The Loire Valley
After spending so long in Asia and other exotic locations, it feels a bit odd to be spending
time in France - somewhere so similar to home, and yet so different. Some things are so similar - toilets that flush, unpotholed roads, speed
traps - while other things are completely different - driving on the right, everybody speaking a foreign language (well, foreign to me anyway)
etc. In Asia, every street corner has a restaurant or food stall, and people are constantly snacking on food. Here in France, it seems
impossible to get food between 2.30pm and 6pm. The cafes and restaurants all close, or just serve drinks, and they look at you like a space
alien if you ask if they serve food at 3 o'clock. Even in the tourist areas, where not everybody follows the Francophile rules of eating.
So after
making do with a cup of coffee in a café, and snacking on a packet of biscuits, we went in to visit Cheverny Chateau. The Loire valley is
stuffed full of chateaux, some state owned, some private. Cheverny is privately-owned, as was lived in as a house up until 1985. Now its full
of French and foreign tourists tramping around all the rooms, filled with everything from the current owners wedding dress to a 6,000 year-old
set of Megaceros antlers (a bit like a moose, from Siberia).
Its also reputed to be the house which was used as the model
for Moulinsart, the family home of Captain Haddock, Tintin's friend (Yes, I know this has a vague connection to reality, but there are lots of
Tintin fans in the world, me included, that find that makes a chateau visit more interesting). Anyway, to cash in on this, the chateau-owners
have built a permanent exhibition to Tintin in the grounds, and it added another dimension to the visit for the girls. (It also let me play
a bit with Photoshop a bit to produce the picture above - go find a Tintin book to see whether it looks right!)
After Cheverny, we drove
north to Chambord, the largest chateau in France, with 400 rooms and 365 chimneys. The weather has been quite chilly and inclement this week -
unbelievable for July, compared to last July - and it made the castle look malevolent and eerie, with black storm clouds overhead. Like
something out of a Harry Potter film.
So after
making do with a cup of coffee in a café, and snacking on a packet of biscuits, we went in to visit Cheverny Chateau. The Loire valley is
stuffed full of chateaux, some state owned, some private. Cheverny is privately-owned, as was lived in as a house up until 1985. Now its full
of French and foreign tourists tramping around all the rooms, filled with everything from the current owners wedding dress to a 6,000 year-old
set of Megaceros antlers (a bit like a moose, from Siberia).Its also reputed to be the house which was used as the model
for Moulinsart, the family home of Captain Haddock, Tintin's friend (Yes, I know this has a vague connection to reality, but there are lots of
Tintin fans in the world, me included, that find that makes a chateau visit more interesting). Anyway, to cash in on this, the chateau-owners
have built a permanent exhibition to Tintin in the grounds, and it added another dimension to the visit for the girls. (It also let me play
a bit with Photoshop a bit to produce the picture above - go find a Tintin book to see whether it looks right!)After Cheverny, we drove
north to Chambord, the largest chateau in France, with 400 rooms and 365 chimneys. The weather has been quite chilly and inclement this week -
unbelievable for July, compared to last July - and it made the castle look malevolent and eerie, with black storm clouds overhead. Like
something out of a Harry Potter film.