Week 1 Off we go

• Monday, 30 April 2018

Packed and ready for take off to our rental house in Richelieu.

 It's the little red dot about 300km south-west of Paris between Nantes and Tours, and pretty plum in the centre of the Loire Valley region.

Richelieu

The town was purchased and re-built by the famous Cardinal Richelieu in the 1630s.  He had lived there as a child and later rose to prominence in the church and as Chief Minister and Mr fix-it, head-kicker and master of political intrigue and skulduggery for Louis XIII, the builder of the Palace of Versailles. Interestingly, some people say they see a resemblance between Richelieu, seen below

and a recent photo of myself, see below.

 Except, perhaps for the hooked nose, I can't see any particular resemblance, and especially now that I have had my hair cut - see below.













The airport at Nantes is where we are headed for first via Doha and Brussels.  Nantes is where we are supposed to pick up our leased Peugeot Partner van before speeding off to Richelieu 170 km away via the E62.  Of course, it's entirely possible we may speed off in the wrong direction and end up on the Atlantic coast instead.

Faye is all packed

and says she can't find another thing in the house to take.  Ace Transport sent over a removal van to take her luggage and now our super-deluxe Uber saloon

is here to carry us off to T1 and then on to Abu Dhabi.  Unfortunately, we could only rate the driver 2/5 as the car was a bit stinky inside and the bottled water was lukewarm instead if icy cold.

This is what we're leaving behind

1. 

• 
  

for who knows what!!

TUESDAY,  1 May, 2018
Well, a day has literally flown by, and this is what we have been travelling to:

Our 16th century house in Richelieu. We were pleased to see Pierre there to greet us.

The house is quaint inside with lots of modern features but what must be the original staircase -

steep and narrow.

The guy in the Peugeot kiosk in Nantes helped set up the GPS on our brand new Peugeot Partner

but couldn't understand my pronunciation of' 'richelew' until he saw it written and it was 'Aaah!  Richely ew'.  What a retard!

The 170 km drive from Nantes ended up just over 200 with the 'highlights' being:
driving 20km the wrong way before realising the GPS had lost the address after stopping for fuel;
wondering why the stupid petrol bowser wasn't working until realising the fuel had to be pre-paid;
not realising our Peugeot retard by selecting 'fastest route' had sent us on the toll roads and we were whacked $20 in tolls besides paying almost $3/litre for fuel; and,
not realising the retard who ordered the car was getting a manual and not an automatic so had to not only adjust to driving on the right, but to changing gears with the right instead of the left hand.

Nevertheless, we eventually arrived in Richelieu to find all the shops shut as today is MayDay.  We did manage a very ordinary meal of le fish and chips at the local pub overlooking the main square

which was deserted at 7.00p.m. on Mayday.  The little road behind the fountain is our street and the church on the corner is where we'll be popping in to for early morning mass every day.  The town is ancient with these entrance gates

on three sides and overlooked by the famous cardinal, himself.

who stands there night and day giving everybody 'the finger'.

An interesting exhibit we saw at Brussels airport

was this prototype of Elon Musks BFR Rocket with which he is planning to revolutionise air travel.  'Bring it on' we say!

WEDNESDAY, 2 May 2018
A sunny but cold spring morning with a minimum of 4 degrees.  The first thing we had to do was nip into the supermarket two doors down from us and buy some milk and bread etc, as all the shops were shut yesterday.  They can't like their customers hanging about in shops here as it was colder in the supermarket than outside.  Then we couldn't find any fresh milk and when I asked in my impeccable French where it was the assistant said 'tomorrow' and then added that in France cows have Tuesdays off and don't have to provide any milk. It's in their Workplace Agreement, apparently.  Or that's what it sounded like to me.

We  then took our Partner and drove 20kms to a bigger town called Chinon to look for bikes to buy.  Don't know how people managed before GPS was invented for navigation.  Found our bike shop but got there after 12 and it was closed from 12 to 2.  We peered in the window and a lady came and opened the door and invited us in but she spoke no English and my spoken French is very average so between us we didn't buy a bike and she didn't sell one.  That'll teach her for not paying attention during English lessons at school! We promised to come back at 2 and she may or may not have said  that someone else would be there then but over a crusty baguette, chocolat eclair and very ordinary coffee at a patisserie, we decided to try our luck in the bigger town of Tours tomorrow.  Faye then spent the rest of the day scrubbing and cleaning in the kitchen and bathroom to bring the house up to her standards.

