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.

France Day One: Bonjour de France

It was a day full of giggles from the moment we boarded our Air Tahiti Nui flight. The airline was made for me, with its tropical theme and turquoise amenities. 

It was all normal until an announcement was made:  “According to French regulation, this plane has to be sprayed. Please feel free to close your eyes and cover your face during this procedure.” We looked at each other like, “What the fudge?” I have flown a lot in my lifetime, and I have never seen THIS:

Is this an Ebola thing? Fits of laughter ensued and we re-enacted the aggressive double-handed spraying motion the whole flight.

We watched 4 movies each, ate 2 meals, and voila – we were in Paris.

We picked up our rental car, a VW Golf – automatic, of course. It is appropriately named because it operates just like a golf cart. When you take your foot off the brake, it doesn’t automatically go like cars in America. You have to actually push the accelerator to start forward motion. This caused some initial confusion at a toll booth when I thought the car had stalled. I turned it off and re-started it, much to the chagrin of the line of hurried French behind us.

But we figured it out and were off to Amiens, where we ate lunch in the shadow of the tallest cathedral in France -- The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Amiens. Medieval cathedral builders (between 1220 and 1270) were trying to maximize the internal dimensions in order to reach for the heavens and bring in more light. And it worked, because, mon dieu – it is tall!! It been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981.

But even more extraordinary than its size, was its artwork. We found this crying angel sculpture from 1625, which perfectly expresses how I feel about my Cleveland sports teams.

This cathedral also features the most ancient wooden sculptures of any church in Europe. They were amazing and gruesome. Madelyn liked this one of a lady “going crazy” while another lady’s head is being served on a platter in behind her. I liked the one of a headless torso, with the head being held high above it:

But most moving of all was the story of the medieval stained glass that was mostly destroyed when the US and English forces bombed the church during WWII. Very little remains, and the people of Amiens replaced what was lost with clear glass so that the destruction would forever be obvious. M asked me, “why would we bomb churches?” I didn’t have an answer for that. My guess is that maybe that’s where the Germans hid, hoping we would spare bombing such a treasure. At any rate, it was heartbreaking.

We picked up some macarons at the famous Jean Trogneux and hit the road for Rouen.

We found our hotel without issue, but while following directions to the parking courtyard, we ran into a little legal trouble. The hotel owner told us to go around the block and use the bus lane “just for 50 meters” to get to the gate. So we did that, and were promptly pulled over by 2 French motorcycle officers.  They started rapidly telling me what I did wrong in French. And in my best L.A. blonde accent, I said, “I don’t speak French.” They literally laughed, said, “d’accord” and drove away.

By now we were exhausted, after being awake for 36 hours straight. But I wanted to stay out until at least 7pm so that we wouldn’t fall asleep too early and wake up at an ungodly hour. So we walked around Rouen taking in its amazing medieval sights and half-timbered buildings.  

First, we stumbled upon the Gros Horloge (“Big Clock”), built in 1528. It only has an hour hand, because in the 1500s, knowing what hour it was offered sufficient knowledge. Minute hands only became important in a later, faster paced age.

Next we found the Place Du Vieux Marche, the square where 19-year-old Joan of Arc was burned in 1431. The spot of her death (and later, 800 executions via guillotine) is marked by a large aluminum cross.

Rouen’s Notre Dame Cathedral, built in 1035, was made famous in a series of paintings by Monet.  But again, we found its recent history more fascinating. During World War II, the cathedral was bombed by the British. Seven bombs fell on the building, destroying its two rose windows. One of the bombs did not explode. A second bombing by the US Army Air Force burned the oldest tower. During the fire the bells melted, leaving molten remains on the floor.  The church also has an amazing carved stone stairwell.

On our way back to the hotel, we passed by the Palace of Justice, home of Normandy’s parliament.  These pockmarks on the side of the building are left over from the bombings during the Normandy invasion.

Takeaway of the day: Wow, the US really did a lot of damage to France during WWII. It must have been terrifying to be living here during that time.

We grabbed a few crepes for dinner and called it a night.

Tomorrow: Normandy and Mt. St. Michel!