This is the second part of the blog and here, as promised, are some more shots of Villandry and its gardens.
After Villandry, which is west of Tours, we drove back through the city and continued in an easterly direction to Amboise, where Lois' friend and naturopath studied French. When we first began planning to spend this year in France, our first thought was to live in Amboise, but we couldn't find a suitable school for Mike. But we've been curious about the place ever since so it was fun to visit. It's a great little city and we had a superior lunch.
Then we drove south to Chenenceau (the town of Chenenceaux is spelled with an "x", the chateau isn't. No reason has ever been given for the discrepancy.) This one has an even more than usually checkered history, what with Catherine de Medici evicting her husband's mistress, Diane de Poitiers, and moving in herself, and, because it straddles the Cher river, which was the border between Occupied and Vichy France (until the Germans decided to abandon their franchise operation and assume direct control), it was the site of prisoner exchanges during World War II.
We left Chenenceau and drove through a pelting rainstorm east to the small, but charming (aren't they all?) village of Chaumont-sur-Tharonne, where we had reserved 2 rooms in a gite (B&B) called Le Petit Clos. We ended up here by a fortuitous accident, originally having intended to stay at a place in Amboise with the same name, but when Lois typed "Petit Clos" and "Amboise" into Google, we were directed to this one. As the proprietors, Thierry and Rene, explained later, because one of their rooms is named the "Amboise" room this happens all the time. The rooms were beautiful, the village was perfect, the neighborhood restaurant was good, and the breakfasts were a cut above. (Hint: Try making your french toast with brioche sometime!). We slept the sleep of the just.
Next morning we drove to the train station in Blois to get Aja a ticket to Paris, where she would spend a couple days with friends, and then on to Chambord, a true monument to excess. It's famous for having close to 400 fireplaces and, visiting on a cold winter morning, it was easy to see why. The place was freezing and turistas were clustered around the few that were in operation, rubbing their hands together briskly and complaining in many languages.
When visiting places like these, from the pyramids to the Biltmore estate in Asheville, one can't help but wonder about the social structures that have permitted one person to live in such superfluous, wasteful abundance while millions of others, including those who actually built the place, have almost nothing. We can admire the skill of the builders, craftsmen and artists who did all the work, but it can still be pretty disconcerting. Francois I, for whom Chambord was built, spent a month there once, and visited occasionally for the hunting at other times, and various deposed royals from elsewhere in Europe crashed there for varying periods, but, really, no one actually lived there in the commonly accepted sense. It was never anyone's home and must have been an enormous drag on the government's finances. But it's spectacular in its way, as you can see.
Leonardo da Vinci lived in France toward the end of his life (he died in Amboise) and did some work for Roi Francois, including designing the famous double-helix staircase at Chambord, shown below.
This incredibly ornate structure is called a "lantern" and sits on the roof atop the staircase. The roof is a forest of turrets and columns and towers, but this one really stands out. My photo doesn't begin to do it justice.
After Chambord, we went to Cheverny, which is, as you can see, much less glamorous and much smaller, but is noted for its interiors. It was privately owned for much of its history, even up until recently, and feels like a home, much cozier than the cold, echoing, empty magnificence of Chambord.
The next morning, the 31st, we dropped Aja at the Tours station at noon and went to Amboise
again - it's only about 15 miles away - for lunch. A lot of businesses in France are closed on Mondays, but we got lucky and were able to have lunch at the place we'd enjoyed a couple days earlier. These are some shots of Amboise, on the banks of the Loire.
We drove back to Tours (I forgot to mention that we had rented a car) past several gas stations, assuming that there would be plenty before we got to the car rental place. A dangerous assumption, as it turned out, but we did get to explore vast areas of Tours and the vicinity which we wouldn't otherwise have thought of doing. (I should state, for the record, that if we had taken the route Lois suggested in the beginning, we would have found a station within blocks, as we realized when we drove past it on the way back to the Hertz agency after exploring the outer reaches of Tours. But Mike and I had let ourselves be distracted by false hope and insisted on taking a different road. She was too kind to say anything directly, but we think we heard a smug chuckle from the back seat when that gas station loomed up on the horizon a mere 3 blocks from the train.)
After a 5-hour trip which included changing trains in Lyon, we arrived back at the Aix TGV station at about 10:30 and made it home in time to watch the New Year's Eve festivities on the tube. Unfortunately, they didn't show the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower, which Aja had gone to see, just some of France's celebrities looking beautiful and self-congratulatory. But on the arts channel we found a wonderful Venezuelan youth orchestra, so all was not lost. And then to bed.
We wish everyone a happy new year, with the hope that more good things happen during the year to come than has been the rule of late.
Bonne Annee!
Lois, Tom and Michael
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