Week 2 Special visitors arriving

MONDAY, May 7th 2018
So nice when a plan comes together, even if a certain amount of serendipity is involved.  On a splendid spring day we decided to head for the castle we missed on Sunday and mapped a route of around 35km to get us there.  Unfortunately, the street signs don't always point to the town name or road number wanted and with a dodgy sense of direction this can be disastrous, but with some judicious quizzing of locals and a few fortunate twists and turns, we eventually arrived at our goal,

the magnificent Chateau du Rivau.  Built in early 1400s it was pretty much in a state of decay and disrepair until bought by a French couple in 1993. They've since spent squillions restoring it to its former splendour and surrounding it with beautiful themed gardens full of all sorts of amusing objects and quirky sculptures, such as the 'Running Forest', below.

and the 'Tree of Wishes'.

One garden contained hammocks with a sign that read "For adult use only', and it didn't take long for one adult to try one out.

and soon after this picture she was fast asleep.  Meanwhile, Pierre thought he had found some long-lost cousins

but was disillusioned when they told him to 'pissoir off vous Aussie stupide'.

The rooms on display inside the castle contained numerous paintings and sculptures as the castle owners have a history of being patrons of the arts and this continues today.  Here is one example of the interesting sculptures on display in one of the rooms

while another contained a painting of the first Countess of Beauvau, the family name of the original lords of the manor, on her wedding day.

Contemporary accounts stated she was not that attractive, some going so far as to say she looked like a bit of a moose, but her family had pots of money so the Count was madly in love with her until she did the right thing and provided him with a male heir.  After that he went hunting with her and shot her and had her head hung up in the main hall, along with her sister, as seen below.

This castle also had an association with the famous Joan of Arc and she is reputed to have come here in 1429 to buy horses for her cavalry before riding off to smash the Poms at the Battle of New Orleans.  A whole room is given over to a display of objects related to her.  Below Faye of Bayswater is pointing to a sculpture of Joan of Arc praying before heading off to battle.

Another room contained the bed she slept in during her stay. She even had the presence of mind to make it before she took off.

The place was an endless source of wonder, even these 800 year old oak beams were impressive, as much for their thickness as their age.

The only one who didn't seem all that impressed by all this grandeur was this beautiful white peahen

who was more intent on walking around pecking at the ground looking for food scraps.

After today's visit we've had to re-assess our castle strategy.  With about 2000 castles to visit and entrance fees being around 22 euros per visit for two, that comes to around $70,000.  That's a serious amount of money to spend wandering around gardens and gawking at amazing objects to say nothing of the danger of suffering from castle burnout.  After some serious discussion, we now think it more appropriate to aim for about a thousand.

12 kms got us home and we headed for the village square and a little bar for two refreshing beers to end the journey.

TUESDAY, May 8th 2018

Today is VE Day in France and it is another national holiday.  Along with one last Tuesday (which as we've since found out was not to celebrate our arrival) and another one on Thursday for Ascension Thursday and another on Monday (not sure why, maybe the Queen's birthday), it seems no-one ever does a full week's work in France.

Highlight number one today was poking my head out the front door this morning and discovering the rubbish bags, which had multiplied to two, had disappeared.  It seems my campaign of bombarding the Mayor with emails and text messages has paid off.  And this is despite my new 'bestie' next door neighbour Vietnamese Tran telling me there would be no collection today as it was a holiday.  With much waving of hands and pointing the other day he indicated I could place my rubbish bags with his in the communal stairwell between our two buildings but when I went to do this the next morning, his rubbish had disappeared and so had he.  I'm hoping he didn't get carted away as he has a bicycle pump that I would like to borrow.

Highlight number two was going on our first 'Park and Ride' adventure along the Loire Valley Cycle Path.  We loaded the bikes into our Partner

and by removing a back seat they fitted in very snugly, then drove 20km to Chinon to start along a section of the path.  A 20km ride mostly following the River Vienne brought us to the ancient town of Candes St Martin.  This is situated at the confluence of the Vienne and Loire rivers and is named after the warrior priest who arrived early in the 4th century, slaughtered the pagans who were there in a most christian manner and converted the surviving flock to christianity.  He popped off in 429 a.d. but they still remember him.  They have long memories in this part of the world. The town itself is on the list of France's 'most beautiful towns' and a quick google search tells me that there are over 32,000 small villages in France and only 156 of them have this title.  So we were certainly in distinguished company.  And as a bonus, the adjoining town of Montsoreau is also a 'most beautiful town'.  Talk about lucky.  It also had a castle which we inspected from the outside and in the grounds saw this small tomb

which turned out to be the tomb of 'the unknown toddler'.

