Advertisement
Published: October 31st 2006
Happy Halloween
Pumpkins at VillandryHello everyone,
Things are very busy (but fun) over here. Since my last post, I've done quite a few things: visit 5 castles, visit a boulangerie, been invited to eat dinner with a older French couple, experienced a French family reunion, and done lots of planning for our Rome trip (we leave today). In this special Halloween edition, I'll do my best to get you all caught up before my Rome trip takes over the blog.
A few weekends ago, IES piled us all into some tourbuses and drove us to the Loire Valley to see the chateaux (castles). What with various nobles angering the king and having their castles royaly seized and other nobles not faring too well during the revolution, there are very few castles in France that are still privately owned. The rest are owned and maintained by the state. However, the first castle we visited, Montgeoffroy, is still owned by a family that actually live there (every other castle we visited is state-owned). Since it was inhabited, we didn't see all of it, but we still saw some amazing rooms with all kinds of antique funiture and paintings. We walked up a long driveway to
get there, and when you look at it, you see that it isn't one of those glamourous gilt castles with turrets and white walls. It has much more of a lived-in look about it. If you've seen "Ever After" think of Danielle's house and you'll have a good idea of the feel of the castle.
We got back in the buses and headed for Azay le Rideau. After having good but expensive pizza and ice cream, we got to wander around the grounds of the castle. Many of the trees were changing color, and we got some great pictures of the castle and its semi-moat. We got a very funny tour guide to take us through the castle. She explained about the architecture and the history of the castle. The best part about this visit was just being on our own to see the rooms and the exterior of the castle.
The third site that day was Villandry. There is a castle there, but we only went to see the gardens. French gardens are very well organized and controlled things; and Villandry's grounds were fantastic. In the main section, there are squares of garden with different designs and
themes. There is plenty of variety in the types of plants (pear trees, bushes, trees, flowers, pumpkins, cabbages) and in the colors that they use to set up the garden. Beyond the main gardens, there were tons of other things to see: there was a labyrinth (since it was fall, the bush walls weren't very thick, but it was still very cool), a forest trail, a grape trellis, a huge shallow pool, and plenty of observation points to see the gardens below. We didn't take a tour; and it was great to wander where ever we wanted.
We spent the night in Tours, and the next day we headed for Chateau Ambroise. Most of this castle had been destroyed, so we could only see a fraction of the original building. But what makes the castle so famous is that it was the place that Leonardo Da Vinci spend the last years of his life. We toured the little chapel on the grounds, and saw his grave marker. After taking a guided tour of the remainders of the castle, we wandered on the grounds and saw some more great French landscaping.
Our final, and most famous, castle was Chenonceau.
This place is absolutely huge. It has three large gardens, and the castle itself is built over a river. Here we spent about half of our time in the castle, touring the rooms on our own. One of the rooms was compleltely black; the mistress of the castle was suddenely widowed and she wanted to make her room look like her heart felt. There was also a modern art exhibit in one of the rooms. The rest of the time, we spent outside looking at the river and the gardens. The gardens weren't as intricate as those of Villandry, but they were much larger. We took a ton of pictures, and piled back into the bus to go back to Nantes.
Another cool IES event was our trip to a Boulangerie (bakery) in Nantes. The Boulangerie at St. Felix is known as the best one in Nantes, and the owner took about 2 hours to explain the art of French bread to us. He explained the different types of flours and grains that are used, and then he made a batch of dough in front of us. Then he gave each of us a piece and tought us how
to knead it and form a baguette. While our bread was baking, he let us tour the building, and we saw all kinds of machines and techniques for making bread and pastries. He sent us each home with a hot baguette, and most of us bought a few extra items, too.
Last Sunday was my host sister Claire's birthday, and we celebrated by inviting over the family for a day of feasting. The day before, I went with Francoise (my host mother) to the market to get supplies. The market is pretty much amazing. There is a huge building with butchers, fish mongers, boulangeries, patisseries (pastry shops), fromagiers (cheese merchants), and tons of other shops. And outside the building, people set up other stands: fruits and vegetables, honey, candles, flowers, shoes, clothes, flatware, knives... We bought 6 lobsters, two huge cuts of beef, 5 types of cheese, bread, honey, tons of fruit, and lots more. Francoise goes to the market almost every Saturday, and she always goes to the same stands. So everyone knows her, greets her by name, and will take their time to give her exactly what she needs (no matter how many people are behind her
The Girls at Chenonceau
Me, Katie, Allie, and Amy looking good for the camera in line).
Everyone spent Sunday morning cooking, and around noon, the family came: Francoise's parents, sister-in-law, aunt, and nieces. There were 12 of us all together, and we all sat in the family room for aperatif. Elie (my host father) likes to serve Ti Punch (rum and lime), which he always has to make ultra light for me. There were also butter crackers, marinated mussels, and octopus! We talked for a while; the grandfather talked to me a lot, and he is hilarious. Then we moved to the table and had half a lobster (which was very tricky to eat) and then we all had a huge portion of beef, followed by green beans. Then we had the cheese course, where you pass around the cheese tray and try a few different varieties. Since we were celebrating Claire's and Caroline's birthdays (Caroline's was a while ago but the family didn't get together), we had two absolutely fabulous cakes from a chocolatier down the street. One was raspberry macaron (meringue with almonds) with fresh raspberries and cream; and the other was a few layers of chocolate heaven. There was a new wine for each course, and Aristide (the grandfather) explained the wines as they were brought out. Then we finished with a small, strong, and hot cup of coffee. That finished at about 3:45. I went down to my room to work on some homework, and when I came back up for dinner, I discovered that the family was still in the house, and we had another huge meal, though I really wasn't that hungry. The family left at about 9:00 that night.
My friend Katie runs a French conversation club for an adult group at IES, and a couple that attend the group invited her and a few of her friends to dinner last Friday. So Katie, Amy, and I bought a flower arrangement and showed up 15 minutes late (both of which are standard French protocol for a dinner invite). The couple was extremely nice and very eager to ask questions about the United States and our opinions of France. At aperatif, they served shrimp, olives, and these little snails (not escargot, but close). For dinner we had Coquilles de St. Jacques (scallops) served in a large white shell. Then we had fish that they brought to the table whole and the husband carved up. It was delicious, but the amazing thing is that she didn't even season it; the fish was so fresh (also bought at the same market as our food) that she only needed to put some olive oil on it when she cooked it. Then we got the standard cheese plate, and followed it up with an interesting desert. She had whipped egg whites, added the yolks back in, added rum and sugar, and then froze it. I had the consistancy of a stiff whipping cream and was great. Then we finished with coffee and sugared almonds (from one of the best chocolatiers in Nantes). There is a lot of talking involved in a French meal, between and during the courses, so we ended up spending 4 hours at the table for one meal.
Today at 7:00pm, I'm catching a train to Paris where Katie and I will spend the night. And tomorrow we will take a train to Rome to meet up with the rest of the group. We've been looking at maps and tourist info, but still aren't quite sure where we'll go, so it will be an adventure.
Thanks for all your messages and emails! Have a great Halloween!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.047s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0211s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Summer
non-member comment
Lissa!
The Azay le Rideau is my favorite of all European castles... Oh how I want to be there with you!!!