The picture below is of our little courtyard where we can sit in the afternoon and eat our cheese and crackers and drink wine, once the wind stops blowing and the days warm up.

Pierre is already taking the opportunity to enjoy whatever sun there is and catch up on some reading.

THURSDAY, 3 May 2018
Nearly every street in this small town of Richelieu (population 1,800 + 2) looks like this

with the buildings all a light brown/ sandstone colour.  I noticed this uniformity when I went for an early morning walk to see if I could see where people left their rubbish bags as our landlord told us that Thursday was rubbish day.  Not a bag in sight but the lady in the Tourist Bureau has since told us that the collection is tonight and to leave the bag on the kerb.  Hope the rubbish man finds it before the cats do.

Today we drove to the centre of Tours, found a bike shop and are now the proud owners of two new steeds.

The red one (Faye's) is a second-hand Trek FX 7.3 that was a steal at 399 euro reduced to 350 while mine is a Cube SL Road but more of a hybrid cross country that went for a song at 590 euro reduced from 749.  With lights and bidons now fitted we're planning to road-test them tomorrow.

While waiting for the bike shop to re-open after their lunch two hours we wandered down to the imposing  Tours Station.

and then popped inside to pick up a bit of local culture.

The artists were many and varied and riffed off arrangements from jazz to classical.  I stood in line to thrill the crowd with my one finger rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ but the selfish wannabes in front of me hogged the limelight until we had to go.  Perth Station take note.

Walking back to the bike shop we were confronted by a giant white rhino in front of the McDonald's store.

Richelieu

We thought it was some sort of measure to protect the store from the numerous vagabonds and gypsies all round this area near the station but a staff member explained it was an advertisement for their soon-to-be-available white rhino burgers. 

Different ways of doing things:

The picture above looks like a parcel from Australia Post which would be a surprise in itself if it ever arrived, but it actually contains four slices of ham. The deli’ man lays the paper and ham on a machine that looks like a sandwich maker, folds the paper over then closes the lid which heat heat seals the sides.

This old place keeps springing surprises on me.  I just noticed the underside of the breakfast bar/benchtop below

is made up of old bottles.  Faye said she noticed it on the first day. 

And speaking of Faye, she cooked some very tasty little lamb chops last night and was outraged that no one had had the foresight to bash a hole through the beautiful 400

year old 4 inch thick stone walls to place an extractor fan there.

FRIDAY, 4 May, 2018

Today was almost the perfect example of why we wanted to come to France.  Market day in the village square 100 metres from where we live.  All types of sausage

and cheese and meats cooked and uncooked and snails and whelks and spices

and so many different types of tapenades and snack type thingies that all looked delicious.  We bought a few and some cheese to add to our growing collection which we're sampling in the evening with a selection of crackers and some wine. Oh! so chic we are.

Then sitting outside in the sun at a little cafe in the square with the locals

enjoying an (over-priced) cafe au lait.
















After lunch it was on to the bikes for a ride. First visit was to Richelieu Park, which once surrounded the allegedly magnificent castle built by the cardinal.  This has long since disappeared as once the old boy did too, his loving subjects got to work knocking it down bit by bit to build their own little 'castles'.  The park is still quite majestic with tree-covered paths and ornamental ponds.

Onc can almost imagine the cardinal strolling along here with one of his 17 mistresses, for although he was a man of the cloth, he was also a man of the world.

The park has a number of animals in it including these goats

and supposedly donkeys as the sign below says 'Don't touch the donkeys'

but when I checked I could only see one dressed in pink, though we did spot a few more a little later.

