World Quest

About 110 meters or so from The Collegiate Church of St. Ours in the Cité Médiévale is The Logis Royale (Royal Lodge).

As you can see from the map, The Logis Royale dominates the Northern point of the medieval city. What you cannot tell from the map is that it is built on a rocky spur that rises up above and overlooks the city.

Many of France's historical scenes have taken place in the Royal Lodge. It was built by Charles VI, and later resided in by Agnes Sorel, "Damoyselle de Beauté" of Charles VII (you saw her tomb in the pictures from The Collegiate Church of St. Ours in our previous post), the first "official mistress" of a King of France.

It was to the Royal Lodge that Joan of Arc came on June 3 and June 5, 1429 to beg Charles VII to go to Reims to be crowned King of France.

Anne de Bretagne or Anne of Brittany resided in the Logis Royale as Queen/Consort to two French kings; Charles VIII and Louis XII and the lodge contains her oratory with its beautiful stone filigree design.

Here's a photo of Cindy in front of one of the magnificent tapestries within the Logis Royale. Taking photos with a flash is not permitted inside the Royal Lodge due to the damage the light (multiplied hundreds of times each day by tourists) causes to these tapestries, draperies and fabric in upholstery and videotaping is not permitted inside under any circumstances.

Cindy's mom in one of the reading rooms.

After touring the inside, we walked outside to the small side courtyard that overlooks part of the city.

Looking up at the top of the Logis Royale.

Cindy and her mom in the small side courtyard gazing at the Lodge.

Then I discovered what it was that they were gazing at. There were dozens of swallows' nests built under the overhanging part of the wall.

And where there are swallows' nests, you'll find swallows. Flying, swooping, darting and performing all sorts of aerial gymnastics. Even at the seemingly fast speed of their flight, by watching the video below you'll see they can unerringly fly right up to the hole in the nest and enter without incident.

After we finished "oohing" and "ahhhing" over the swallows, we walked around to the other side of the Lodge where there is a nice park area with benches. In the picture below, Cindy isn't really sleeping, she just has an uncanny ability to close her eyes when I take a picture. I usually have to re-shoot the picture in order to get one with her eyes open, but this time I just let it go so you could see what I had to put up with whenever I took a picture where she was facing the camera. Love ya, babe!

Walking back to where we parked the car, we decided to take a short tour of the more modern section of Loches. I happened to look up and saw something that made me stop and laugh hanging from a third story window.

Can't tell what it is? Ok, here's a close-up.

It looks to me like some type of lawn gnome and I wondered if he was on a world tour (a few years ago someone stole a lawn gnome from its owner's front yard and took it around the country or the world, taking pictures of it in different locales and sending the photos to the owner over a period of a year before finally returning the traveling gnome back to its home) and was being displayed as a kind of badge of honor by the kidnapper. Whatever the story behind this hanging gnome, the sight alone made me laugh.

I just liked this view of a part of the Indre River, which flows through and around parts of Loches.

We had lunch at a nice little cafe and walked around afterward looking for a grocery store so we could stock the cottage with vittles. There are only 2 grocery stores in Loches; one in town and one on the outskirts of town. After getting directions to the one in town from the Tourist Center, we drove to it and I parallel parked the car in a very small space on the street in front of the store (no parking lots for hundreds of vehicles like we have in the States) and we walked up to the door and pulled on it, only to find the store (and most businesses in the town, region and country) closes each day from 12:45 to 2:45 in the afternoon. It was 2pm, so we had to wait 45 minutes for everyone to return from lunch and open the store. My mother-in-law had warned me about this, but I thought that in the 18 years since she had been here that this would have been a practice that would have ceased. Why lose 2 hours of income from customers each day? Oh well, one of the things we liked about the country was the slower pace of life, and this was part of that. Just took a little getting used to, that's all.

We returned to the cottage around 4:30 and relaxed for the remainder of the day.

Next post: Chateau de Chenonceau

Our next stop as we toured the Cité Médiévale was the Collegiate Church of St. Ours.

Here is a photo of the exterior of the church. Please note that this is not a photo I took, but rather one I downloaded from a website. I'm not sure how this picture was taken, as there was no way I could have been able to get this view when we were there. I'm going to assume that it was taken from a location we did not have access to during our visit.

The Collegiate Church of St. Ours was originally founded in 962 A.D., but what you see in it's current form dates from the 12th century. Among the church's distinguishing architectural features are the twin hollow octagonal pyramids covering the nave, as seen in the photo above.

Here's Cindy and her mom approaching the entrance.

Once you step through the entrance, you find yourself in the vestibule where you can make a donation and/or dip your finger(s) in the holy water fount (though it's not really a fountain, just a stone bowl with still water).

Beyond the vestibule is the main hall or nave.

And at the far end is the altar area.

