Nicole schreibt...

Pays de Loire / Normandie 2008

Taking a trip by car is rather unusual for frequent-flying me, but in this case it was just the best thing to do, driving down to the Loire Valley with our own car, which took about six and a half hour (it would have been half an hour less if not for the eternally congested Peripherique around Paris (without even catching a glimpse of famous sights like the Eiffeltower or Sacré-Coeur perched on top of Montmartre hill). The weather was glorious when we finally reached Amboise and so the rest of the afternoon was spent by the small lovely swimming pool in the garden of our hotel, the Clos d’Amboise. Finally we went for a first walk around the small town and a nice long dinner with a typical French four-course menu before flopping tiredly into bed.

First day, first castles with the first stop being Chenonceau just some miles outside Amboise on the Indre river, scene of many a medieval bitchfest between Catherine de Medici and her nemesis Diane de Poitiers, her royal husbands lover (whom she quickly shooed out of lovely Chenonceau to claim it for herself once Henri II. kicked the bucket). Both ladies bedrooms are still intact as are the rooms of the other ladies who stayed there at some point and the gallery annex Catherine de Medici had built across the river.
Next stop was the Chateau Clos-Lucé back in Amboise, a small residence King Francois I. gave to his aging buddy Leonardo da Vinci who moved in and later died there. You can see for yourself how a genius lived and admire some of his inventions including his flying machine and basic ideas for what would later be helicopters, cars and tanks. After a siesta by the hotel pool, we returned into Amboise to visit the actual castle there, perched on a hill overlooking the Loire. Only one-fifth of the actual castle are still standing now, but there are still some nice rooms to see and the great view to enjoy.

On the second day we headed east to first visit Chambord Megalomania wasn’t invented by Louis XIV., for this huge castle had been built two centuries earlier. Its the building itself that impresses with its sheer size and the lovely towers and turrets on the roof, inside its rather bare. Unlike Castle Cheverny, our next stop, a rather small castle but fully furnished with gorgeous furniture and paintings. Cheverny provided the inspiration for Belgian cartoonist Herge to draw Moulinsart, the castle where his hero Tintin’s sidekick Captain Haddock lives, so a permanent exhibition dedicated to Tintin is now established in a side building of Cheverny. From there we drove to Blois, a charming small town along the Loire river, whose castle was one of the most important during the upheavals of 16th century it was here that the Duke of Guise was murdered by the kings men in the religious troubles between Catholics and Hugenots and it was here also where Catherine de Medici died.

On the third and last day in the eastern region of the Loire we first went to Villandry, whose castle is famous for its gorgeous gardens (which IMHO are only a really fancy way to grow vegetables and lettuce) and then onwards to Azay-le-Rideau which boasts a very romantic location by an artifical lake, while the castle itself didnt offer that much to see. Then we went onwards to Tours, home of the holy Saint Martin, whom every catholic kid in Germany knows for the lantern-procession on the 11th of November which ends at a huge bonfire and with pretzels for everyone. Tours also offers an impressive cathedral and a nice medieval square, but overall its just a nice mid-sized town with little to do or see.
Thursday we finally left Amboise behind to venture westwards, stopping at Fontevraud Abbey first, once one of the largest abbeys in medieval France and more importantly, the resting place of Richard Lionheart, his sister-in-law Isabelle d’Angoulême and his parents, Henry II of France and Eleonor of Aquitaine, one of my favorite women in history. So while it was great to stand at their very tombs, the tombs itself stand rather oddly in the middle of an otherwise totally empty huge church. After a lunch break at Saumur (where the castle was still closed for renovations) we went onwards to Brissac, a huge edifice in the middle of a lovely park and the small Aubance river and finally to our humble abode for the next two days, the Château d’Epinay near Angers, where I could finally play princess myself in the gorgeous old-style rooms.

Eleanor and Henry at rest in Fontevraud Abbey

Friday was the only day it truly pissed down from leaden West-French skies and so we decided to just explore Angers, beginning with the huge castle-fortress of the Angevins before strolling around the nice city center for some shopping (a girl cant ever have enough shoes, right?). Then we returned to our own castle for a quiet afternoon and a nice dinner in nearby St.Georges-sur-Loire.
The journey continued north then to one of Frances most famous places, the Mont Saint Michel, an abbey towering over a tiny island just off the Breton coast. Since its not as flooded as it used to be, you can normally drive straight across the bay to the island, park there and walk on upwards to the abbey.
The only street leading there is crammed with cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops and the ceaseless stream of tourists made me think of similar tourist traps like Venice and Prague. Still, the abbey IS an amazing monument with many cavernous corridors and rooms underneath today’s large church, thus easily providing lots of fantasy for medieval mystery. We stayed overnight in Avranches, a pleasant little town across the bay, where Henry II. of England once publically flogged himself to try and apologize for having Thomas Becket murdered.

And onwards we went across the Cotentin peninsular to the famous disembarkment beaches of the Allied invasion 1944. At Pointe du Hoc some bombed out remains of the German defense stations are still visible, while Omaha Beach looks like your typical quaint seaside resort now. Do the people owning seafront huts and camping vans there sometimes think of what happened there not so very long ago? On the way to Caen we put in a stop in Bayeux to take a look at the most famous piece of cloth ever - the Bayeux Tapestry that depicts that other invasion from Normandy to England in 1066 by William the Conqueror. Then we continued to Caen and the huge Memorial Museum which gives you a great overall image of World War II and what led to it and what happened since with hundreds of authentic exhibits, photos and films. Since we spent so long there, we headed straight on to our last hotel in Cabourg to get some rest, leaving the rest of Caen for the next day.

Sightseeing fatigue was setting in though, so we first went to Falaise for a look at William the Conqueror's Norman Castle quickly before heading back to Caen, where we just went to the castle ramparts, skipping the museum inside and did a little stroll in the city before returning to the hotel pool. For dinner we went to the twin city of Deauville-Trouville, the former being a posh seaside resort onto which the Parisian society descends in the weekends, the latter more laid-back with a nice seaside boulevard. Next morning it was time to depart, with a short detour to Rouen with its famous cathedral. While it had been an important town for many centuries, its main sad fame is now the fact that Jeanne d'Arc was tried and burnt at the stake here. After a stroll and a last cup of coffee in the Vieux Marché, we said au revoir to France.