CAVE DWELLING

We have spent this week staying in rather unusual accommodation.  Just out of Tours, is a small town named Rochecorbon.  Once upon a time it was a much bigger place, there was a castle where Richard the Lionheart visited, there was a thriving silk weaving industry & there was an abbey.  The material sourced for all these buildings was the limestone contained in the surrounding cliffs.  The removing of the stone meant that there were caves perfectly suited for the growing of mushrooms & the storing of wine & even for living in.  Homes were eventually built on the cliffs as well, & now most of these homes also have caves.

We are staying in this one.  It is so heavily overgrown with plants that you cant see it very well, so let me take you up there...we do have to go up a few steps unfortunately!!

Past beautiful flowering hydrangeas we see the owners store-cave.  Above it is a sign saying that these became caves in 1745.

Up the steps & around is our porch, where we have enjoyed sitting out sipping wine in the evenings.

And this is the entrance to the cave house! It is very dark, very quiet & very cool in there!

Just inside the door to the right is the original stone sink that was used to wash dishes.  I was so relieved to see that the current owners have installed a modern kitchen as well!!

Deeper into the cave is the billiards room.  Not quite up to the standard of the one at Azay-le-Rideau, but fun none the less.  Although we have had to practise the art of stooping, as that ceiling is a tad low for us!!

We have had a wonderful 6 weeks in France, just meandering & enjoying the discovery of new sights & tastes & ideas.  Tomorrow we start our flight back to Adelaide, so this will be my last travel blog for a while.  Thanks for keeping us company & thanks to the many who have enjoyed the blogs & left comments .

CHATEAUS OF THE LOIRE

Way back in 1991, we spent our Honeymoon camping along the Loire Valley here in France.  Camping was all we could afford at the time...even if it wasn't the most romantic of honeymoon options!  I REALLY wanted to come back here & revisit the area WITHOUT a tent! And so we have.

In the last few days we have visited some  Chateaus we hadn't met before & have revisited a few that we could vaguely remember.  It has been a treat to introduce our daughter to a part of France she hadn't experienced, and one that is so special in our history together.

The first Chateau on our list was Chenonceau.  This is possibly the most visited & for good reason...it is beautiful!  As with each visit, I have taken hundreds of photos, so for this blog I am only going to give you two; one of the Chateaux itself & one of something special we experienced whilst there.

Chenonceau was owned by a variety of strong women, amongst them was Catherine deMedici, who swapped this chateaux which Diane de Portier was living in, with the chateau at Chaumont -Sur-Loire!

There were beautiful tapestries & furnishings & paintings throughout this house, but one feature that made a big impression on me, were the flower arrangements.  They were stunning & in almost every room.  I later found out that there is a full time flower studio in the grounds & they grow all their own flowers for the express purpose of making these displays to delight visitors like me!

Our next Chateau was Azay-le-Rideau & I remember it as being my favourite from our visit 25 years ago.  Alas, we arrived to see most of it wrapped up for extensive restoration work. That definitely took some of the glamour away!!  Never the less it was still pretty & more intimate than Chenonceau.

We loved the billiards room! True, this is not something that we would normally be so attracted to, but our accommodation at the moment has a billiards table & we have been having a few games of 8-ball.  It's a novelty!!

The beautiful Chaumont-Sur-Loire is what Diane de Portier got in exchange for Chenonceau & in my opinion, she got the better deal!  It was our first visit here & aside from having the BEST chocolate tart we have yet had in France, each room of this Chateaux was stunning.  It also had impressive stables which are now used for art exhibitions & even a donkey stable! Awwwww!

We came at the best time of year, because they are currently holding their annual garden festival.  The grounds are full of outdoor rooms prepared by garden artists trying to create something unique & inspiring.  This was very impressive, a true merging of the outdoors with the indoors.  The use of mirrors made this so effective.

Villandry is known world wide for it's gardens, but the Chateau itself is also a delight to wander through & the windows to the outside provide spectacular views.  This has been adapted over many generations to cater to the needs of family living.  The current owners even live somewhere on the property.