To the left (as you're facing the altar area) is a smaller vestibule containing the marble tomb of Agnes Sorel. You'll find her fascinating story here and here.

Looking up into one of the hollow octagonal pyramids from the floor of the main hall.

On the way out of the church, against my advice, Cindy wanted to dip her fingers into the Holy Water. I snapped the photo below just as her hand started smoking and then I high-tailed it out of the vestibule before it filled with thick, black smoke.

Next post: The Medieval Town and Castle of Loches - Part 3

Monday morning we enjoyed hot tea and baguettes with butter for breakfast in the cottage and then drove into Loches to tour the medieval town and castle that the modern town has grown up around.

Loches, with a population of 7,000, is picturesquely situated above the Indre, a left-bank tributary of the Loire. On the hill above the town is the Medieval City (Cité Médiévale), surrounded by a circuit of walls 2km/1.5mi long. This town within a town is entered through the Porte Royale, a fortified gate which was once approached by a drawbridge.

And that's where we first see Cindy and her mom, first in a photo and then in a video clip.

Now, here's a map of the Medieval City. We'll enter through the Porte Royale (as seen above) and explore the Donjon during this first part. In part 2 we'll tour the Church of St-Ours and Logis Royal, both rich in history.

Here are a couple of photos of the exterior of the Donjon and a couple of videos. The first video is the exterior of the Donjon and the second is my on-camera talent, Cindy, giving a short history of the Donjon. I apologize in advance for the sound of the wind on the built-in microphone.

Here we are inside at the entrance to the Donjon (also known as "the keep") and this suit of armor looks to be trying to put the moves on my mother-in-law.

Going down to the dungeon and torture rooms.

Cindy looks like a jailer, satisfied that she has her prisoner in the bowels of the keep.

Here I am, in irons and struggling to escape.

Cindy standing in a fireplace.

This is the graffiti room, where prisoners had carved various things into the walls.

I just liked the way the light came through the gate into the room on this one.

Next, it was time to climb to the top. Again, the stairs are circular and tight. Here's the view from the top down the stairs.

Below are 3 photos from the top and a video taken at the top. Apologies again for the sound of the wind on the built-in microphone.

The next photo is from the top looking down. You'll see a white Fleur-De-Lis. That marks the spot where I'm standing in the photo following this one and shows the spot where I was standing to take that shot.

The black Fleur-De-Lis in this photo shows where I was standing to take the shot above.

Cindy, standing in one of the arches overlooking the area outside the Donjon.

Wrapping up our tour of the Donjon.

This kicks off our week of castles, castles and nothing but castles. So if you plan on returning, do what I did and learn to love them...or at least endure them.

Next post: The Medieval Town and Castle of Loches - Part 2

We enjoyed another sumptuous breakfast prepared by Carl and Maria at the Bed & Breakfast and they very graciously gave us detailed directions from Le Petit Logis to our next destination; Loches (Lowsh) in the Loire (Lawar) Valley an estimated 4 hour drive (which we miraculously turned into 5 hours). Below is a map of our general route.

We got to enjoy more scenic countryside, but most of our trip was on France's very well-maintained motorway, which is equivalent to our turnpike in Florida...except much nicer. The only issue we had with the motorway was...well watch the video below and see.

I originally thought I was on an episode of Punk'd when I first stepped into their "restroom". Either that or primitive camping but I had to wonder; why build all this for a hole in the ground? Why not go ahead and put in toilets? And they were all the same, whether it was for men or women. If you're a man and you only need to urinate, then you can just point and shoot. But if you're a man who needs to defecate or you're a woman, then you straddle the hole in the floor, grab hold of the bars on each side and lower yourself into a standing/squatting position...I think. I mean I never observed anyone actually use one, but looking at how the elements are arranged that appears to be the mechanics of how it works. I was too embarrassed to actually ask anyone. Although we saw quite a few toilets without seats in our travels, we never saw any more of these toilets without toilets. They seemed to be unique to the motorway. Thank goodness.

Needless to say, none of us used the restroom facilities at the motorway rest stops. But otherwise the French motorway is an excellent way to drive long distances in the country.

We finally arrived in Loches around 3pm, but still needed to find Mouzay (Moozay), a small town about 10 kms away from Loches, where our cottage was located. Despite all our best efforts we could not see any signs showing the road(s) to Mouzay but as we drove into Loches we spotted a Tourism building and, amazingly on a Sunday afternoon, it was open! And the helpful young lady inside spoke English! She graciously pulled out a map, marked our route and, after Cindy purchased a book about a local castle, we were on our way.