The town overlooks the entrance of the River Vienne into the Loire.  We spotted a barge affair motoring downstream

with what looked like much fun and wine drinking going on so we waved at them expecting to be invited on board but they very rudely ignored us.  

Further down there was an impressive modern bridge over the Loire about half a kilometre in length.

Faye rode over it and back

being considerably braver than me as the bridge was only 2m wide and had very little squeeze space for passing vehicles.

The cycle path was flat, smooth, almost free of traffic and extremely well signposted.  There were picnic spots along the way and we chose one lovely, grassed area to stop for lunch.

Faye found the coffee a bit too hot for her but when we offered some to Pierre, he said 'thank you very much but I have brought my own refreshments'.  There was  a group of French cyclists at a table nearby having lunch and when they finished they produced rugs from their panniers

and all proceeded to have a snooze.  We found that quite amusing but were secretly very jealous.

The link below is what popped up in my email box after I recharged my Garmin.  If you click on it, it shows the route we took today, though the last part after Chinon is driving home as I forgot to turn it off.  That accounts for the maximum speed of 87kph which flashes up on the screen just before the end.

https://www.relive.cc/view/1558116784

WEDNESDAY, 9 May 2018
Today was a planning day which gave us a chance to organise a few odds and ends such as a trip to Paris to see the French Open.  For the day we want to go, $375 has got us two tickets way up in the rafters.  I think we'll be closer to the moon than we will be to the stars on the court below.  Faye was pleased with a day off the bike as it allowed her to get into all the nooks and crannies she has so far missed and remove every trace of spider web, including those in the room of the special visitors who arrive tomorrow.  I was also pleased as it gave me the chance to snap away at some of the little features of this ancient building. Inside on the walls are nine various sized tapestries such as this one,

all of various sizes, to help deaden the echoes and keep the warmth in, as much as for decoration.  This one dates from the XVth Century and a quick search on the website https://www.howmuchisthismotheatenoldcarpetworth.com.fr values it at approximately 20,000 euros.  We'll keep this in mind in case we need to raise more funds to pay for entrance fees to castles.

Just inside the front entrance are two doors set into the floor

which lead down to what was possibly a cellar of old, though it would have also been a convenient place to store dead bodies and family secrets that people wanted to keep hidden.

The corner you can't see into has a big collection of musty, dusty bottles.

The mantelpiece in the front drawing room contains some tasteful objets d'art

as well as the house security system in the form of an ancient sword to run through any intruders attempting to storm the barricades. Below this is the fireplace for the long, cold, snowy winter nights.

Our bedroom upstairs contains this charming little baby cot, 

 but, unfortunately, no baby.  I suggested we try and make one but on closer inspection, there was, in fact, a baby there already.

The cot forms part of the stated accommodation capability of this house of ten and a half people.  That's two on the sofa bed downstairs, two in the double bed upstairs, a half in the cot, three in this magnificent double-poster in the second bedroom

and three more up on top of it.

THURSDAY, 10th May 2018
We set off on a 170 km journey to Nantes this morning to pick up our special visitors who were flying in from Basle at 4.30.  The idea was to arrive there early with enough time to visit the much-hyped museum 'Machine of the Isles'.  By now we are pretty used to driving on the wrong side of the road and negotiating the numerous roundabouts even though the near-infallible GPS sometimes tries to send us off on the  wrong exit.  We found the museum ok but trying to find parking proved impossible.  The Peugeot Partner is bigger than the average French car and trying to squeeze into the one spot we did find was beyond my reversing skills.  We were also wary of parking too far away and walking in case we couldn't find our way back so we decided on option number two which was a visit to the beautiful Jardin des Plantes (that's Plant Garden for those who can't speak Japanese but it sounds far more attractive in the original.)  This delightful park contained a huge variety of trees, shrubs and plants from all over the world as well as some lovely garden beds of flowers. (Double click on photos for improved view)

There were flowerpotss for the kiddies to play in

and even the turtles came out to bathe in the spring sunshine.

We saw other creatures that we weren't sure of in the park also enjoying the sunshine, such as this one, so we snuck past it without disturbing its slumber.

We admired this interesting structure over a pond

especially the way the timbers were held together by just a series of rope ties like the ones below stapled into the beams.

Further along Faye discovered a bench big enough to seat the 'Big Four'

but unfortunately she was the only one of them present to sit on it.

By now it was time to re-program the GPS and head off to the airport and despite taking two or three wrong exits, we arrived to find the plane delayed by an hour and a half.  Eventually, though, the special visitors arrived,

Amanda all smiles while Jason lagged behind dragging the four suitcases of luggage Amanda needs for her four days of holiday.  Another 170 mile drive home and we're back in Richelieu, showing A & J the wonders of our ancient abode.  Cosy and quaint are some of the adjectives they have used to describe it.