The gardens are famous for their intricate knot work & the various symbols contained there in.  What is surprising to most, is that these are predominantly VEGETABLE gardens, & as they are now completely organic, I suspect the flowers may have some permaculture attributes to their location alongside the veges.  The walk around the raised area surrounding the gardens was pure delight.

Our last Chateau was Usse.  This is allegedly the inspiration for Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' castle!  This too, is not state owned & the family have slowly restored interesting aspects of their Chateau.  They still have a chapel & wine caves intact, so these added another dimension to our visit, as did the collection of old fashioned carts the forbears of the current owners would have been transported in!!

One thing that set this Chateau apart, was the use of mannequins to create scenes in each of the rooms.  Apparently each year they hire costumes from different periods of history. In one of the turrets, mannequins portray the tale of sleeping beauty, which I suspect that child visitors would get more of a kick out of than I did....it involved an awful lot of climbing stairs!!

One could easily spend at least a month here seeing a different Chateau every day, but we were very happy with the few we saw & the variety within that limited number.  It was an enchanting way to explore the area too.

LAST DAY IN PARIS

The day started with brunch at Café Livres, a local spot with walls lined in secondhand books & a view over the Tower of St Jacque's.  We soon discovered that this cafe's brunch is somewhat high in carbohydrates, so we were full well before we finished anything!  Still, we were about to do another walking tour so needed sustenance.

Our first stop was the Shoah Memorial, in memory of all the Jews of France, who lost their lives courtesy of the nazi concentration camps of WW2.  On the outside of the memorial is an impressive list of names honouring all those non- Jewish people who helped to hide or protect their Jewish neighbours.  They have been given the title & honour of the word 'Righteous'.  Not a word we hear much in society these days. Thanks to these people's bravery 3/4 of France's Jewish population were kept from the concentration camps.

I confess to tears at the sight of this wall of names, inside the Memrial, of the Jews who had died.  In fact, the tears well up again now as I type.  It is one thing to be horrified by the statistics....over 76,000 shipped off to concentration camps, 11,000 of them children. Only 2,500 survived.  It is quite another to see their precious names, the thing that labels them as unique & special individual human beings. Moving is an understatement.  This experience was followed up by the large black marble star of David in the crypt, the centre of which is an eternal flame & beneath it are the ashes that were retrieved from all the concentration camps where French Jews were interred.

We left suitably sobered & continued our walk around the 'Jewish' section of the Marais district.  Occasionally we'd be stopped by a plaque commemorating individuals or groups who had been assassinated by the Nazis, & another place a whole school of children were removed to concentration camps.  Aside from these reminders of part of the area's past, we came across a couple of old homes from the 15th century.

And then  the beautiful Hotel Sens, the oldest medieval mansion in the area.  Aside from beautiful
 gardens, the mansion also has a souvenir from revolution days...a canon ball stuck in the wall!!

On Sunday afternoon, Rue des Rosiers is shut off from vehicular traffic, so becomes a wonderful mass of humanity, mainly making the most of the AMAZING smelling food outlets!  Apparently the best falafels can be found here.  Well, sadly, we were still so stuffed from brunch that we weren't in a position to check that theory!!

Our final destination was one of the oldest teashops in Paris.  It looked gorgeous from the outside & we had intended to go in, but.....it was so hot, we both thought the last thing we wanted was hot tea in a small stuffy Salon de The...even if it was special. So, we ended our tour there & went back to our apartment to start the task of packing once again.

We have had an incredible week in Paris & have been blessed with excellent weather.  It has been a treat to discover new parts of this city & we both are keen to come again.  Hopefully it will be sooner than 11 years!!

NOTRE DAME

When we discovered that there was an Alsatian Restaurant just around the corner, specializing in Tarte Flambee, how could we possibly resist! Oh what heaven. Yum, yum, yum, super-yum.  No further words necessary. Pizza is a thing of the past!

It was an easy evening stroll across the bridge to see Notre Dame in the golden light of evening.

I absolutely LOVE zoom lenses!  How did we ever live without them!  It is magic to finally be able to see what is just beyond the eye's reach.

The perfect blue sky provided the best of backdrops.

