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Geo: 47.1661, 0.238081
On the bus this morning, Rolinka had us all do buddy introductions. My tour buddy is Larry from Thousand Oaks; we interviewed each other at dinner last night. He began and said a few things about me, including that I'm a legal secretary. Then he went on to say that I am a somewhat accomplished traveler, and that during one of my travels I was arrested for art forgery. Hilariously, the bus went just a little bit more silent than it already was, and I heard someone behind us say, "Really?" Larry said that as a consequence of my legal bills, which I was unable to pay, the law firm forced me to work for them as a secretary. I thought it was a riot, but I think a few people weren't so sure if Larry was telling the truth!
This morning was spent at the chateau of Chenonceau, which is in the town of Chenonceaux (yes, there is a spelling difference). It's a lovely castle built over the river Cher, and it was once inhabited by the mistress of Henri II, Diane de Poitiers. They say she was a great beauty and, in fact, only got more beautiful with
age. Rolinka told us the legend that every morning at 4:00, regardless of the weather or season, Diane would awake, strip, and dive from one of her windows into the Cher to swim. She would then come out of the water, where there would be a horse waiting for her. And she would go for a wild gallop on the estate -- still naked. And then she would go back to bed and sleep till 10:00. One of the guys in the group remarked, "I can see why the king liked her." When Henri II died, his widow, Catherine de Medicis, turned up at Chenonceau and kicked Diane out. Catherine's sour-faced portrait now hangs in Diane's former bedroom.
There was a maze on the grounds of the chateau, so I walked through that. Disappointingly, it was too easy, and I was in and out in about two minutes. So I walked over to the vegetable garden (I know!) and wandered around there for a bit. Beautiful flowers and some crazy-looking gourds which I think may have been zucchini. It was very peaceful.
For lunch we set up a table on the grass near the coach park; Rolinka had done some shopping earlier
in the day. She made up a salad of lettuce, lentils, tomato, corn, onions, yellow peppers and pine nuts with balsamic dressing. There was also goat cheese, salami, ham, pickles, a strong black radish, and bread. Everything tasted really good, and the sun even came out while we ate. It's amazing the stuff Rolinka has on the bus. In addition to the table, there were large bowls for mixing up the salad, cutting boards, knives, plastic cutlery, cups and nifty plastic plates.
After lunch, we drove back to Amboise (where we briefly stopped for naked Leonardo yesterday). This was supposed to be a free, non-group-oriented afternoon, but since everyone wanted to see Leonardo da Vinci's house, Rolinka went along with us to organize a group discount. The Clos Lucé is where Leonardo lived when Francois I invited him to live in France, and there's a view of Amboise Castle from Leonardo's bedroom window. He and Francis were very close and it is said that Leonardo died in Francois's arms. The grounds contain some working models of Leonardo's inventions, including a helicopter rotor, an armored military tank, and a device for bringing water from a river to a trough. Yvonne and I
Le Clos Luce
Leonardo da Vinci's house in Amboise.got into the tank to spin the wheel and make it rotate (kind of like the teacups at Disneyland). I'm not sure if that's how Leonardo intended it to work, but I can only imagine that anyone using it would have died of exhaustion after an hour.
Yvonne and I wandered back to the coach through the town of Amboise, stopping for postcards and to tch-tch at a black cat along the way. I had been hoping to stop for an espresso, but it was getting too close to the time we were supposed to be back on the coach.
It took about an hour to get back to the hotel, at which point we had a wine tasting with one of the owners of the hotel, Laurent. Chinon produces both red and white wine, though 81% of the production is red. We tried three whites: a sparkling, a dry and a sweet. I liked the sparkling and the dry, but the sweet was really, really sweet. There was some goat cheese to try with the dry one. And we also had two reds, along with rillettes (a sort of paté made from pork shoulder and leg) and rillons (meat from the
Ice cream!
The ice cream was utterly delicious, but I was even more impressed by the clever dish. top of the ribs, cooked in a vegetable soup for three days). Everything was very good, but we all got a bit giggly. Laurent had handed out a sheet listing the five different wines, and most of us were taking notes while he spoke (so did I, and I listened to what he said, but I'll be damned if I can remember anything about the wines now). At the end, he surprised us with a quiz! I got all but one question correct. But I couldn't possibly be perfect after five glasses of wine!
Yvonne, Bert, Linda, Holly, Elizabeth, Christina and I all went to dinner together afterward at Café des Arts. The food was quite good, but I was really impressed by the beautiful plates and cutlery they had. Most of us chose to have the Menu de Terroir, including me. I had the salad starter, which was composed of some wild greens, a slice of cantaloupe, a slice of salty ham (sort of a prosciutto), and tomato slices with little balls of mozzarella on top. My main course was boeuf bourguignon (this after I stated very clearly to Yvonne that I did NOT want another hunk of beef tonight); it was very, very good. And dessert was the best ice cream I've had outside of Italy: a scoop of the chocolatiest chocolate, and a scoop of the lemoniest lemon. It was all delightful, and all for only 19.80 euros.
And now I must pack up because we move to another location tomorrow. Also, must do some research on how to be an art forger!
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