The next little hitch came in Mouzay when we could not find any signs with street names. Although we did not at the time know how to program the GPS, it did show what roads we were on and we finally drove onto a road and the GPS showed it was the one we were looking for (glad it was a very small town) and we located Saint Anne, the cottage where we would be spending the next week making day trips out to castles in the countryside. Below are some photos:

Here is the outside of the back of the cottage. In the lower left corner are the double French doors (how appropriate, lol) that lead out to the backyard. The window on the far right top is in the stairway inside, the window immediately to its left is in our bedroom and the double windows on the far left are in our bathroom. Cindy's mom's bedroom and bath are on the opposite side of the cottage on the second floor as well.

This shot is taken from the double French doors looking out into the backyard. The building on the left is a former church school that the cottage draws its name from (also now owned by the family who owns our cottage) and they told us the cottage we were in was a former dormitory for the students of that school.

An old well, now capped, sits close to the back of our cottage.

A beautiful spray of yellow roses in the area that separates our cottage grounds from the owner's home next door and in front of the former church school building.

The kitchen/dining area from the stairway on the back wall, facing one of two doors that open out to the front courtyard.

The living room area. Out of sight to the left are the double French doors that lead to the backyard. The curtained spot on the right covers a second door that opens out into the front courtyard and is right next to the kitchen door seen earlier, separated by a wall that divides the kitchen from the living room area.

Standing by the curtained door in the living room looking back to the double French doors.

The stairway at the back of the kitchen/dining room area, leading upstairs to the bedrooms.

Our bedroom looking back to our bathroom area.

Cindy's mom's bedroom looking back to her bathroom area.

A view of the stairway going down into the kitchen/dining and living room areas.

A shot of the kitchen/dining area from the stairway.

From the same stairway looking toward the living room area.

Your guess is as good as mine. Cindy was playing with my camera again.

After getting unpacked, we drove back into Loches for dinner. This was the only place we found open on a Sunday evening (it's about 6pm and the sun won't actually set until around 9:30pm) so it was Italian for dinner in France, lol.

Cindy and her mom got lasagna, but I ordered a cheese pizza with block olives. Turns out this is typical of this type of pizza; you get 4 or 5 black olives in the middle of the pie instead of spread throughout it. Oh and the black olives aren't sliced or pitted, they are whole with pits.

After dinner we strolled around a little bit, but we were all tired from the drive and ready to relax so we returned to the cottage to rest and get a good night's sleep for the outing on Monday.

Next Post: The Medieval Town and Castle of Loches

After finally forcing ourselves to leave Monet's Garden, we walked across the street (Rue de Claude Monet) to this little place which is a combination store and restaurant. Cindy's mom was entranced by the rose covered gateway.

While Cindy and her mom looked around the inside of the store I drifted over to the restaurant side to discover that this was the place our B & B host had warned us catered to the tour groups and that we should avoid eating there as the food was prepared in the morning for the lunchtime crowds and thus was not as fresh as the Hotel Baudy. So, after the ladies finished browsing through the store we walked a 1/4 km down Rue de Claude Monet...

...and saw this fine fellow...

...on our way to the Hotel Baudy...

...for lunch.

I decided to try a French beer known as Hotteterre which is, judging by the label, apparently named after the French musician Jacques-Martin Hotteterre.

This was a most excellent tasting ale and complimented my Fried Goat Cheese with Potatoes and Salad, which was delicious as well.

We had an amusing situation while here. The waiter was bringing our drinks and I had forgotten to ask for water. When we were there the previous evening a young lady had served us and brought us a bottle of water. The bottle had some kind of label on it ("Vittel", I think). Anyway, when we placed our order I had forgotten to ask for water, so as the waiter was placing wine glasses and an unmarked clear bottle in front of Cindy I said, "Oh I forgot, we would like a bottle of water as well". He looked at me in confusion and both Cindy and her mom got these funny looks on their faces and Cindy said, "Honey, this (the unmarked bottle) IS water." Looking sheepish, I responded, "Oh" and the waiter put a mock expression of concern on his face and said, "No more beer for you, sir."

Ok, maybe you had to be there.

The Baudy Hotel is a main gathering point for artists visiting from America, Europe and Asia and it was fun for me (a die hard people-watcher) to observe the variety of folks enjoying meals in this dining room or passing through on their way to their hotel room.

After our delectable lunch, we walked back up the Rue de Claude Monet to the Musée d’Art Américain (American Art Museum), which since 1992 has existed to promote American/French cultural relationships in art, and to provide grants to American and French art students to participate in an exchange program between the two countries.

The Musée d’Art Américain is also surrounded by gardens of bright, colorful flowers...

...and a field that is thought to have been the subject of one of Monet's paintings, "Poppyfield Near Giverny".

Cindy sitting under a tree next to the poppy field.

Cindy and her mom enjoying one of the gardens around the Musée d’Art Américain.

We left here and returned to the B & B for a short nap, then returned to Giverny at dinnertime and the Hotel Baudy for our final meal there. Then it was back to the B & B to pack, get a good night's sleep and prepare for our drive to the Loire Valley the following day.

Next Post: I Say Mouzay