 

Leaving the park we rode along a narrow country lane-like road with a beautiful forest on one side of what may have been plane trees or birch, perhaps oak, not really sure but they had branches and green leaves and even trunks and waving green fields of wheat on the other. We chanced upon this little town

and someone suggested it was named after them and claimed the '45' referred to their age.  It hurt me to point out it probably referred to the speed limit.  As well as an old church in a state of disrepair, the main claim to fame of this town was this pretty little basket of flowers growing on a bike.

We rode back through Richelieu and out of the town gates and alongside the old moat which is now the back garden of the houses along it.  They must have had some pretty strange stuff in the moat of old as we spotted this tree growing in one of the gardens.

Not sure what this one is called either - maybe flowerpot tree.










We rode back into Richelieu crossing a little bridge over the moat

that maybe knights and peasants of old had to defend to keep the old cardinal and his girlfriends safe from savages intent on rape and pillage.

I now have proof of French discrimination against foreigners for I left my rubbish bag outside on the pavement overnight as instructed by the Tourist Bureau

but when I looked this morning THE BLOODY THING WAS STILL THERE and remained there throughout the day even though the place further up left out a much bigger bag and there's was removed.  Something needs to be done.  I know the French President has been busy lately hobnobbing with The Trumpeter but maybe he needs to pay a bit more attention to important domestic matters such as rubbish collection in Richelieu.




SATURDAY, May 5th 2018
Why don't we visit a castle?, we thought, and with over 2000 of them in France and less than 90 days remaining we need to make a start if we want to see them all.  Start small and build up is the way to go so we chose one about 10 km from here on the road to Chinon as we were able to ride along the beautiful new rail trail, which Faye is standing on while modelling her Herbert Smith Freehills t-shirt.

Completed only about 6 months ago it runs between Richelieu and Chinon and unfortunately missd our castle by about 10kms.














By the time we got to Chinon, found a quiet little spot beside the River Vienne to eat our crusty baguettes for  lunch

it was time to turn round and head home to meet our landlord who was coming to replace the downstairs toilette which was unfortunately hors de service when we arrived.

SUNDAY, May 6th 2018

We headed down to the main square at 8.00a.m. to view the start of the Randonnee Fun Run.

Off they all went on the gun

and even the famous Cardinal Richelieu 

complete with runners made an appearance from the grave.  We never saw him after the start so assume he de-materialised somewhere along the course.  All sorts of creatures took part

but this fellow with his long legs and giant strides was easily the first home.  Excited spectators among the huge crowd thronging the barriers 

clapped and yelled out "allez, allez, allez" in encouragement as the runners sped round for the second lap.

Before the run began there was a sort of flea market/swap meet going on down the main street

with stalls full of the same sort of tat one finds anywhere.

though one particular stand contained only books on the famous cardinal

while another contained a wine we'd rather not drink.

There were stalls containing antiques,

some more ancient than others, and some very cute little dogs,

but these were not for sale.

As we passed one stall, we heard an Englishman speaking with another Englishman and that stopped us as one of them was a stallholder.   So we chatted to them and they told us they lived in Richelieu and there were quite a few of them there and even a number of Aussies, though we don't think we'd like to meet them much as they all seem to come from the eastern states.  Later, at the cafe, two gentlemen sat down near our table and they were also English and lived in the area.  One was an internationally acclaimed artist called Alan Halliday.  He said he had some paintings on show in a shop window so later we went and viewed them.  They are very impressive

though this shot doesn't do him justice.  His website shows what a wonderful artist he is.

Before we went home we bumped into the three musketeers,

though one seemed to be wearing a very strange outfit and as we strolled back through the square, we couldn't resist these delicious looking strawberries,

so beautifully packaged in a little pinewood box.  We've now eaten some and they are truly delicious.

Covering all bases:

This display in a shop window seems to have all religions covered when seeking a touch of divine intervention.

As it was a warm, sunny day, we set off for a ride in the late afternoon, sometime after 4.00pm, not worried too much about having to ride home in the dark if we got lost as it is still light enough to see by at 9.30.  The countryside is such a pleasure to ride through and the fields of wheat (at least we think they're wheat though we probably need a know-it-all cocky to advise us properly on this) are  an amazing deep emerald-green colour.

The depth of the green maybe doesn't show up so well in the photo.