France Day Four: I lost my kid in France!

Today we were in the Loire Valley, where in the 1400s, the French kings constantly moved from chateau to chateau to rule their realm. Later these chateaux became vacation homes, where kings would visit to host hunting parties. Our day started at Chateau Chenonceau, built in the 1500s, which was most famously occupied by Diane de Poitiers, mistress of King Henri II.  

M loved the story of how when Henri died, his wife, Catherine de Medici, booted Diane out, took over the castle, and hung her portrait in Diane’s old bedroom. Because this castle was mostly occupied by women, it has a feminine touch on the inside, including amazing fresh floral arrangements in every room.

M also really liked the kitchen, which had separate little areas for each task. This was the herb room, used solely for growing and drying herbs:

Of course we had to get our daily dose of WWII history, and Chenonceau kicked it off. The castle spans the river Cher, which separated German occupied France from free France during the war. The chateau staff arranged for many late night prisoner swaps, helping Jews and resistance fighters cross in secret. Because the chateau was technically a river crossing, the Nazis has artillery aimed at it, ready to blow it to pieces should the Allies use it to advance. Thank goodness, they never did!

Next we drove 45 minutes to Chateau Chambord – the largest in the Loire Valley. It has 426 rooms (some say 440, but who is counting), 77 staircases and more than 250 fireplaces. It was only occupied by the king who built it for 72 days in his whole lifetime!

It also has a double helix staircase designed by Leonardo da Vinci, which led to all kinds of trouble.

The staircase, 5 stories tall, is designed so that the person going up and the person going down can never meet. M and I thought it would be fun to each go up a different side, and see what happened, figuring we would meet back up. Bad idea…

I stopped on the first floor, thinking she would too. She didn’t. We knew our ultimate goal was to get to the roof, so after waiting a bit, I kept going up. But she started coming back down. And because of Leonardo’s stupid double helix – we couldn’t see each other. At times I could hear her calling me. And I would say, “Yes! Maddie! Follow the sound of my voice!” But she couldn’t. We were separated for about half an hour – both totally freaking out. Finally, a nice British couple noticed she was in distress and offered to help. M told them what I was wearing. The husband went up one side, while the wife and M went up the other. When they got to the top, M spotted me on the roof, and screamed, “MOM!!!” with glee as if we had been separated for years. We ran to each other and hugged. We are now fighting with Leonardo Da Vinci. 

See that person in red, on the roof? That is where we finally met up!:

We left the Loire Valley and headed for the Dordogne. Since M was enjoying the WWII history so much, I made a detour to Oradour-sur-Glane, another “maybe” on our itinerary. All I can say is WOW. What a powerful experience.

On June 10, 1944 (four days after D-Day), the Nazis rounded up every single one of the town’s 642 residents, and killed all the men with machine guns. They herded all the women and more than 200 children into the church, telling them they would be fine – then locked the doors and set the church on fire. On their way out, they burned down the town. Every single resident died that day.

President Charles de Gaulle ordered that the town be left completely untouched, and named it Village of the Martyrs. It stands today exactly as it did that day 70 years ago, and greets visitors with one word: Remember.

M and I strolled through the entire town, which is quite large. Buildings are marked with the type of business (café, dentist, etc.) or family name. The auto repair garage left a lump in my throat.

We also went into the church, where we felt an instant and overpowering sadness. As we continued walking, M told me stories about how her great grandma, who is now 100, survived the Holocaust and escaped German soldiers. She said that her great grandma told her the exact same message carried by this village: “it is important to remember, so that it never happens again.”

 Inside the church. That is a burned, rusted baby carriage frame on the alter. 

I was fighting back tears the whole time. If you ever get to France, make it a priority to visit the Village of the Martyrs.

We then drove another 2 hours south to our hotel just under St. Cirq Lapopie (which M has renamed “Le Poopie”), the cliff-side village named the most beautiful village in France. More on that tomorrow.

Also tomorrow: We go canoeing on the river and sleep in a medieval castle.

