France Day 8

Chenonceau!

We started out early this day and were on the bus by 9. I was especially excited about the day's excursion, as I have read so much about Diane de Poitiers:

And Catherine de Medici:

A summary of their story: Diane was King Henri II's mistress (although she was 20 years his senior) and he gave her Chenonceau, which his wife, Catherine de Medici (a woman notorious in many ways-the French called her Madame Serpent), desperately wanted. There's way more to it than that, but that's the beginning of the gist. When Henri was pierced through the eye with a large splinter in a jousting tournament (at the Place de Vosages, which we saw in Paris), it became clear that he would die. Despite his calling for Diane, the woman he seemed to truly love, Catherine gave orders that Diane was not to be allowed to see the king. Once he died, Catherine took Chenonceau and Diane was given the chateau Chaumont, where she lived briefly before moving back to Anet, her country home. She died there at the age of 66. For a very comprehensive take on the story of Catherine, Henri, and Diane check out the historical fiction novel Courtesan by Diane Haeger. I'm reading it for the second time right now and love it all over again!


Back to Chenonceau: Once Henri was dead, Catherine set about removing any trace of Diane from Chenonceau. She replaced the portrait over the fireplace in Diane's bedroom with her own, but took another bedroom for herself in the chateau. She put her symbol next to Henri's all over the house and created her own garden to rival Diane's, which she left intact. Her exhaustive efforts to make Chenonceau her own only served to scream, "jilted wife." It was as if she was trying to force herself and others to believe that Henri loved her more. Insert petulant foot stamp. One of the wonderful things she did add to Chenonceau was a three-story ballroom and gallery built on the bridge connecting the chateau to the opposite side of the Loire River (the bridge was built for Diane). Catherine made Chenonceau the place to see and be seen.
The ballroom:

We spent almost three hours at the chateau and I took a ton of pictures. It was a surreal feeling see this breathtaking residence, which was almost destroyed in World War II. The tree-lined entrance to the chateau is breathtaking:

And then you get your first glimpse of the place as you round a corner:

And you're stunned. It was just so amazingly beautiful. You begin to understand why Catherine wanted this chateau so badly.


The gardens are stunning as well. Diane's was my favorite:


But Catherine's was beautiful too:


Upon entering the chateau, we walked immediately into Diane's bedroom and it was . . . well, there are no words to explain how it feels to be standing in the bedroom of such a well-known historical figure. Diane is someone whose story touches you and then you find yourself standing in her bedroom and it feels so surreal. That's the best way I can describe it.

Here is the fireplace in Diane's bedroom, with the portrait of Catherine over the fireplace, in all its sad, mocking glory:

We saw the area where she entered the river every day to swim. (She took daily baths and swam frequently, something unheard of in this time when water meant illness to the paranoid masses-and that included the royalty.) The kitchen was huge and very interesting. Here's the massive stove:

This is Catherine's beautiful and ornate bedroom:

And the room of the widow, Louise de Lorraine, which is done in all black with skulls and darkness, just in case she forgot that she was a widow and needed to be reminded to mourn.

Some other interesting and lovely aspects of the chateau included:

The portrait of Diane de Poitiers as the goddess Diana the Huntress

The ornate coffered ceiling in Diane's study

And the abundance of symbols in the chateau. Here are Catherine's interlocking Cs and Henri's H:

And this is the combined symbol of Henri and Diane, which both used to sign state documents. She had a lot of power as his beloved.

The most beautiful part of Chenonceau was, again, the chateau itself. Its location on the river, the grounds, the gardens and maze-it was all so wonderful. I was in awe the whole time we were there and got some really wonderful pictures.




Here are a few pictures of the working gardens in the servants quarters at the entrance to the chateau:



We also spent some time in the maze:


Finally, we took our Rick Steves tour group photo in front of the chateau:

And then, all too soon, it was time to go. On the way back to the hotel, I started to feel really carsick, so by the time we were back in Amboise, I was ready to lie down. There was a market going on, but we went back to the room and slept for two hours. At 2:30 we got up and went to the laundromat. It was close to 5 when we got back to the hotel from that experience. It was 9 Euros for the two washers and 6 Euros for the big dryer. It was ridiculously expensive! Hopefully that will be the last time we have to do laundry while we are here. As we were waiting for the clothes to dry, we saw the cutest little Yorkshire terrier that was literally skipping and springing down the sidewalk. It reminded me of Phoebe's springing deer trick!

