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Published: November 9th 2007
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Chinon and Joan of Arc What an incredible area - I think it was once considered to be the play ground of the French Royals and it is easy to see why. They certainly knew how to build some every impressive holiday homes!
Chinon was really interesting because of the history connected with Joan of Arc. They are doing a lot of work to restore this particular chateau and I am sure it is a very daunting task. The Joan of Arc museum was really interesting and reminded us of the story surrounding this incredible woman. It is still amazing how determined she was to follow what she believed in. It is no wonder France adopted her as the nations patron saint. Lorenza lights a candle in Joan’s honor at the foot of her statue, every time we visit Notre Dame de Paris.
Had a fantastic lunch at a small café with some local cheeses and wine, all just under the shadows of the fortress.
The Indian Bar & Rugby While searching for a restaurant we realised that France were playing Argentina for third place in the Rugby World Cup. So we decided to try and
find a place with a TV tuned to the rugby. We stumbled on the Indian Bar (as in American Indian) and while they did not have a giant screen they did have a small TV in the back of the bar showing the Rugby. We ordered some beers and parked ourselves in front of the box to watch the match.
We had such a funny night - the bar did not serve any food, but the barmaid organised for a restaurant a few doors up to bring their menu in for us and then about half an hour later a waitress came in to take our order. She also came with cutlery and some bread. Soon after taking our order the waitress reappeared with our meals. She promised to return later to see if we wanted any dessert. This meant we did not miss a minute of watching Argentina relegate France to a mere participant in the World Cup. France unfortunately played another game which lacked any drive or imagination.
After the match and our dessert we got to mingling with the other patrons and met some funny people. Fred was a crack up and kept us entertained.
Then we were joined by Rose, originally from Cameroon, and another couple who were planning to visit Australia in 2008. The locals really gave my French skills a big workout continually calling me over to try and translate for them when conversing with Al, Melissa or Lorenza. All I kept hearing was “hey Robert venez ici, traduisez ceci pour moi”. Then they would rattle off their point in French and leave me to do my best to translate it to English and then try to give them the response in French. At one stage Fred overheard Lorenza call me “mon petit chou” and that was it he kept calling me that for the rest of the night “mon petit chou traduisez ceci pour moi”. We stumbled back to our hotel at about 2am. Rose had invited us to join her and some friends at a disco but there was no way I could cope with that.
20th October 2007 - Ambroise & Chambord Obviously, we were a bit slow getting going. Once on the road we toured Ambroise, the chateau were Da Vinci is buried. Then onto Chambord, which was just amazing.
We drove from Chambord back
to Paris to discover the Eiffel Tower was lit in the South African colours of green and gold. The lights did not change to the colours of the “Roast Beef” making it very obvious who the French were backing to be the world champions.
We watched the match at the apartment and it was a great game. Would it be hard to guess who we were barracking for? South Africa are normally our arch rivals, as are the All Blacks, but how could any Aussie want the “Roast Beef” to win? It was very sad to see the look on Johnny Wilkins face at the end of the match - sob sob! Sure it was not the Wallabies, but at least the title of world champions went to the southern hemisphere.
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