Month: September 2014

Today has been idyllic. It’s hard to describe just how lovely it’s been but try to imagine Darling Buds of May crossed with Frankenstein. So you’ve already gathered that we’re at this amazing Chateau in the middle of the Loire region of France. This weekend is a special one for Chateaus in that all must open to the public if they are to retain that special status. Stephan (and the Friends of the Chateaux) have organised a pig roast, archery and tours of the places.

We’ve been privileged as we’re already lodgers to have full run of the place anyway but joined Stephan and his family for the roast hog dinner, which was lovely and well worth the 16€. Then we sat around just chatting to people (fortunately there were a lot of ex-pats to chat to as our French is still awful): A family from Northamptonshire and some of their daughter’s friends, a couple from America over here on holiday/working (more on them later) and a very chatty model (who does the Chateau PR) and her actor husband.
In the morning we had to nip out to pick up a bit of food for the evening as we weren’t intending on going out. That too longer than expected as we also hunted for petrol. It rained quite heavily but for the rest of the day it was gorgeous sunshine but not overpoweringly hot. So overall, rather pleasant.

The lady from Northamptonshire started by admiring the car, which is always flattering, and we quizzed her about her life over in France. She’d lost none of her accent and, indeed, her daughter, born here, had picked it up, as well as fluent French. Chatting to this girl’s friends, who were about 12, was a lovely experience – some intelligent, articulate, friendly, confident, happy children who had a conversation with adult strangers on equal terms. We so, so wish that more kids were like this.
We both attempted archery with differing results. Mike kept shooting over the target – as you can see in the photo the target was quite low so he had to shoot at a pretty steep angle. Pen faired better and didn’t require much guidance to do a pretty decent job.

Jedd and Michele are a young couple form Oregon. They described themselves as ‘Digital Nomads’ in that they didn’t have a fixed abode (Michele’s parents is where they stored their ‘stuff’) and spent their time doing paid house sitting, staying with friends or travelling around. However, they are both fully employed as internet consultants, helping businesses with all aspects of networking, websites, social media etc etc. which they were able to do from anywhere with a decent network connection. Jedd managed to enamour himself on introduction by expressing admiration for the car. He knew what it is, as a big Top Gear (UK) fan.
Additionally, whilst staying at the Chateau they were helping with various parts of this weekend’s entertainment and, infact, Michele, who studied French at University was doing the tours of the caves under the place. They plan to maintain this lifestyle for as long as they can. They’re only quite young so can build up quite a CV/life history then maybe settle down… or just keep going. We can’t imagine doing this ourselves but meeting people who are was an inspiration.
The caves under the Chateau were interesting of themselves. We only saw a small proportion but they dated back to the 900s (yes, over 1100 years ago) with priest holes and areas where people lived for weeks/months at time. It’s hard to appreciate just how cramped and claustrophobic there places are but even Pen struggled to move around in the tunnels. A fascinating place.

Right now we’ve just finished a picnic supper in our room (pate on baguette followed by a pastry from the aforementioned Patisserie) and we’ve got the lights off. The electrical storm outside is providing enough light and entertainment. The clock tower rings the hour as the thunder rattles the window shutters. Cries of “It’s alive!” echo around the courtyard below (well, maybe not but they should!).  This is a rather gothic experience.

After taking advice from Richard and Sally and the others, we decided to visit Chateau Chenonceau. It was a fair bit closer than Chambord and was definitely recommended. It was a lovely day out: the gardens are impressive and the Chateau is well preserved.

The plan was to stop at a local, rather big, zoo in the afternoon but once we realised that it was 25€ each and we’d have less than three hours in there we changed out minds but had no other plans.
We attempted to stop for food in a little village but that proved awkward as only the bars were open. All the Patisseries were shut from 12.30 to 15.00 and it was about 14.00. In the end we found a cafe and had omelette and chips and sausage and chips. Not great really. We considered following this up with a trip to a vineyard but felt we ought to choose wisely rather than just picking the closest.
In the end we finished up in a lovely (officially) village called Montresor. Wandered around, picked up a cache, admired the loveliness and generally relaxed. Pen picked up a couple of bottles of decent £3 bottles of wine from the tourist info place. We’re hoping to find more, better stuff at vineyards later.
Headed back and caught up our days with the clan back at the chateau then headed out for dinner in Loches. They already been there and mentioned a variety of restaurants so we thought it a decent bet for finding a restaurant. Anyway, we didn’t get there until about 8.30, struggled to find somewhere to park and it was gone 9pm before we found a decent restaurant… which had stopped serving so finished up at a Pizzeria!
Pen’s pizza was ok but Mike’s steak was easily the worst he’d ever had: infinitely chewy and he gave up half way through. To rescue the evening though Pen had noticed a little tea shop that served cake nearby so we stopped there and had a really lovely piece of chocolate cake which was half brownie and half liquid. Pen also managed to find a tea she thought was gorgeous.
So, a mixed day, and back rather late.
 