At 5 we had a wine tasting at the hotel. Even though I still wasn't feeling great, we decided that we needed to start our education about wine, so boozed up we got. We tried six wines from the Loire region, along with two cheeses, a pâté, bread, and chocolate. Oh, and a hard sausage that Nick really enjoyed. We learned about the legs of the wine, swirling, the age, the mouth swish, and by the end of it all, I was giggly and, I'm not going to lie, drunk. It was a lot of fun! We sat by John and Nancy from Fairwood, Washington and they're always a kick. By the end of the tasting, we were all laughing and talking so loudly that our teacher had to shout to be heard. Ah, to be on the other side of it!

Here was our list of wines:
1. Domaine Vigneau-Chevreau Vouvray (Chenin Blanc)-one of our favorites
2. Antoine Simoneau Sauvignon Black 2008
3. Antoine Simoneau Domaine de la Rabelais-Rose (Gamay) 2009
4. Antoine Simoneau Gamay 2008
5. Domaine de la Chevalerie-Chevalerie 2001 (Cabernet Franc)
6. Jean-Claude et Didier Aubert Vouvray Moelleux 2008 (Chenin Blanc)-a dessert wine, another favorite

After our tasting, we took another nap. It was pretty clear at this point that I had a pretty yucky head cold. The next day we had a 5-hour bus ride to Mont St. Michel, so I was hopeful about my chance to get some more sleep. Being sick on vacation is really awful. I'm so disappointed that we didn't get to do much sightseeing in Amboise because I didn't feel well. Leonardo da Vinci lived, died, and was buried here and we missed seeing some of those poignant sites. We will just have to come back I guess. (That made me smile through my sniffles!)

These are two of the handful of photos we took while in Amboise. The first is the view of the Loire River from our hotel room at the Hotel Bellevue:

And this is one of the many beautiful streets in the town:

We will definitely be coming back someday . . .

France Day 7

We started out in Bourges this morning after spending one night at the modern Hotel Angleterre.

Nick and I packed up and headed downstairs after taking a couple of very long, hot showers. We loaded our bags on the tour bus and then walked to the open air market in Bourges. Produce, fish and seafood, spices, meats of all kinds, breads, flowers, and cheeses were all around us at the market. It was absolutely amazing!



We were having a picnic lunch that day, so we paired off into four teams: one for meat, one for cheese, one for pickles and miscellaneous, and one for desserts. Each team had a budget and also had to pick up a specific wine to go with their course. We teamed up with Marie, Marianne, Jared, and Alicia. Jared pointed out that, since the cop was on our team, we should logically have desserts (haha, another doughnut joke!). Nick and I chose to find the wine (Sancerre), which we were able to do in the market because it is locally produced. We also spent a lot of time drooling over the cheeses and pastries. The goat cheese (or chévre-pronounced chev) from this region is beyond amazing and SO delicious! Don't let the mold turn you off to it. Mold makes it better, believe me.

By the end of our excursion, we had a bottle of wine, a baguette, and some goat cheese-the quintessential French lunch!

While we were at the market, we saw a guy with two golden retrievers, which made me miss Gus so much. Then Nick yelled, "Jack!" And, lo and behold, there's a female version of our late Cookie right there in the market in Bourges. I cried and took three pictures of her.

After the market, we had some time to kill so we walked around Bourges again.

Here's one of the Roman walls I talked about in day 6. This one actually has a clear demarcation line where it was destroyed and rebuilt, about two-thirds of the way down and sloping up:

We were looking for a tote bag and umbrella, which we didn't find, but we did run into Jared and Alicia who took us to the boulangerie that used to be a whorehouse. We took some delicious pictures there and bought some treats for later.


Lunch was in the gardens by the cathedral.

The gardens were still in bloom and were a beautiful background for lunch.



This is the actual park where we ate. The picnic was spread over the benches.

The spread was very impressive. I loaded up on local strawberries, bread, and cheese. There were also a few interesting meats we decided to try. Come to find out that one was a rabbit pâté (YUM!) and the other was . . . (drumroll) HORSE! That's right, I ate horse. And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't my favorite either. Nick really liked it, of course. The rabbit pâté was delicious and I went back for seconds. My favorite part of the meal was the goat cheese-one wedge in particular, but I have no clue as to its name. Damnit. I probably couldn't get it in the states anyway, since locally produced in France often means it's also only enjoyed locally. Here's the wrapper from my amazing cheese:

In addition to the food, we had four tastings of wine. I liked the first one the best.