There was no queue, security check was over in a jiffy, & then we discovered that Notre Dame has been Disney-fied. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  A screen was up & a film about it's history was about to be shown, if we'd just like to make a donation we were welcome to sit down in the pews & watch.
What happened to the quiet of contemplation, the quiet of awe, the quiet of something so much bigger & more powerful than one mere mortal. To make matters worse we had limited access, which meant this (above) was all I got to see of the famous Rose window.  I saw this much because I'm tall & can peer over things average people cant & I have a good zoom on my little camera!
Disappointment BIG TIME.

We went back out to enjoy all the characters of the building's exterior.

We met a mermaid...

...& we said "Good Night" to Quasimodo, who had just peeked out to see whether Esmeralda was wandering around below.

ANOTHER DAY OF ART & HISTORY

Thanks to the suggestion of a friend, we had an outstanding few hours in a beautiful museum we had never visited before.  With a bright blue sky outside & the sun already beating down at 10am, we entered the gold & glass doors of the Petit Palace. What a place, it totally took our breathe away.  Not only is the building itself a stunner, with high ceilinged rooms on the ground floor & a cool & quiet internal courtyard café, but the displays are spaciously& appropriately arranged, there is no crowding, & there weren't many people!

We did take (cough) hundreds of photos, but I will only share some of my favourites.  This is the type of museum you could visit each time & discover something new.  It is also a smaller museum & not as overwhelming as the Louvre. 
In the Antiquities section, which we started with, an impressive collection of Rhyta vessels had us totally mesmerised. From ancient Rome, these were used in Dionnysian rituals.  Shaped into various creatures heads, the wine was poured in the big end & at the snout end somewhere was a hole where the participant would drink from.  They were quite beautiful & wonderfully quirky.

Speaking of quirky....these were non functional tableware often given as wedding gifts.  There was quite a range of various shaped & decorated vessels, but these were my favourite.  I have affectionately dubbed them avocado bowls.  Thankfully, with being virtually on our own in this gallery, it wasn't such an issue when I erupted with raucous laughter & blurted "look at these!!!!!"

This was my favourite sculpture.  I don't remember the artist &, of course, there was no postcard of this piece to remind me.  It is rough & full of wonderful tension & tenderness. For me, it was emotionally moving.

My favourite painting was this masterpiece of Les Halles Market.  What you don't grasp with this photo is the size of the painting, it is huge & thankfully there was a seat in front, to really enjoy the energy, motion & all the wonderful characters & their activities in this market scene. Such a visual treat.  This is one of those paintings I would want to visit everytime I could.

After such a blissful few hours, we decided to visit our old friend Notre Dame...until we got there.  It is a little hard to tell, but this is a photo of an enormous queue waiting to get into Notre Dame.  Notre Dame is free, this queue is here because of the increased security screening now essential to get in anywhere.  It was extremely hot, the queue was moving very slowly, so we decided we'd come back in the evening when it was cooler & also open.  We went to the Crypt instead, which was stuffy & unpleasant, packed with way too much information to read, but still very interesting.

Enroute home, Jeff revealed that he hadn't been to the Pompidou Centre before, so we decided a trip amidst the pipes was just the thing to do.

Traveling up the escalators in a tube is a buzz & the views out over the city are spectacular.  It was very hot however, so we were pleasantly relieved to discover that they have airconditioning at the Pompidou Centre (these people deserve a medal!!) & it was deliciously cool!!

There was a lot of modern art that we enjoyed & there was a lot we didn't!  It is always a treat to see artists work 'live', having studied their work from books. There was very little in the way of textiles, but I did enjoy the above cactus made out of doilies.  They had obviously been dipped in some sort of resin to hold this shape, but the fact that they were doilies was not lost.

Clothing & shoe sales are ON here in Paris & I thought that I should make an effort to shop.  I made it to one clothing store, where there was no aircon & the changing room was so small I had to position myself diagonally across it to be able to try anything on.  Everything looked like a sack on me & I was hot & depressed, so decided one shop was enough!!  To cheer myself up, I wandered down Rue Rambuteau in search of Pain de Sucre.  They are a patisserie & confectionery store that specialises in Guimauve...flavoured marshmallow.  I chose a selection to try & my absolute favourite-died-and-gone-to-heaven ones were the chocolate marshmallows dipped in chocolate. Oh my goodness.  We need these in Adelaide! The best anti-depressant EVER!

