Un week-end à Blois

This past weekend I went to Blois and I experienced another type of train in the process.

Blois is a small, old town to the east of Nantes, and you can take the TER train there, which is a ride of roughly two hours.  Like on the TGV, I sprung for first class because I like having a whole row to myself, and on the TER like on the TGV, you can get solo seats.  Quite frankly, the TER first class is nicer than the TGV first class--the solo seats are divided by little plastic walls, there are places to hang coats in  between each seat, and room for your bag right behind the seat so you don't have to leave it in the communal baggage area where it might get squished.  Also, I was carrying eight pears in my bag and so I was more concerned about bags getting squished than the average passenger.  I wrote plenty on the train there, and had a great time looking out the windows, since I'd taken a train at 11:18am and not after sunset like my TGV experience.

When I arrived in Blois, it was 1pm and I'd already been warned by TripAdvisor that not only could I not check in to the hotel I'd booked before 5pm, but the hotel itself was pretty much locked until that time.  I decided to take as long as I could to actually find the hotel, maybe eat something, and also scout out my touristy options in the area for the next four days.  I walked around Blois, finding a large shopping center, two nice parks, dozens of signs pointing to the castle, and finally the hotel.  I found it at 2:30pm, pushed on the front door, and, finding it to be indeed locked, I headed up the road and found that I'd made a circle to the train station, so I sat myself in a cafe and stayed there for two and a half hours, making a lemon tart and a double espresso last as long as I could.  I finished reading a book there, too, Reves de Femmes: Une Enfance au Harem, that I'd picked up in Morocco.

At five, I got myself back to the hotel, checked in, and spent the rest of the night watching French TV and writing.

Saturday morning I woke up early and rushed off to the castle, to find that I was pretty much the first person there and that the art museum wing of the structure was closed for the week.  The Chateau at Blois puts a lot of emphasis on architecture of the era on the first floor and holds an immense amount of artifacts in the royal apartments.  The most interesting part of the chateau, and the part that is the most different from the rest of the castles that I've seen in France, is the dizzying tile patterns on the floors.  They are truly incredible and make you feel a little like you're in Wonderland.

After the castle, I walked down a long staircase to find that there was a street market going on!  I love markets maybe almost more than any other type of tourist activity.  I walked as slowly as possible, circling the market three times and finding the Blois natural history museum.

Thinking this was a good idea, I entered and tried to buy a ticket, only to be told that I would have to make the rounds in half an hour and that I should come back after I was full of food and happy.  So I went back to the market and acquired chicken couscous, chebekia, and little sugared brioche bites, which I ate at the hotel.

The natural history museum was very different from the Nantes one.  Firstly, it was tiny, its temporary exhibit featured enormous replicas of all the bugs found in the WWI trenches, and also it was poorly lit and had forest noises playing, which made it insanely creepy.

The Maison de Magie was closed, and so I found myself shopping instead, and I ended up with more books (someone help me).

That whole day I'd been checking my phone to see if I was spending a good amount of time at every destination, and when I was sitting in the room that evening, I realized that I just really, really wanted to be back at Nantes.  I wanted to be in my own room, with easy access to tea.

The next morning, I changed my ticket from Tuesday to Sunday night.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a refund on the hotel room, but it was a dirt cheap hotel and I took really long showers to make up for it.  I walked around in the morning to find everything closed, then got to the station, got on the train, and went back to home base.

Dany was panicked when I came through the door, but after assuring her I wasn't sick, just lonely, she calmed down.  She'd in fact warned me about that, about being too lonely and bored in Blois, and she was happy to see me.

In a bonus for coming back early, it turned out that university classes were held today.  It's very odd because the university had vacation when IES didn't and IES has vacation when the university still has classes, which is confusing and a little frustrating, but at least I came back in time.

Que les week-ends sont belles!

Last weekend, after the mad dash around Nantes with Jess, I left at 7am the next morning to meet with the IES crew to explore Les Chateaux de la Loire, or four of the many castles that line the Loire river.  The bus ride was long and mostly during sunrise, which meant sun in our faces, but at least it woke me up enough in time to experience the castles.

Our first stop was Azay-le-Rideau, a relatively small castle tucked into the middle of a little town of winding roads that didn't necessarily facilitate the large bus that we were taking, but our driver managed beautifully.  Azay-le-Rideau is mostly characterized by its open, Italian style staircase.  It's an Italian staircase because it's one of the early examples in France of a straight staircase with little landings between floors and not just a spiral staircase.  The castle is surrounded by water mirrors-- a sort of decorative moat, and mostly park-like gardens.  There was a chapel at the back but we weren't allowed in there.  Our tour was audio guided and we all wandered through the hallways and skinny staircases and high attics with those little radio devices pressed uncomfortably to our ears.  One of the audio track inexplicably held nothing but a Renaissance love poem read by an Irish woman.

Our next stop was the castle, but more importantly the gardens at Villandry.  These gardens are perfectly pruned--with square hedges and labyrinths and gorgeous blooms.  We tried to get into the castle but we were unfortunately right behind a large group and were directed to the gardens instead.  At the tail end of our visit, my group of friends dashed back to the castle and zipped through the rooms in record time, taking a handful of pictures and getting back to the bus early, ready to continue on to Tours.

Tours was where we were sleeping that night, and we had about three hours to explore it between check in and dinner, which we used to exclaim over the Star Wars-esque tram lights, to search for batteries, and to explore a very beautiful cathedral.

The next morning, we popped over to Amboise, where we had a guided tour of the castle and free time in the gardens and the surrounding town.  No one had bothered to mention to us that not only did Nantes's favorite, Anne de Bretagne, live in the castle for a period, but that Leonardo da Vinci was casually buried in the tiny chapel.

Our last castle for the weekend was Chenonceau, which I'm pretty sure was the largest of the four.  There was the castle, the enormous gardens, the river, the 17th century farm, the labyrinth, the flower garden, and the donkey park.  Sydney was most intrigued by the donkey park because she wasn't exactly sure if there were donkeys there.  Spoiler alert: the donkeys were there and they were adorable.

This weekend, I stayed in Nantes.  This Friday, I headed to the IES center to learn how to make soufflés and then had breakfast on Saturday at Tabl'o Gourmand, which is fast becoming my go-to place for breakfast/snack/coffee/atmosphere.  It's just so unhurried and welcoming, with stacks of books and games which give the general idea that you should be in no hurry to leave your table, so just kick back and take your time.

After that, Miel and I walked up alongside tram ligne 3 until we found Place Viarme, where the Nantes flea market is located.  This is the sort of flea market mostly full of antiques, shattered bits of violins, old ivory-handled canes, creepy dolls, and boxes of books.  Miel and I sifted through boxes of ancient post-cards and I had to be talked out of buying a book on economics because the book happened to be in Greek.  As I learned, while haggling in Morocco can be aggressive and harrowing (and haggling in Senegal can be traumatizing), haggling in Nantes consisted mostly of acting skeptical of the price and being hesitant to buy.  In the end, I walked away with two old post cards and no books in Greek.

Yesterday I had a cooking class with one of the IES program host families; four students in one little kitchen making a three course lunch.  We ended up with goat cheese and sausage and grapefruit-rose wine cocktails for an aperitif, goat cheese samosas for appetizers, then mushroom risotto and sausages for lunch, followed by four types of cheese and then an apple and banana cake.  We ate and ate and then talked politics and drank coffee as the host father smoked about five cigarettes in the course of an hour.  It all felt very, very French, and I'm going to have to make that cake again.