France Day Three: Adventures in Volkswagoneering

Remember yesterday when we mentioned how difficult it was to drag our luggage up a cobblestone mountain? Turns out that was cake, compared to this morning. It was raining when we left our little hotel. So we had to trudge down the cobblestones, while getting soaked and dodging about 5,000 French summer camp students who were making their way up the narrow lane. We finally made it off the island, down the pier and to the shuttle stop, only to have the driver tell us, “Non!” and point to the very far end of the pier.  So we ran, in the rain, dragging suitcases, only to have that very same bus driver turn around and pick us up at the far end of the pier. We finally made it to the car, only to discover the “low tire” indicator was on. Let’s just say I was practicing French swear words.

The day improved from there. After a quick tea and croissant, we drove to Dinard, on the Brittany coast. I wanted to see the belle époque mansions I had recently read about in “Empty Mansions.” (GREAT book!)  They were worth the detour, but there wasn’t much else to Dinard.

Next up was Dinan, an amazing medieval town that was untouched during WWII, so it’s historic core is intact. We wandered around looking at the old half- timbered buildings, and both said we felt like this was the exact village from Beauty And The Beast. 

We stopped for lunch, and M tried her first ever strawberry meringue, which she described as “Just like Astronaut Ice Cream!”  

But we had a chateau to visit, so we hit the road. Suddenly, I felt like we were in Hotel California – you know, “you can check in, but you can never leave.”  All the roads out of town were closed!  I thought I finally found a way, and followed an Audi down a narrow one way street, only to round a bend and find out we were going the wrong way because we were face to face with a line of cars coming our way. A French man walked up to my window and started yelling at me that this road was closed. I again pretended not to understand and spoke to him in English, but he kept right on yelling and gesturing in French. C’est la vie. We backed all the way out and FINALLY found a way out of town. I figured that we better check that tire, so we hit a gas station and put air in it. Figuring out how to do that in French and the metric system was not easy.  I have no idea how many liters of air should go into a small VW tire, but I guessed it was about 5 or 6, since that is what the other tires were reading. (For the record, none of them looked flat, we just guessed it was the front left tire that needed air because it looked a tiny bit low.)  But we did it! Our egos inflated (tee hee), we jumped back into the car, started it, and the light was still on. Oh well – looks like will be driving around France with a tire indicator on.

We made it to Chateau Villandry in the late afternoon and wandered its 7 amazing gardens. M proclaimed this was by far her favorite site so far. She loved the vegetable gardens, where everything was edible, but also ornamental and “so organized!”

We also did the maze, and took selfies when we reached the top of the tower (that was the goal) to prove we had made it.

There was so much to explore, we could have stayed a few more hours. It was breathtaking!

By now we were starving, so we headed to Chateau Vallagon, our home for the night.  In today's WWII lesson, German soldiers occupied this chateau during the war. The family stayed too, refusing to leave, and was forced to care for the soldiers. 

We had our first gourmet dinner of the trip. M had beef rillettes, with cauliflower, pickles and lentil pancakes, followed by braised steak, fried gnocchi, local mushrooms and meat sauce. I had ravioli with poultry, parmesan, pea shoots, parsnips and walnuts, followed by cockerel with carrot crème, vegetables and tarragon sauce. We both had the cheese course of 3 goat cheeses from a local farm, apple/plum compote, nuts and bread.  I’m not sure how we made it to our third floor suite (2 separate bedrooms!), since we were so stuffed!

We both agreed it was a good day.

Tomorrow: More Chateaux, one of les plus beaux villages de France (the 2013 winner for most beautiful village) and a long road trip south.

France Day 2: Stuck in the Mud

Madelyn woke up at 4:30 am this morning. I followed at 6am – bright eyed and ready to go. We put our hair in French braids (obviously!), grabbed a baguette, some camembert, a few croissants, some café au lait, and hit the road.

First stop, Etretat.  We wanted to see the famous white chalk cliffs and arches.  But it was FREEZING. Drizzling and really cold. So we did the fastest photo shoot ever, and ran back through the town to the car.