No post today. Just got back from dinner and need to go to bed (it’s 22.42 here).

Another driving day, in more than one way. As our journeys go this was a short one. Only about 5 hours of actual routes. However, the planned itinerary included Le Mans and the famous circuit, so this added a fair bit of time behind the wheel. We took a few photos of the Belle Vallee grounds before we left though.

Steve and Mark had mentioned that, because Le Mans is a street circuit most of it is public road, like Monaco. Except in France they leave the Armco in place permanently. Thus we took advance and drove around the circuit, twice. Pen took a video and if/when there is time Mike will edit it and post it here.
The Museum was pretty good – lots and lots of cars obviously, plus information about drivers and key players behind Le Mans. One area compared the cars and racing back in the 1920 and the modern era – rather different. The cars are twice as fast on average, the top speeds are three times more etc. etc.

There was a Superbike race day on today so we couldn’t get near the Bugatti circuit without paying large amounts of money, so we just had lunch in the cafe then went off for our drive around the circuit.
Le Mans is a fairly industrialised city now so it was busy with people just trying to get on with their day jobs so we didn’t stay long and set off on a lovely, quiet drive south to the Loire valley. Almost no cars, a mixture of stupidly long, straight roads and some nice twisty bits to keep Mike awake and happy. Overtaking stuff in the BMW is trivially easy. We’re being sensible and being quite cautious but still can get past pretty much anything at any time. 332ftlb (450Nm) torque and 320bhp goes a long away versus Peugeots 205s and Citroen DS2s. It’s reassuring but it’s hard to find twisty bits twisty enough to push the car, in some ways it’s too easy.
Anyway, enough complaining about having a fast car. We arrived at the Chateau de Celle Guenand and there was no one about. We wandered until someone appeared and talked to us – it was Stephane… or rather Stephen who, despite having a very French name, is quintessentially English. As we arrived so did some other guests… or rather friends of Stephen and his father. They’re all lovely people and we had a rather nice chat out on the patio drinking tea and eating biscuits with an electrical storm brewing in the back ground. It was very pleasant.
We thought that Stephen had overlooked something so asked him for the key to our room, which was currently unlocked. The answer was a brief, and surprising: There are no keys. So there you go. Castle gate is open, keep gate is open, bailey door is open and the room doors are unlocked. I don’t expect to ever type that sentence again unless I time travel back to the Middle Ages. With a laptop.
A local village provided the restaurant ce soir – La Grand Ma. We were the only customers all evening. The lady was helpful and tolerant of our bad French. We struggled to understand the menu and had to ask for a translation (didn’t help that her handwriting made u, n, r, i, m all look the same) but she was great.

We weren’t quite sure what we were going to do today but it had to involve the Normandy beaches. After conflicting advice from Mark/Steve and Victoria we opted to start at one side and work our way across. Victoria kindly lent us a map and guide book, which were invaluable. We drove north, managing to take a few wrong turns in the city of Caens (either because of, or despite the Sat Nav, we’re unsure which), eventually arriving in Ranville and visiting the cemetery.

From there we had been advised that the Merville Battery was a good place to visit. Mostly outdoors in the, yet again, blazing sun, it was quite interesting. There is a video narrated by the guy who led the attack and it’s both concise and comprehensive. We got a real feel for the events of the day which started the D-Day invasion.

Next we stopped off at the Pegasus Bridge and had a spot of lunch at the Pegasus cafe. WWII buffs might know the significance of these places but for those who don’t I shall explain at length by saying watch ‘A Bridge Too Far’.

The museum there is quite modern and fairly interesting but the heat was still a little oppressive. It was getting late by then as we still had a 1.5h drive back. We thought we’d drive down the coast to see some of the actual beaches but it was painfully slow, like Blackpool during the Lights season, and we saw little except some very poor quality road surfaces.
So we headed back in land only to discovery we were hitting the towns at rush hour, which is as bad as anywhere in the UK. Eventually made it back, showered changed and went in search of food.
Bognoles d’lorne doesn’t sound much but it’s an almost completely Art Deco village with some great restaurants (including one with a Michelin star). The one we picked, after a bit of wandering around, La Normandie, was a little mixed. Was ok, wouldn’t go back. See the new Eating page for more details.

