PROVENCE TO PARIS

May 23:  Perouges

As we drove north through the Rhône Valley we noticed long line-ups at the gas stations.  This was too widespread to be a local problem so I asked a customer what was happening and he told me starting tomorrow there will be manifestations (demonstrations) by workers blocking the refineries so there will be gas shortages or closures of stations.  We decided to keep topping up at regular intervals as we had over 300 kms. to drive.

We pulled into Perouges an hour before our 5:30 check-in so parked outside the walls and explored the stone buildings, climbing cobbled streets inside the ramparts in light rain.  Very few cars can stay inside the medieval town of 80 inhabitants so we unloaded the car and moved it.  We are staying at Le Grenier a Sel, (salt attic) built in 1342.  Salt was very valuable as a means of preserving food and it was stored and taxed heavily.   Our room on the 2nd floor looks out on pastures.  For a treat we sampled a local specialty, a galette, which is a thin pastry topped with sugar and butter.

May 24:  Bourges

Our hostess served us the "extended" continental breakfast with fruit and yogurt as well as croissants, coffee and juice and a piece of galette.  She sells framed art she has created with hand-made papers, calligraphy and drawings, so has several irons in the fire.

The gas situation continues.  We are spending tonight in La Chapelle St.Ursin, a bedroom of Bourges.  Our hosts, Michel and Lydie, were very welcoming and we chatted mostly in French before we drove to the city for dinner.  They have a daughter who is working in Montreal.

May 25:. Two more chateaux

We're back in the Loire and had two tickets to use for Chambord and Blois.  Again, lots of history and turrets, but we're definitely castled out after we spent most of the day at them.  As we were leaving La Chapelle this morning Michel told us about the rotating greves (strikes) affecting trains, so that was something else to worry about as we have train tickets for Paris tomorrow.

We'd arranged to stay with JP again in Tours but I mistakenly told him Thursday so he wasn't home at 7:00 when we arrived.  We also rang his neighbor's buzzer by mistake which likely saved us as she called him for us (again, a problem having no cell service) and we straightened it out.  She checked our train for us and found it would be running tomorrow, a relief.  We were famished as we skipped lunch  so were happy to spend the time at an Asian buffet down the street until he got home at 10:00.  Then I panicked thinking I'd lost my wallet but found it in the end.  Some days are just too long!

Chambord

double-helixed staircase 

Blois

King's chamber at Blois

PROVENCE

May 17: St. Remy-de-Provence

After yesterday's adventure on the road we opted for a low-key day of doing laundry and shopping...yes, we have days like that here too.  Lionel took part of his day off to lead us into the nearby town of Chateaurenard to the laundry, then drove us to the big U Super where his daughter works to shop, while he refilled the empty propane tank for our burners.  He works at Mr. Bricolage (the French version of Home Depot) in St. Remy.  Valerie stays at home with the two dogs, a Jack Russell named "Iam" and a long-haired  Chihuahua named "Djesy".  They are always looking for a chance to get into our suite, sniffing around for food.  Iam eats olive pits and gravel!

We explored St. Remy, strolled through the fields that inspired Van Gogh in his last year, the ruins of Glanum, the Roman remains, and found a path to climb in the afternoon.


May 18: Les Baux 
We ventured a little further south today to the Carrieres de Lumieres at Les Baux.  The multimedia show projected onto the walls of an old quarry cut out of the limestone, featured the art of Marc Chagall.

In the morning we braved the crowds at the weekly market where every product imaginable seemed to be for sale, but local specialties were the most popular: cheese, olive oil and olives, tapenades, wines, soaps from Marseille, lavender......

May 19:. The Luberon 

About 50 kms from here lie the hill towns and sensuous landscapes of A Year in Provence fame.  We put in a long day exploring a number of them: Isle-sur-la-Sorgue,  its ancient water wheels formerly used for grinding flour, then for the paper and textile industries; Fontaine-de-Vaucluse where the River Sorgue is at its most powerful and there is still a working paper mill (tho the main industry seems to be tourist parking); Village des Bories on a twisty stone-bordered dirt road to see mortar-free beehive-shaped stone huts built during the bronze age and inhabited by shepherds until 1839; the tiered honey-coloured village of Gordes; Joucas where we walked above the town for a sweeping view of the valley; and Roussillon, probably the prettiest of all with its ochre cliffs and houses.  On the way back we found Pont Julien dating back 2000 years when Roman armies crossed it on the main road from northern Italy to Provence.