We jumped into the car, put it in reverse, and it wouldn’t move. The engine revved, but it was as if the transmission were in neutral. I thought maybe it was stuck on something, so we got out, looked under the car – nope – nothing. I got back in, and tried again. Totally stuck. I ran over to a meter reader, who was writing people parking tickets, and asked in broken French if he could help me.  He tried – and had same problem, and still no clue as to why. By now we had gathered a small crowd.  Someone said, “Avez-vous verifie le frein de main?” I answered, “I didn’t PUT ON the parking brake, so no need to check it!” (Gee, I must have accidentally learned French since yesterday when I told those cops I didn’t know any.)  Sure enough, I looked down, and the freaking parking brake was on.  Thanks a lot, Volkswagon. Now the town of Etretat will forever talk of that dumb blonde who couldn’t back up. In my defense, the parking brake didn’t put itself on yesterday! But did a few more times today. At least now we know.

Next we drove to Honfleur to see it’s beautiful Vieux Bassin (old harbor) and eat lunch. To get there, we had to drive over the Pont de Normandie, the longest cable stayed bridge in the world. Lovely, since I do not like bridges. M laughed as I white knuckled it the whole way.

Those skinny houses in Honfleur were built at a time when buildings were taxed based on their width, not height. Pretty crafty! We ate at a café underneath a skinny house, as by now the sun was out and it had warmed up significantly.

My original itinerary had us going straight from Honfleur to Mont Saint Michel, but on a whim, we decided to check out the D-Day beaches at Normandy since they were nearby and M had enjoyed all that WWII history yesterday.

We were so glad we made that choice. It was the highlight of our day. We went to Omaha beach, where there is a small museum that explains D-Day with photos and films. Then we walked through the cemetery, overlooking the beach where those brave souls came ashore.  More than 9,000 American soldiers are buried there. NINE THOUSAND. It was a very shocking and emotional experience.

All the towns around the area had giant photos of the destruction, placed right in front of what they had rebuilt.

Driving towards Mont Saint Michel, I thought a lot about both of my grandfathers, and told M stories of them from the war. Suddenly, I stopped mid sentence because we saw it from 7km away – Mont Saint Michel. I was so excited. I had wanted to see the Mont ever since I was Madelyn’s age and learned about it from my French pen pal Christelle.

We parked across the causeway, took the shuttle over, and dragged our luggage up the mountain, through cobblestone streets. M has asked me to note that, “it was terrible.”  However, there are only a handful of hotel rooms on Mont Saint Michel, so few people get to sleep on the island. It may have been terrible getting here (it was), but it was so worth it. Our hotel, Hotel Le Mouton Blanc, was ancient and perfect.

The island was developed in the 700s (!!) when the monastery was first built because the Archangel Michael appeared to Saint Aubert, and told him to build a church on the rocky island. Since then, pilgrims have come to this holy site to worship by walking from the mainland across the sand at low tide.  The tides come in very quickly here – sometimes a meter a minute. The water can rise 14 meters in just one tide cycle. So the crossing was often deadly. That didn’t stop people from trying it today though. And thank goodness for those people, because it was the funniest thing we saw all day. Every single person we watched as we walked the ramparts waltzed right out, and then promptly sunk and became stuck. M thought this was beyond hilarious, as you can see in this video we took:

We climbed up to the abbey on top of the Mont, which had to have been a few million stairs. I kept stopping and told M I had to stop to take "artsy photos"such as this one below. Really it was so I would't die.

We had dinner, which I partnered with a large bowl of cider – the local alcohol specialty. We had some caramel cookies with a silhouette of Mont Saint Michel pressed into them for dessert, then called it a night.

Tomorrow: More Brittany and our first Chateau.

Packing List for Europe

Hi Travelers!
Today I thought I would share with you my packing list for a summer trip to Europe. I suggest you copy this list into Word and save it on your desktop. You will find that you can adapt it for different trips. A camping, cruise or winter packing list would be very different from this one. Each time you make a new list by altering this basic list - save it with a name that identifies it, such as "Cruise Packing List." This method will make your life a LOT easier each time you travel, as you will use these lists over and over.

