We checked out of Laumiere Hotel at about 10 in the morning. I felt almost heartbreaking to leave Paris because of all the good times we had here. Besides, we stayed in this city the longest. Four nights was sufficient to have you leave a piece of your heart in it. It’s like one of those places you can never grow weary of and can never get enough of, much like New York City I say. Although if one were to ask me which city I’d prefer to live in, I would say NYC in a heartbeat! It was a schmaltzy kind of moment for me to leave Paris. As I mentioned earlier, I feel like I leave a piece of me and take a piece of the places that I visit with me, at least the places that I liked and have had a meaningful time in. I whispered “Au revoir, à bientôt” as we drove away from the city. I had a feeling I would see this city again, someday. I wasn’t sure where we were going next except that we were driving to the southern parts of France. Andrej tends to plan our itinerary in a rather surreptitious manner. I thought this is either because I worry too much and he wants no pestering by a worrier or that he simply plans to surprise me and show off his knowledge of places that most tourists would have never heard of. So I didn’t bother to ask much and just went with the flow because I knew I could rely on him always.
After about 70-80 Km drive, we arrived in the southwest of France at the Chartres Cathedral or Cathedral of our Lady of Chartres. It is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. The place was relatively less crowded than most historical and religious places we had been to before. I was immediately struck by the contrasting spires or the two towers of the cathedral. Both displayed different architectural styles. At first glance, they looked odd or even mismatched but as we drew closer I could tell the two complemented each other perfectly and seemed in unison with the overall façade of the building. Andrej informed me that both were built in different centuries and therefore reflected the contrasting structural design. He added that the town had become bankrupt and therefore they could not be completed at the same time. We took some photos from the outside and headed into the Cathedral. The gothic architecture, the stained glass windows, the stone sculpted figures of saints and pilgrims, gothic statues encompassing the central space of the cathedral and evoking biblical narratives were beyond breathtaking. So far, Andrej had shown me magnificent medieval cathedrals built in the Gothic architectural style and I was awestruck by each but Chartres represented one of the finest examples of that. To me, this was the best I had seen yet in Europe, even more captivating than the Notre Dame of Paris. I became a bit regretful for not brushing up on my knowledge of Gothic as well as Renaissance architectural styles and art work before coming to Europe. This certainly would have made me understand and appreciate these places even better. In the back of my head, I also thought of my parents and how I wished they would be able to see these astounding cathedrals and brilliant artworks with their own eyes some day.
We then drove towards the Loire Valley. The valley includes historic towns such as Chinon, Blois, Ambiose, Orléans and Tours among others. These places other than boasting numerous castles and gardens were also one of the best wine growing regions of the world. Some of the names I had heard before such as Orléans, Tours and Chinon. Orléans I remembered from one of my history classes and Andrej too refreshed my memory of the city as the place where Joan of Arc liberated the French people from the English invaders during the Hundred Years War. Then there was Bordeaux, by and large because of its world famous wines. But we could not go there as it was far out from the route we were to take. Our first stop was the Château de Blois. The town reeked of history and looked beautiful with well-maintained parks and gardens. The castle was located on an uphill location, and as we reached the spot, we got a bird’s eye view of the town. We hung around the place for a few minutes and decided not to go inside. From the outside, it did not look that impressive but resembled a standard medieval mansion.
After Blois, Andrej drove us to Chambord to see the Château de Chambord. The place was more crowded with visitors than Blois. The Château looked resplendent under the clear-blue skies and demonstrated its distinct Renaissance French architecture. The fees were quite expensive and we had no intention of going into the castle. In any case, the Château was located in a spacious land and offered a full view of at least the front and the sides. It was defended by a moat, typical of medieval castles and forts. We were highly impressed by this fabulous Château and walked around the area to get a good shot of it from various angles with our cameras. Andrej took a couple of very nice pictures of me with the castle in the background. I thought this was as best as it could get but reminded myself that there were more chateaus to come on the way. I could barely contain my excitement. He showed me a list of the castles he wanted to go to, written down in his barely legible handwriting. I laughed and made fun of his writing although secretly I thought how adorable it was for him to research on the places and note down the castles he wanted to see so passionately. They were almost ten in number; I reminded him we would not do justice to these historical places by truing to visit them all at once in just a day.
