foot appeared in the windows (it looked like there should have been six, possibly the last was on his annual leave?). They opened and closed their mouths with only minimal banging of fibreglass bits on the railings, and with extraordinarily mysterious and quite crap spiritual house music being pumped over a loud speaker. Jamie and I were amazed, as were quite a few children. Where they come up with these things, I’ll never know.

The show over, we felt the need for a restorative beverage, so walked back down the stairs to the square below, the sense of mystical wonder not having quite left us. Jamie had a glass of rose, and as I’m valiantly fighting a cold, I wisely and bravely chose a half litre of Badoit.

After restoration, we walked to the little pharmacy across the road. Jamie was quite amused by the prospect of me asking for an expectorant cough medicine from a pharmacist who probably wouldn’t speak much English, if any at all. The prospect for a humorous situation was quite high, if I’m completely honest (I had quite bad pneumonia when I was in my early 20’s, and since then whenever I get a cold I get quite a bit of fluid in my lungs and am paranoid that I’ll get the pneumonia again).

Fortunately, while the pharmacist spoke no English, the sheer quality of my miming the coughing up of chest congestion (not a pleasant miming experience, Marcel Marceau would have been horrified) got the message across and I ended up with what I hope is a bottle of expectorant cough syrup (from what I can understand of the instructions on the bottle, I’m golden). After a quick stop at the 8 A Huit for a bottle of wine and some water for the car, we walked back to Nancy the car and set Gazza the Sat Nav for Lôches.

A quick note: We eventually ended up becoming quite good friends with the owners of Logis de Bief, and feel a bit bad that we engaged in the minor indiscretion which follows (Jean Claude and Moha, if you ever read this please skip over the next few paragraphs. And know we only ever brought up white wine, and were extremely careful not to open it or pour it on or near the carpets – please forgive us.)

A whinge (in the nicest way possible) about our B&B. We’ve specially booked the room with a beautiful balcony, featuring two extremely comfortable chairs and a view over the little canal below. Despite this, and its obvious potential for long and relaxing afternoons drinking cold bottles of local wine while reading or writing etc, the owners would apparently prefer that we not drink any wine in the room at all. We have instead been asked to use the shared and unlit communal terrace below.

This has brought out the rebels in us. We lacked the forethought to bring our own corkscrew, granted an unforgivable oversight given a trip to France, however made the fatal mistake of asking the owners if we could borrow one. This was when we were given the instruction to drink on the shared terrace. We did, grudgingly the first night, but have now devised several devious plans, including buying our own cheap corkscrew and smuggling our own wine up to our rooms, hidden in spare jackets etc.

This may seem completely stupid, and I agree that it is. On the other hand, I’m a grown man who has paid quite a lot of money (okay, not actually that much to be fair) to have a room with a balcony which features the chairs and the view, and I’d like to be able to drink my wine in peace, not to have to feel guilty about it or like I’m a 14 year old who has raided by parents liquor cabinet (not that I would ever have done such a thing, if my parents ever happen to read this).

So we enjoyed half a bottle of quite nice wine (the bottle is currently resting under the sink in the bathroom to avoid detection) while reading and writing on our balcony, before getting somewhat gussied up for our dinner reservations at the restaurant at Le Hotel de France. Despite some vaguely misleading directions, we found it without any problem and had quite a nice and very affordable three course meal. On the other hand, the place was quite formal (waiters with suits, softly piped in Sade music, décor as if someone’s grandmother’s sitting room had exploded with fake plants, birds, hideous wallpaper, dusty rose and peach carpets and paint…you know the type).

Feeling quite stuffed and pleased with the meal, we yet again waddled back to our B&B for a final nightcap (have to finish off the bottle, you see, so we can smuggle it back out again in the morning so that no one will be the wiser). Have I mentioned that I love France?