FRIDAY, 11 May 2018

Friday is market day in Richelieu and we hit the stalls early and hard.  Succulent roast pork for dinner

followed by cheeses for lunch and snacks,

all washed down by some local beer.

All this work needed recovery time at a local cafe

before putting it all together for lunch.

A nasty shock awaited us this morning when the two rubbish bags we placed outside overnight for collection WERE STILL THERE.  Even AJ couldn't believe their eyes.

at the sight of the uncollected rubbish.  More emails are going to have to be written.

After a bottle of rose for lunch we were feeling adventurous so Jason and I ventured down into the previously discovered cellar.  

We made some prize discoveries down there.  This was one of them

along with the collection below.

We believe these may be some vintage long-lost Baron Mouton Rothschild and have brought some upstairs for further examination,  No-one has yet been willing to uncork a bottle and taste the contents.  We also found bottles of preserves

and other tasty-looking delicacies that could be useful in the case of a nuclear holocaust.

Saturday, 12^th May 2018

On a cold and wet Saturday morning we set off for the ancient town of Poitiers, located about 70 kms south of Richelieu.  On the way we stopped off for a walk around the town of Chatelleraut,  driving past what looked like part of an ancient fortress, plonked right in the middle of a busy crossroads.  

One wonders how the ancient Romans gave planning permission for such a structure in such an inconvenient position.  The sensible town planners in Perth would tear such a monstrosity down.

The ancient city  of Poitiers has been around since Roman times and like most such cities has a very old centre with big churches.  We headed to the oldest section

 with a cyclist braving the slippery cobbles behind us.

Wandering around we came to visually appealing sights such as this

and this,

a very tasty looking display of macaroons and chocolates. 

In a place such as this, it wasn’t long before we came across a church , and pretty soon we were at the doors of the Church of St Mary,

an imposing building from around the XVth century, full of massive columns and some magnificent stained glass windows such as this one.

This church also featured an ancient song book for choir members

from the days before people could afford glasses.  No excuses for misreading your notes on these pages.

We thought this church pretty grand until we came across the even more spectacular Cathedral of St Peter and Paul

which they started building in 1155 and finished about 120 years later.

Later we visited the Tourist Bureau where Amanda patted the guard dog

 as we snuck in without paying,

 while further on in our travels we thought it would be a bit of a mouthful for anyone who worked at this establishment

when asked where they worked.

SUNDAY, 13 May 2018

A very enjoyable 4 course lunch at the 'Inn of the Cardinal' (everything in Richelieu has some connection to 'The Cardinal')

was followed by a spot of castling as we headed off 40 kms through rolling green countryside to the magnificent Chateau Villandry.  This ancient 15th century pile, built by one Jean Le Breton in order to show off his wealth and one-up all the neighbouring lords and ladies, was restored to its original splendour early in the 20th century by a couple of wealthy Americans who bought it after it had fallen into considerable disrepair.

This is the approach to the chateau and below are what were the servants quarters.

Inside were numerous tastefully decorated rooms.  We received an invitation to dinner

but unfortunately, had to decline as we had already eaten.  We weren't sure, either, if we would have been able to handle all the liquor necessary to fill the five glasses lined up in front of each setting, especially having already downed a very agreeable bottle of red with lunch.

We saw the kitchen with all its brightly polished frying pans

and what we thought was the coffee grinder in the left-hand corner.  Turns out it was a medieval torture device to stretch the thumbs of any serving lads or lassies who were a bit too uppity.

On to the bedrooms and the suite of the Grand Duke caught our eye

with its bold colour scheme and tasteful furnishings.  The Grand Duchess occupied separate quarters and presumably when she visited the curtains surrounding the royal bed were discreetly drawn.

The castle is full of splendid paintings and sculptures, this one being self-explanatory.

What this chateau is really famous for, however, is its gardens, laid out in classical French 15th Century style.  Imagine waking each morning to this view from one of your bedroom windows,

or even worse, this one.

Everything was cut and shaped and pruned to perfection.

AJ chanced their luck in the maze,

 built on classical Greek lines where the intent is to not find your way out in order to commune spiritually with the higher powers.

After two hours of aimless wandering and no communing with anyone, they gave up and summoned help.  Exhausted by their efforts they were ready for a moment of respite in one of the numerous bowers scattered through the gardens.

On the way out of the gardens we chanced upon a family battling against the odds

as mummy and daddy and their four impossibly cute and fluffy offspring tried to find a way through the curtain of water that confronted them.