water wheel 

Gordes

Roussillon

Pont Julien

May 20:. Orange 
Not the colour, not the fruit, but the town with its Theatre Antique, the best preserved in existence, built during Augustus Caesar's time.  It's still used for performances today as the sound is so good and it seats 10,000.  The audio guides and visual presentations were very informative and we spent half a day there and at the museum and the Roman Arc de Triomphe.  Of course driving there and back, through the vineyards of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Avignon, made it a full day.  We caught glimpses of the Palais des Papes and Pont Saint Benezet on our way back through Avignon. 

May 21:. Aix-en-Provence

Finally a hot day!  And a one destination day, about 75 km. through canopies of plane trees along straight, fast roads to the sophisticated city of name-brand shops, including a huge Apple store.  We were lucky to find parking within a kilometre of Vieil Aix as it was market day.  It is amazing how many cars can be squeezed into parking spots along narrow streets never meant for cars.  Everywhere the parking lots give you about 90 minutes free parking at mid day when the shops are closed plus a free 30 minutes to start so if you arrive close to noon you get two hours of free parking.  They even add your free time on so you can use it after 2:00.  Today's parking space was so small Jim had to manoeuvre back and forth to fit in, then you have to pull your mirrors in.  Anyway, we finally got to the fashionable Cours Mirabeau with its Fontaine de la Rotonde and had a stroll through town with lunch on the Plaza Richelme.  I had paella and Jim had Salade Nicoise and chicken brochettes served with the usual fat-saturated fries.  You'd think a country with a dish named after them would do a better job.  

Driving back the same route we stopped for some local melons and wine at a roadside stand.  The French are every bit as good at upselling as North Americans as we bought three melons when I was only planning to buy one, but they were different stages of ripeness.  Ummmm, they smell good.  The Madame gave us samples of the melons as well as the wine, so who could say no.  And her English was perfect.    Today was as close as we're going to get to the Mediterranean.  No oceans for us on this trip.

Valerie and Lionel went out this evening so we took advantage of having no dogs around, jumping up on our laps to have our light evening meal outside at the picnic table just before sunset.  A very pleasant day.

Sunday, May 22:  Pont du Guard

Our last day in Provence and again a single destination, driving west and north of Avignon to the 3-tiered aqueduct the Romans built to transport water from Uzes to Nimes.  We also had a good walk along some paths by the river and above the Pont.

A short distance away are the dramatic Gorges du Gardon where people canoe down the River Gard. 

Tonight Valerie and Lionel invited us over for drinks and hors d'oeuvres to say bon voyage as we're off tomorrow morning.  Valerie makes a terrific tapenade and I tried some pastis, the anise aperitif from the region.  We had the first steady rain this evening.  

There are so many wonderful places to visit in this region and one week is not nearly enough. Tomorrow night we'll be near Lyon and the following day we arrive in Bourges, two long days of travel.

DORDOGNE to PROVENCE, en route

May 15 - 16:  Ice cream for breakfast 

We always seem to give in to the temptation to buy a container of ice cream just before we move on.  We resisted the €2.50 single scoop cones but then gave in and bought one litre of coffee ice cream the last day for just a bit more.  We had some before dinner and some after but there was some left, which came in handy in our morning coffee as our milk had run out.  There was still enough to make iced coffee for the road!  Instead of bubble tea we had crunchy coffee as it had whole beans. ;-)

The long drive was broken with stops along the way in the Departement of Lot.  Rocamadour is a pilgrimage site built into 150 metres of vertical cliff beneath a 14th C. chateau and, yes, Henry Plantagenet was here too, for a cure.
He really got around, but then that isn't surprising as he was the king of England and most of France!

A short distance away we waited almost an hour to descend 103 metres to the underground caverns of Gouffre de Padirac, accessed though a chasm.  You travel in boats along an underground river and climb stairs to view the spectacular formations.

On to our Airbnb for the night near Cordes-sur-Ciel north of Albi and one of Tarn's best-preserved medieval villages.  We rewarded ourselves with dinner at the top and a bird's eye view.  The next morning Isabelle gave us a delicious breakfast and warm send off.   We made a stop in the provincial town of Albi with its huge brick Cathedrale Ste.-Cecile and view of the river near the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, which we gave a pass because of time.  There were many kilometers to travel through some very beautiful pastoral country with sheep in the meadow, cows and horses in the field.