Nick liked all of them. I guess we're turning into winos! Lunch was a great experience in many ways. First off, it forced us to interact with local people, which was really fun. The lady we bought our wine from spoke no English, but was so sweet and got as excited as we did when we were able to communicate with her. It felt very Amazing Race to us. Secondly, it gave us the opportunity to try new and different foods and wines, most all of which were local or specific to the region. Finally, we had French pastries for dessert. How can you go wrong?

After lunch, our Bourges tour guide came back to take us on a quick tour of the cathedral, which was, among other historically significant events, where Eleanor of Aquitaine was crowned.


It was like being in Notre Dame without the crowds. Check out the groin vaults! Apparently St. Etienne's Cathedral has been falling apart for a while now, so the architects went wrong somewhere in the design.

Funny moment: The look on Nick's face when a man asked him to remove his hat after we'd been in the cathedral for twenty minutes. Poor little Catholic boy was mortified!

We talked a lot about the stained glass windows in the cathedral and learned the stories from many of them.


It was sunny and beautiful outside, which made prisms of color on the ground from the glass. It was beautiful. We have enjoyed Bourges so much. I'm so glad we got a chance to visit this amazing place!

At 1pm we got back on the bus and headed for Chambord (pronounced shan-bor). Arnaud put on some French music for us to listen to, which was okay at times. Other times it sounded like wailing and made it extra hard to nap. One more experience in culture for the books!

As we were coming up the long drive to Chambord, we crossed into the huge game reserve surrounding the chateau. It's the largest fenced game reserve in the world. We actually saw two boars, which is extremely rare. They also have deer and stags, ground animals, and fowl. When we finally came out of the forest, we could see one side of the chateau and it was huge! Chambord has 400 rooms with 365 fireplaces. It was built by Francois I as a hunting lodge.

Over the course of his entire reign he only spent about 3 months cumulative here. What a massive expense for such a short amount of time! Since then the chateau has changed hands a number of times, as it was often given as a gift to nobility. During World War II, the art and treasures from the Louvre were stored here for a short time. It was also the inspiration for the Beast's castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Now it is quite a tourist attraction.

Arnaud pointed us in the direction of the must-see parts of the chateau because we only had 2 hours to experience the whole thing (not enough time, believe me!). Overall, it is a huge, drafty place that is incredibly difficult to heat. It's beautiful in its architecture, but it's definitely a cold place, meaning it doesn't look lived-in and the majority of it isn't furnished. One of the exceptions was Francois I's bedroom. That's him in the painting. I imagine he was pretty cocky in his masculinity (pun intended-apparently he was quite the womanizer).

Here's a view of one of the ceilings in a hallway.

We spent a short amount of time inside checking out a few of the rooms and the amazing view from the terrace.

We also saw the double spiral staircase they think was designed by Leonardo da Vinci, who was brought to France by Francois I. We walked around the roof and took some beautiful pictures of the chimneys and architecture.

The real beauty of the chateau lies outside in the building itself. The massive number of chimneys from the 365 fireplaces sprout up all over the roof, the grounds surrounding the place, and it's sheer massive size made for some great pictures.

For me, the history of the place was my favorite part. It's a hunting lodge, which is a fun idea itself, built by a young king who simply wanted it (and got it-what a great way to show off his power to his enemy the Emperor Charles V). Then his court moved away from the area and he couldn't really use the lodge anymore. I wonder if that made him sad, or at least disappointed.

After we left Chambord, we headed to Amboise to check into the Hotel Bellevue, a very Rick Steves place to stay.

From the lobby it looked okay and we thought Arnaud was just being snobby when he said it was really "rustic." But then we saw our room. You can barely turn around in the bathroom and the toilet flushes by pulling up on a knob, which then crashes back down. Everyone on the lower floors hears everything water related, which is very loud. My shower was hand-held and the bed is tiny and practically on the ground. It's one of those places that makes you laugh out loud, but not really in a bad way. It was an experience. And, while cramped, it was very clean, the breakfast was great, and the staff was wonderful.

Dinner was at L'Alliance with the group and was three courses. I had a goat cheese salad, a blah piece of cod, and the chocolate mousse. Nick had the same, with the exception of his main course, which was guinea fowl, and he really liked it. This meal included a glass of wine, so by the end of the meal, our group of 29 (including Arnaud, Annie, and Matt-the drivers) were all so loud it was overwhelming in the small space. We were having so much fun! By the time the meal was over, it was about 10pm and we were exhausted! I know, shocking.