When it is time to pack, print this list for EVERY person that is going on the trip - and hand each person a copy. It is their responsibility to pack everything on the list, and to fit it all into one suitcase (or you can highlight just the items they are to pack if certain things don't apply to them). Ask each person to check off each item as they pack it. That way, your kids can pack for themselves, and you can just check the list, instead of the suitcase.

Ok, here we go. Items highlighted on the list will be explained further below.

Carry On Bag:

Euros

American dollars

Accordion folder with all reservations

Passports

Medical insurance cards

ATM & credit cards (notify both of your whereabouts ahead of time)

Pens

Highlighters

Chewing gum

Books/Magazines

Airplane pillow

Sunglasses

Extra pair of contacts

iPhone

iPhone charger

iPad (pre-loaded with movies to watch)

iPad charger

Laptop

Laptop charger

DSLR Camera + bag

Prescription medications

Snacks

Any jewelry that has value

Clothing:

Light rain jacket

Panties – one for each day + 2

Bras – 2-3 per week

Socks

Swimsuits

Shorts

Tops

One light cardigan

Jeans

Day dresses

Pajamas – wear each 3 times

Belt

Shoes:

Tennis shoes

Walking sandals

One pair of ballet flats

Accessories:

Money belt

Light scarf

Eyeglasses

Extra sunglasses

Cross body purse

Ponytail holders

Electronics:

Extra memory cards

DSLR camera charger

Car charger for iPhone (only if you are renting a car)

Cable to listen to iPhone in car  (only if you are renting a car)

Toiletries:

Tissue packets

Mini curling iron

Band aids

Advil

Hanging toiletry bag

Sunscreen

Hair brush

Shampoo

Conditioner

Deodorant

Toothbrush

Toothpaste

Floss

Nail clippers

Tweezers

Makeup

Face soap

Face moisturizer

Body moisturizer

Razors

Feminine hygiene products

Qtips

Lip balm

Misc:

Collapsible water bottles

Backpacks

Plug adaptor

Turkish towels

Ziploc bags – various sizes

Easy, right? Now, A bit more detail on the highlighted items:

Folder with all reservations: The easiest way to stay organized is to print EVERYTHING -- all flight, car, hotel, dinner reservations, directions, maps, etc. and put it into an accordion folder, with each day being assigned its own pocket. Label each pocket: Day one/Paris, Day Two/Normandy, etc. Tear out each section of a guidebook and put it in the right folder. So if you have a guidebook about France -- you aren't going to need the entire book. Just tear out the 15 pages on Paris and the 5 pages on Normandy -- staple them, and put them in their folder in your accordion binder. Then pop this folder into your carry on suitcase and everything will be at your finger tips for the entire trip. 

Highlighters:  I like to re-read my travel guidebook each night before I visit a new place, and highlight things I hadn't noticed before, and want to see the next day. Highlighters also come in handy for maps.

Day dresses:  In Europe, women must have shoulders and knees covered to enter a church. To make life much easier on us, I pre-select dresses that have short sleeves (instead of no-sleeves) and hit below the knee.  I also find it is easier to pack casual dresses instead of shorts outfits -- one item instead of 2!  They take up more space, are more comfortable, and look better!

Light scarf:  Picture those big square pashminas they sell for $10 in the mall. This scarf will be your savior in Europe. If you don't have covered knees, you can wrap it around your waist to enter a church. You can lay it down for an impromptu picnic. You can use it as a blanket on the plane. The uses are endless!

Hanging toiletry bag:  Bathrooms are TINY in Europe. Without counter space, you will want a bag with a hanger that you can easily hang on a hook or towel rack. 

Turkish towels:  You can buy these on eBay for about $20. They are very light and thin, but super absorbent and dry quickly. So if you want to hit the beach and don't have hotel towels, these are a life saver, and hardly take up any valuable suitcase space. 

Ziploc bags: Again -- endless uses! Use them to store all the treasures your kids pick up along the way (sea glass, if you are like us!), hold your receipts, transport wet bathing suits, wrap up unfinished snacks, etc. You will wish you had brought more!

I hope that helped!  Enjoy!

xoxo,

J & M