A few days in the Loire Valley to look at some old buildingsWed 3 to Sat 6 Oct

Our holiday by the sea ran out as quickly as the weather. One last walk around the village to check on the locals found these two Labs that obviously didn’t feel the need to share the road. France is a pretty good place for dogs.

Next stop was the Loire Valley. Located about 200 km south of Paris, this is the location of the picture book chateaux that look so romantic on postcards. The run up was about 480 km, the weather overcast and wet. It rained most of the day but we made better time than expected and hauled into Blois by mid afternoon.

Blois (pronounced Blwah) is roughly in the centre of the chateau area and is a nice small town of about 20K. The city has its own chateau (not wanting to be outdone) and has a well preserved historical centre. These steps in the middle of town really caught my imagination.

In the days when I was very serious about training, the group I trained with would have loved these steps. We would look all over for “good” steps then run up and down them until the first person threw-up. It is amazing what you do when you are young and bullet-proof.

Note also the nice little garden in the centre of the stairs. This is typical of gardens in public areas everywhere we have been. Many are quite wonderful but you never see a gardener working. Jo reckons this is because they work late at night with miners’ lights. I reckon it’s because all of the flowers are artificial.

These trees have been trained into the shape of an arched walkway. This is serious gardening!

A wonderful find in Blois was the house or Robert Houdin. Houdin was a man of many talents, but was importantly a magician of note. So impressive was his reputation, that the great American magician, Harry Houdini, took his name from this amazing Frenchman.

The statue of Robert Houdin in Blois. In summer, the windows of the house open each hour and the heads of a Hydra pop out.

We chose to visit only two of the dozen or so open chateaux. Since they were all built on the exploitation of the proletariat we felt entitled to a little disdain when considering the whole business of visiting these places. I suppose we could take the view that tourism is just another form of terrorism and let it go at that…...

The first was Chateau de Cheverny. This photo of Mike standing in front of the chateau gives the general idea.

The building was occupied as a family home until 1985 and has, therefore, very complete furnishings. This very rare clock was typical. I am sure that a previous Prime Minister would have been impressed by this one. The time was correct!

Dad (John) would be very impressed with the gardens here and the second chateau we visited at Chenonceau. These 16th and 17th century French gardeners certainly flogged nature into line. Thousands of folk must have got a payday out of the competition between these “nobles” to have the most impressive display.

These photos show some of the garden scenes from both chateaux. They give real meaning to the expression, not a blade out of place!

The cottage gardens were also superb. They mixed vegetables, herbs and flowers in a garden that any cook would love.

Enough for gardens!!

One reason that Cheverny was on the agenda is that the estate maintains a pack of about 100 hunting dogs and Jo was very keen to see the dogs and see them being fed.

This photo shows a couple of the dogs, a cross between English fox terriers and French poitevins, and Jo. Considering that it was close to feeding time we are reasonably sure that they are sizing her up for entrée.

The dogs are herded onto the roof of the kennel while the feeding area is cleaned down.

The dogs wait patiently on the roof for the appointed time.

The dogs wait less patiently in front of the pile of stinking offal that constitutes dinner until the trainers are happy that the tourists have got their money’s worth, and

The dogs go at it and clean up the lot in seconds.

While waiting for the dogs to get fed, we ran into Ian and Corinne who were mounted on a new Triumph ST purchased in Spain. In this photo they are pointing to the discrete NZ sticker on the back of the Spanish registered bike.

Ian had taken that legendary Kiwi cunning to new lengths in having a partner in Corinne who is fluent in both French and Spanish. Her English is also excellent, but I don’t think she understands Kiwi that well. The words “cold beer at the end of a long ride” didn’t seem to register according to Ian.

Visiting the gardens brought dad to mind, but visiting the Chateau de Chenonceau brought our friend Peter Pursey to mind.

The kitchen had some wonderful period items including this great cutting board and cleaver collection.

This is a mortar and pestle that any aspiring chef would be proud of.

The stove dated from WWI when the place was used as a hospital but is still a fantastic unit.

The best item, however, was this rotisserie which was powered by a weight running outside the window. The weight drives the gears and turns the spit. A clever regulator is on top of the mechanism keeps the rate of rotation constant and slow. Very cunning these French.

For the few days in the Loire, we cruised around the back roads having a great time on the country lanes. We have worked out that the best time to be on the roads is in the early afternoon when every self respecting rural Frenchman is at home eating something cooked in duck fat or in his local restaurant scoffing the plat du jour.

This shot is the road along the Loire River south-west of Blois.

Another great country lane. The roads here are excellent and the French drivers are generally conservative and considerate.

For our part we are settling into French life very well.

The hard lockable tank bag built for this trip isn’t perfect, but is working very well overall. It means we are able to chain our helmets to the bike and leave it fully locked. This is a great advantage over the standard tank bag we have used in the past.

Jo has worked out that, unlike Australian cheese, French fromage is low in cholesterol. Here she shows how to finish a meal so you won’t be hungry again for days!

The baguette! Fantastic, and available fresh from the oven anytime.

At the end of our Loire Valley stopover we are traveling well and we have most of the technical stuff on the bike sorted. We still need a little more stowage on the bike to take care of some bulky cold weather gear for the weeks ahead. Otherwise the first 5000 km has been trouble free.

Another day, another chateau.