Blogs from Tours, Centre, France, Europe

Today was a clothes washing day and Tim decided to check out how the washing machine works. He worked it out alright. He set it going on a non reversible cycle with nothing inside ; just a test run. We left the machine to clean itself for an hour, and wandered out to the Tours Weekly Outdoor Food Market. It was a hot sunny day, perfect for getting your washing dry, if you had any to dry, but equally good for just soaking up some rays and buying fresh veges, a cooked chicken, and some melon for dessert; how decadent. A friendly café near the market had three cappuccinos with our names on them, so we found a corner table overlooking the street and placed an order, a little wary of how a cappuccino is interpreted ... read more

Last night after posting the blog, I returned to the Cathedral with Tim to check out the annual - lucky timing for us - light show, this year featuring the Museum of Chartres, and the front and side of the Cathedral. It was about 11pm, freezing cold, but I would not have missed it for anything. It’s difficult to tell from still photos, but it changed themes and scenes about 4 times. Our favourite was a depiction of workmen abseiling from the top of the spires and walls, and building the cathedral from the ground up, finishing with a splash of colour. I’ve never seen anything like it. Today is easy. We have to be out of our apartment by 11am, we’ll have croissants and a few coffees for breakfast - that’s me anyway - and ... read more

Heute habe ich es etwas ruhiger angehen lassen, meine Füße geschont und nach dem Frühstück nur die Kathedrale von Tours besichtigt. Der Kreuzgang ist auch sehenswert, aber Montags geschlossen. Von dort ging ich zum Starbucks und habe dort eine Kaffeepause eingelegt. Meine deutsche Kundenkarte ist dort leider nicht gültig. Es gäbe noch zwei empfohlene Museen in der Stadt, die ich aber ignorierte und den übrig gebliebenen Turm einer Basilika in der Nähe der Altstadt hatte ich gestern schon gesehen. Daher war es das auch schon und ich kehrte zum Hotel zurück. Dort telefonierte ich mit der Heimat und machte so dies und das. Abends bin ich zum Essen auch im Hotel geblieben. So kann ich anscheinend auch das Fußballspiel im Internet verfolgen. Morgen will ich dann vermehrt durchstarten und ein oder zwei Châteaus auf dem Weg ... read more

This is our last full day in Tours, as we depart for London tomorrow afternoon, where friends Larry and Danielle Cobb arrived early this morning. They've already begun to set-up housekeeping in the apartment we'll be sharing with them, and we're looking forward to exploring London together. We had no formal agenda for today, other than packing. But we did take the bus into town around noon to have lunch, and to find some last-minute gifts for Sophie, who has done so much for us during our stay. The weather was very pleasant, with mostly sunny skies and mild temperatures (low 70s), so after Dee finished at the Galleries Lafayette we walked to the Place Plumereau for lunch. We would have much preferred to have our last meal in Tours at the great little restaurant we'd ... read more

Under cloudy skies and intermittent rainfall, today we enjoyed a full-day, semi-guided tour of three famous châteaux in the Loire Valley. We met our driver/guide, a very pleasant and knowledgeable young French lady, and a retired couple from, Vancouver Canada, in front of the tourism office at 9:00AM. In a matter of 20 minutes or less, we'd reached our first destination, the Château de Villandry. The Loire Valley, often referred to as the "Garden of France”, is studded with over a thousand châteaux, each with distinct architectural embellishments, from the early medieval to the late Renaissance periods. The châteaux were originally created as feudal strongholds, over the course of centuries past, during the power struggle between southern and northern France. Initially built for defensive purposes during the upheavals of the Middle Ages, the Loire châteaux gradually ... read more