Rocamadour 

Cathedral, Albi

River Tarn, Albi

le pique-nique 

I wish I could say the rest of our day went as smoothly.  Yesterday and today made up the fourth public holiday (yes, really!) this month, Pentecost (Whit Sunday and Monday).  So stores have been closed on May 1, May 5 (Ascension Thursday), May 8 (VE Day, 1945), and now today.  The upshot today was later in the afternoon ALL French people were on the road travelling home, except those still crowding the centre of Nimes celebrating their 5-day feria de Pentecost as we passed through, missing the bypass :-(.  We managed to finally get out of town, but headed in the wrong direction, going north instead of East and back south through Avignon.  Yes, we know GPS would have helped here but it wouldn't have helped us when we arrived at our rural destination outside Eyragues near St.-Remy-de-Provence to find there were multiple homes with the same address.  The property had been divided into four but they didn't change the numbers.  It was a matter of trying every driveway.  Here's where a functioning phone would have come in handy too.  As Lionel said on learning we were travelling without phone and GPS, "It's an adventure!" Suffice it to say it was one of our most trying days but we didn't quite lose it with ourselves or each other...close though.    Then we went to the only store open for more wine and a little food.

LIMOUSIN and the DORDOGNE

May 9:  Valleres -Solignac
Today was a 200-km journey through the centre of France, first in rain, but clearing somewhat.  We side-tracked a bit to Le Village Martyr, Oradour-sur-Glane, where 642 men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis on June 10, 1944 when they also burned the town.  No one knows exactly why this atrocity took place here, but the town has been left as it was, with blackened buildings and rusting automobiles, as a memorial.  Very sad.

We arrived at our chambre d'hote, Le Cheyrol, in Solignac, managing to follow a complicated set of directions though coming from the opposite direction.  Le pont rompu, the broken bridge, saved us as it was obvious.  After greeting us warmly, Marie said "parlez francais s'il vous plait" so we knew it was going to be hard work!  She does speak a few words of English, and Alain fewer, but we managed to communicate, mostly in French with a little English and Spanish, dictionaries and tablets to help.  They went out of their way to be helpful, showing us around the town and area, lush with fields of Limousin cattle and race horses.  The delicious  table d' hote meal prepared mostly by Alain was worth every euro.  He is a retired butcher and there were 15 hams aging, literally hanging from the rafters in their barn.  The meal started with aperitifs of local liqueurs made from fruit or walnuts, diluted with white wine, and tiny toasts with pates of rabbit pate and parsley.  This was followed by a salad plate with lettuce, potato salad and head cheese.  Yes, we did eat the head cheese.  The main course was grilled steak and potatoes gratin dauphinois, like scalloped, already a favourite with us.  All this was served with lots of red wine.  Next came the ubiquitous plat du fromage with four excellent local cheeses.  Finally the meal wrapped up with tarte tatin.  No wonder we weren't hungry the next day, though we did manage to eat the breakfast, just no lunch.  We waddled away like the famous geese of the region.

Tues. May 10:  Limoges - Les Eyzies-de-Tayac

Since we had a shorter drive of about 130 kms. there was time to explore the Historic Rue de la Boucherie in the Chateau Quartier of Limoges, named for the butchers' shops that lined the street in the Middle Ages.  There was time for a lovely riverbank stroll along the Vienne with its old stone bridges before heading on.

Rue de la Boucherie

Chapelle St-Aurelien, patron saint of butchers

Hotel de Ville where a stage of this year's Tour de France will be from July 5 -6.  

We made an afternoon visit to the Medieval walled city of St-Yvrieix-la-Perche before crossing into the Dordogne department, our destination for the next five days.  It was so quiet because on Tuesdays all museums in France close and it was the mid-day closure too, it was almost creepy.

We reached Montignac then Sarlat-la-Caneda, a picturesque maze of honey-coloured stone buildings and definitely on the tourist trail, for a short look about before heading to our petite maisonette in the countryside near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac in the Vezere Valley.  To say it was difficult to find is an understatement, but a lovely English-speaking man who lived on the road phoned Michel for directions and we finally arrived.  Michel had a co-worker from England waiting to translate.  The little house of stone is modern inside, albeit a little damp, but once we found the dehumidifier we were set.  It appears Michel is another man of many talents like Richard.  He is a realtor, also renting out various properties and building a new home.  