After Chambord, we went to see Château de Chaumont. Andrej got me a book that gave comprehensive information on the castles located in the valley with an elaborate index of all the chateaus that were accessible to public. We were to find that the entry fee to the castle was exorbitant and debated whether it was worth paying that much for one castle considering we wanted to see many more. We eventually decided to not go in and admire its pictures on the book we got instead. We were to drive to Ambiose after Chaumont. We drove through quaint French villages and secluded roads. The countryside looked beautiful with its many sunflower fields and vineyards. Every moment felt dreamy, with pastoral grandeur and picturesque nature taking a hefty toll on my imagination. At every other gorgeous place that we stopped by, I would yell out in delight to Andrej, “let’s live here!” On the way to Ambiose, we passed through little wine-tasting shops. They were local and authentic brewery I was told. We stopped at a wine place hewn out of a rock. It appeared cavern-like and had a rustic, almost fairy-tale like feel to it. We tasted a few red wines first and picked one out of the lot. It was a product of Chinon. Andrej settled for a white for his Mom. I was surprised to notice that a rural cabin such as this would accept credit cards. There was a friendly middle-aged couple by our side and the man commented that we should get a wine of “mademoiselle’s” choice.
We reached Ambiose Castle soon after. It appeared to be a lively town with its street shops and cafeterias. We decided that we would not spend any money on purchasing entry tickets so our plan was to take pictures of it from the outside. We got out of the car and saw a wine-tasting shop right ahead of us. We went in to savor from wine from the valley. I had planned in my head that I would taste as many as I could and get tipsy in the end, but I remembered this was France, not America and I could not be pulling off some hillbilly tactic amongst the more sophisticated French people. Andrej and I bought two more wine bottles for each of us. We toured the area around the castle, took some snapshots and drove to location nearby to get a fuller view of the castle.
Next up was the Chanteloup Pagoda in Ambiose. We walked through a non-concrete road guarded by woods on both sides that led to the Pagoda. When we reached the spot, we found that the place was sealed off and closed from public. No wonder, the place looked so deserted. We got back to the car and a French-speaking fellow asked for directions from Andrej. I don’t recall if Andrej replied to him in French or English. Our next destination was Château de Chenonceau. We went to enquire about tickets at the tourist office and saw that it was as pricey as the ones before. There was a festival of Chinese gardens taking place at the time. It sounded very tempting but since Andrej and I were going to Villandry Castle which is touted to have the best gardens among them all, we skipped Chenonceau.
Our last Château for the day was the Château et jardins de Villandry. We had already agreed to pay for the tickets here as we wanted to check out the famous gardens of the castle. It was getting quite late in the evening and we realized we only had about 30 minutes or so left before the 7:30 PM closing time. As we entered the castle compound we could first see a smaller chateau right ahead of us. We sat down on some garden chairs near a bridge over a semi-moat like pond. I could see a variety of gold and silver fishes being bred in the pond. While Andrej sat down and looked up for hotels to stay in for the night, I went into the little garden shop. Every product was organic and the shop had many garden and kitchen items from floral table cloths and silverware to wind chimes and other outdoor garden decorations. We then made our way into the gardens of Villandry. The garden as Andrej had mentioned to me was indeed the most impressive and put all other gardens that we saw in various palaces earlier to shame. There were not commonly seen garden plants, climbers, herbs, vegetables, fruits and flowers of different variety and color. The hues ranged from red and green to purple and yellow. The landscape had a language of its own from the grandest looking tree to the tiniest flower on the ground. Every plant variety complemented the one ingeniously placed beside it in shape, size and hue. There were also fountains and neatly trimmed shrubs adorning every corner of the garden. The place had been designed to showcase different assortment of plants from herbal to medicinal. The garden also had a labyrinth, not the labyrinth you would expect to see in palatial gardens but more of a place created for children’s amusement. We also walked into a separate garden from the main ones where all types of wild flowers and tall grasses were grown. It truly was an amazing sight to behold and I thought the staff had done a tremendous job in the upkeep of this monumental place. It was getting late but good thing we had a place to crash for the night, about 20 minutes from Villandry. The exit door was in the backside of the gardens and visitors could exit of our own accord. As we stepped out we noticed the deafening silence in the streets and how medieval the houses looked. I asked Andrej if people actually lived in these homes because they looked almost deserted. We did see a few people after a few steps and also a cozy looking hotel and thought we could have booked a room here. But when we checked the tariffs it became apparent that the place as rural and as economical as it may look was not to be underestimated. It was nonetheless a very fine-looking village.
We checked into a small but clean hotel, Hotel Inn, at Tours. We parked our car, carried our bags to the room and headed out to find an ATM and the ever-elusive McDonalds. The receptionist was friendly and marked the places we needed to go to on the map of the city center. It took us nearly 20 minutes to find McDonalds, which was located near the town’s train station. Every restaurant in the area seemed devoid of crowd save this place which was teeming with people. We sat down and enjoyed a big fast food meal; Andrej went back for a second helping with the chicken nuggets. I felt accountable for feeding him with all the junk as he continued to regret that he was becoming chubby from all the fatty food we ate. We took a different route on our way back to the hotel and talked as much as possible as we usually do while walking through the concrete pavements of the narrow streets.
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