WALKING THE STREETS

For Christmas last year, I gave Jeff a pack of 'Paris Walk' cards.  They are the size of playing cards & contain directions & stopping points on one side & a map on the other.  They are also convenient to hold surreptitiously in one's hand, so as not to have to wrestle with a map & consequently look like a complete prat!  Today we had a few cards to walk our way through & we chose ones of places we hadn't been to before. 
Our first stop was Paris' oldest church...St Germain-des-Pres.  Once part of a larger Abbey complex, the Church has seen a lot of changes since it's 6th century beginnings.  I was very keen to see it, because I had read that there is...allegedly...a statue of Isis at it's front entrance!  Well, at the moment this Church is rather heavily wrapped up & undergoing renovation, so I don't know that the entrance we went through was the front or not.  There was certainly no Isis there, but there was a begger woman standing very very still!
Inside the Romanesque features had been painted gold & with the coloured & pattererned ceilings & arches, they looked very impressive.

Just across the street is the famous Café where people like Hemingway, Picasso & the likes would drink, discuss philosophy & generally get to grips with the world.  We didn't spot anyone famous sitting there today & didn't feel the need for coffee yet, so gave the over priced beverages a miss!

For the past 4 years, Jeff has been following the 'Coffee Break French' podcasts, & in the process has heard about a variety of interesting places across France.  We stumbled across the impressive Fountain of St Michel today, which was the subject of one of his podcasts, so we were pretty excited. It is an impressive monument built in 1856 during the revamp of Paris.

I finally got to buy a book at Shakespeare & Co bookstore.  I had never been here before & I know it isn't very Parisienne, but I really wanted to go!!  It was such a treat meandering through the tiny rooms, some with writing tips on the steps & others with ancient tiles embedded in the floor.  There is a tiny secondhand section, & then the main shop is full of more recently published books.  I wish that books weren't quite so heavy to pack into suitcases!!!  I did buy one paper back though & then we had a drink in the adjoining café, where we had a spectacular view of Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Pantheon was our next stop & we were expecting something a little more akin to the one in Rome.  How wrong we were.  This is HUGE.  In the crypt below lie the tombs of famous French people including Louis Braille & Marie Curie.

There are many beautiful aspects of the Pantheon, but there was one feature that I doubt many people appreciate.  On the lower level are a series of murals about the life of St Genevieve, the Patron Saint of Paris.  I was very impressed with this small section where she is dying, & still the people come to her for blessings.  Look at the feet of the woman kneeling in the foreground.  They are dirty because these people had no shoes.  I was very excited by this detail & quietly applauded the artist...I then went around to check that all the feet exposed to the viewer were dirty.  They were. Great continuity!!

Walking through the Jardin Des Plants was bliss on such a hot afternoon.  We went first to visit the Mosque & were quite disappointed with it's lack of decoration.  Then walked through the gardens past the Natural History Museum.  This is what we saw peering in through the window!

Our next stop was another treat that had me excited, The Institute du Monde Arabe.  We knew we were nearly there when we saw this magnificent piece of Arabic calligraphy on the back wall.

This building is famous for it's high tech screens that control how much light enters the room.  The sun on the exterior made it difficult to get impressive photos from outside the building, but from the ladies loo, this is what I managed to snap!  Impressive is an understatement!  These screens, based on traditional wooden Marabiyahs (& I know I've spelt that wrong) are electronically controlled & contain light sensors.  They look incredible from the inside!! And there are 1600 of them!

There were many stunning exhibits inside & I was in a little patch of heaven.  We had planned to eat in the restaurant on the top floor...until we saw the prices!  Thankfully we didn't have to pay to take photo's from that wonderful vantage point.  This is looking out on the great Lady herself, Notre Dame Cathedral.
Great day & after all that walking I am expecting to have the most shapely 52 year old legs in Christendom!!