Steve and Mark had recommended MSM as a place to visit and we’d had it on our list of must sees so we went out for the day. Unfortunately it didn’t go quite the way we expected. On arriving in the nearby town we couldn’t drive to the Mont and the sat nav led us astray so we opted to follow the signs. However, this took us to a Park and Ride. By the time we realised what was happening we were on a one way street leading to the car park. Mike found being shepherded like this a bit deceitful and objected. Ultimately we stayed and took the bus to the Mont.

The place is fairly impressive. It stands out from everything around it in every possible way. But it was very touristy, over-crowded, too many shops and, ultimately, not a nice place to be. There was a geocache we hung around but with so many people it was impossible to get even vaguely close. One of us would have had to have faked a heart attack as a distraction whilst the other grabbed it.
To top it off, the temperature was in the high 20s and the barely air-conditioned bus ride wasn’t fun. Mike doesn’t do well in such high temperatures and suffered some what. We stayed a couple of hours then headed away for some lunch.
We stopped off at a creperie serving buckwheat pancakes. I’m sure that the celiacs among us would have been over-joyed but they were decidedly average pancakes.
However, Mark had mentioned an Alligator/reptile zoo in passing and we just happened by it so spent a couple of hours happily watching snakes, lizards, alligators, tortoises, turtles and crocodiles. Still hot but more entertaining. We saw mice and rats being fed to various cold-blooded creatures, giant tortoises shagging and small children being fed to alligators. I’ll let you guess which of those is false but remember that this is France before you leap to conclusions.

 

Sorry for the very brief post yesterday, about yesterday. We’d travelled all day, arrived, had dinner then sat around chatting until late so only managed a very quick post.
We had another nice breakfast at Manoir Francis courtesy of Dominique. A note about her name: Dominique LeRoy. Sounds very French until you receive an email from her where the ‘From’ field is ‘Leroy Dominique’, which sounds a lot less French and a lot more ‘hood. She no gangsta homes, y’dig? Sorry about that.
There was a rather attentive, pregnant cat who joined us for breakfast. She might have been hungry but we were giving her any bread, or cake. So we said goodbye to our little pregnant cake starved kitty.

Set off about 9.30am to head across to Domfort. The first part of the journey was another of these Scenic routes from a book about drives across France. The latter part was a straight ‘fastest route not involving toll roads’. Overall it was a pretty relaxing day. Stopped about 2-3 hours into the drive at a place called Leons da Forette. A rather beautiful little village. It was a random pick but as you can see, a good one.

The pace improved as we moved onto faster roads and we arrived about 5pm. We would have been sooner except we had two false ‘starts’. Mike had entered the route destination quite generically so we ended up in a town square. The second attempt used the address stored on the iPhone, which ended in an industrial escape. Then we just let google do it’s thing and got to the right place.

Victoria made us very welcome and has looked after us since arriving. She’s from Bolton. It wasn’t a conscious choice to pick a B&B owned by a ‘local’ but there are certainly fewer language barriers. Most of her other guests are also English though. Mark and Steve (not a couple) are from Wiltshire and drove across for a few days in one of Steve’s Caterham 7s. To cut a long story short lots of time has been spent talking about cars, driving etc etc. They’d already done Mont St Michel and Normandy so we were able to pick their brains about places to go and see the following day. Very friendly pair (though not a couple) and we’re most grateful.

Long trip. Nice meal. Interesting company. Late night. More tomorrow.

Just back from a lovely meal at a restaurant called ‘Le Patio’. We’d gone into the town to try out a Michelin starred restaurant. It was shut… well, it was actually doing a barbecue for the the Military Parade day, and it wasn’t actually the right restaurant.
Anyway, we finished up at the titled place and were served some wonderful looking and tasting food. We’ll let these pictures and videos speak for themselves.

Video: Creme Brûlée

As you can see we had a fairly interesting first day. The local town had some sort of WWII commemoration going on which involved lots of period military vehicles parading through town. A bit like Southend-on-Sea on a Saturday but with howitzers.
We spent most of the day watching this event then visited the local Citadel, just as all the vehicles turned up there. It seems they were using the place to camp. We didn’t understand most of the commentary of the day but the people were friendly, the food was pleasant and the weather was hot.
Afterwards we tried a little bit of geocaching, heading up a rather small lane towards a cemetery. After failing to find the cache we set of back, ran over a dog and tried another cache with just as much success. Then went home for a rest before heading out.
Oh, the dog? Well, we did a three point turn on the aforementioned lane as a dog walker was coming by. He stopped for the first part of the turn but then set of again just as we were moving off. Tried to get past slowly but the dog jumped in front to an audible thud. Don’t worry, the car was fine. Phew. And the dog was completely unhurt and unfazed too. If they’d waited the extra 5 seconds… never mind.