Sarlat-la-Caneda

May 11:  tour of the Vezere Valley, Lascaux II, Beynac

Now we have traded the chateaux of the Loire for the grottes of the Perigord.  This region is world-famed for pre-historic sites and especially cave art.  The first visit was to Lascaux II, with a 40-minute tour in English.  The original cave has been closed to the public since 1963, but the art has been faithfully reproduced in the copy.  We could not take photos but it was magnificent; coloured images of animals such as horses, cows and deer from 17,000 years ago.  Cro-Magnon man's remains were first discovered near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac.  If you Google "Lascaux II images" you will see some fantastic cave paintings.

Also in the region is the Chateau de Beynac, a 12th century fortress occupied by Richard the Lion-hearted and a defensive position during the Hundred Years War.  The town was where scenes from the movie Chocolate were filmed.  

May 12 - 13:  Around Les Eyzies

We spent most of Thursday checking out the museum for background on the"pre-history" valley, then today visited three more sites nearby to view cave art:  Grotte de Font-de-Gaume, Grotte des Combarelles and Abri de Cap-Blanc.  You can't take photos in any of them, more to keep you from posting them on the internet than anything.  All are carefully controlled as to how many can visit and visits are only by guided tour.  We had one tour in French, one in English, and the third in a mixture.  We are happy we've had a chance to see them while they are still open to the public.  

It was rainy and cool today so we haven't been in the unheated pool yet and probably won't!  Here's Jim happy to be home to our little cottage.  

Sat. May 14:

Chateau de Commarque, a 12th C. castle in the Beaune Valley, is on a site occupied for more than 15,000 years.  Abandoned about 400 years ago, it was rediscovered slowly collapsing and disappearing under vegetation in the mid 20th C.  Since then it has been restored and opened to the public.  

troglodyte cave houses

We will be off again on our journey south to Provence on Sunday, with one night in the midi-Pyrenees.

Loire Part 2

Thurs. May 5:  Chateau de Villandry

We cycled along the Loire to this Renaissance château from 1536, but which has undergone many changes, lovingly restored to the original design about 100 years ago.  It's best known for its gardens in both Italian and French styles.  The ornamental and water gardens are particularly appealing.  I will post photos after we get home.  Because this is a long weekend many people are visiting and it's busy. Tonight we went for a long walk, passing orchards, livestock and fields.  Check www.chateauvillandry.com.

Friday May 6:  driving around the Loire and Indre

Since we hadn't used the car for two days it was time to see more of the countryside:  wooden boats at Brehemont where we picnicked, Usse with its Sleeping Beauty chateau that influenced Disneyland and along the vineyard route, though we didn't find one open.  Tonight we went on a wooden boat cruise with our hosts and some American guests who are staying here.  The boats, called "toues", are 100 years old and were formerly used to transport cargo on the river.

With Richard and Roseliane in front if our cottage:

Brehemont on the Loire

Sleeping Beauty castle

Sat. May 7:  Royal Fortress of Chinon, Fontvraud Abbey and Candes-St-Martin

The fortress of Chinon consists of three castles.  Only one wing of the former Royal quarters exists from the 15th C.  Henry II Plantagenet, crowned King of England in 1154, reigned over an empire stretching from England to Aquitaine, making Chinon the centre of his continental possessions.  Joan of Arc stayed here in 1429 under the protection of Charles VII, lodged in the Coudray keep, before meeting her sad end in Reims.  We had an English-speaking guide all to ourselves.  The medieval town below is well-restored.  Later we drove along the Vienne to the Fontvraud Abbey and to Candes-St-Martin, where he died in 397.  We walked uphill past inhabited cave dwellings to view the convergence of the rivers Loire and Vienne.

Views from Chinon:

Medieval town on the Vienne

Sun. May 8:  last day in Touraine region

We took another 12-km bike ride through the countryside and along the river this morning, past fields of cattle and rows of poplars originally used for the camembert boxes.  Tonight Richard and Roseliane invited us over for drinks and quiche.  He treated us to a performance of songs in French and English while playing the keyboard.  Earlier today he released a swarm of bees, one of four he's caught since we arrived.  They have been such great hosts; we will miss them.  We drive about 200 kms. tomorrow, just south of Limoges, where we'll spend one night at a B and B.