Paris to The Lovely Loire, and all roads lead to Provence

Stop reading and delete now if you get annoyed with hearing about amazing meals, splendiferous scenery, inappropriate drinking behaviours and random weird experiences that we seem to find ourselves involved in.  Otherwise enjoy the next bit of our adventure….

When we left you in our previous post we were nursing some serious hangover action courtesy of the Tiki Bar. So after a slow Sunday morning we wandered out to explore Paris the best way possible – by foot.

First things first though, we needed some sustenance for the long day ahead so did what most normal visitors would do and grabbed some steaming hot coffee from a local Tabac, a crusty batard and a croissant buerre and started walking.

The Tabac is an amazing French institution.  They are on nearly every block and serve everything – cigarettes, alcohol, pastries, bread, bus and train tickets, coffee, sort of mini supermarket supplies, lotto tickets, gambling on anything you can think of. You can get any or all of this to go, or can sit at comfy little booths or up at a counter. Now how good is that? What more do you need? The ultimate consumer outlet.

Alongside, or very nearby the Tabac are any number of “eries” to choose from….patisseries, boulongeries, fromageries, legumeries, sandwicheries, charcouteries – I’m sure I’ve left some out but you get the idea.

Up behind Sacre Coeur is a very funky village called Saint Ouen with street markets for fresh produce etc.  packed with Sunday morning revellers.  It also seems to have a high Arab population based on a lot of the produce on offer and the clientele. We bought some stuff and ate and walked.  Interpreting was interesting…at one stage I think I bought 15 kilos of mixed olives.  Sorry mate, I wanted about 150g….oops!

Our destination was the markets and we were shocked at how big this whole thing was.  The major attraction for Karen was the flea market that has so much stuff available, we could send over the contents of our garage at home and I’m sure it would sell.  But realistically the eclectic and sometimes just weird stuff that was on sale was amazing.  There was a bloke selling some very very rare vinyl albums that I’d never seen before.  I had a couple of Beatles ones in my hot little hands – they weren’t cheap but it’s the Beatles full rooftop concert on blue vinyl ffs!!!  Then paranoia set in about getting them home unscathed. I chickened out and now I regret it.

We had a quick lunch of planche mixte – basically a platter of a selection of cured meats and a few slabs of cheese, pickled veges and fresh crusty bread. Washed down with a walnut beer (outstanding) and the standard glass of Pinot.  Karen’s eyes were rolling around in the back of her head it was so good.  Or perhaps that was just her reaction to my horrid attempt to converse with the wait staff…

We grabbed a metro down to the Seine to check out the flooding. Metro – best transport system ever.  There were lots of people milling about Ponte Neuf watching the river flow like a mad beast, dragging everything in its path.  The level is so high, they have cancelled all boat traffic on the river.  It’s intense.  The metro line closest to the river is flooded and out of action. Now I get the ferocity of the storms they have had immediately before our arrival.

Paris is the ultimate walking city.  And so we did. And did. Every corner evokes a realisation that what we see on tv, media, magazines about Paris is actually how it is.  Cafe here, there and everywhere, the fashions of the locals, the unbelievable number of people smoking- everywhere. It’s a very cool city and there is so much to see and do it’s never tired.

We thought we’d get a bus back to Montmartre and were very proud of ourselves for figuring out which bus we needed and where to get it. Until we stood for a bit and realised it didn’t run on Sunday’s. Standard.

Sunset is around 10pm now, so we found ourselves walking the back streets of Montmartre looking for somewhere to have drinks and dinner.  Too many options..but we achieved our goal.  Job done.  Typical French comfort food tonight – a veal sort of casseroley kind of thing with veges and linguine for Karen and a slow roasted piece of beef, with caramelised onion, mini potato bake and fresh beans for moi. Beer and wine.  Nothing less.

So after our quick hit and run visit on Paris we headed off to pick up our hire car and were pleasantly surprised to get a complimentary upgrade to a lovely Peugeot Diesel SUV. Note to self and others – ALWAYS book with Driveaway Holidays for car rentals.

Then the adrenaline starts pumping and sweaty palms start flowing….how do we get out of the middle of Paris on a Monday morning in peak hour? What was I thinking? My navigator was awesome – “oh look, there’s Les Galleries….oh wow the Champs élysées….far out the Opera House is beautiful….cool were heading down the left bank and the place de la Concorde…..”  Fantastic. I’m having stuff run down my legs, while local “friendly” Parisians were challenging my parentage because I was in the middle lane trying to turn right….”a droit a droit….non! A gauche a gauche!”

We made it. Somehow unscathed and with two people in the car still alive. No swearing. None at all.

Let’s head down to the Loire Valley to visit some cool castles and stuff. Three hour drive. Easy peasy. Said no one ever.  Our lovely “lady” inside the Satnav was ever so polite and managed somehow to get us onto the main north/south auto route the A10. Easy so far.

Until……about forty minutes down the road, we were detoured off the A10 Motorway by means of a pissy little sign on the side of the road.  No problem……..but where have the signs gone?  Our lady Satnav friend, who by coincidence is called Karen – I kid you not – did her best to get us back on track. And every time we got back to the A10 it was closed due to flooding and road collapse. Back roads turned into beautiful small villages and it was a joy.  Until we had done a 110km detour that had taken the best part of two hours on country back roads only to end up back where we were two hours ago……both Karen’s copped an ear flogging.

At this stage we resisted to urge to throw Satnav Karen out the window to buggery but we knew she’d be valuable to us in the future. So we went old school – following road signs and trying to interpret how to get to our destination of Saumur in the beautiful Loire Valley.

Seven hours later…………….I’m not kidding ya. Deep breath.

But first we had a date with one of the magnificent Chateaux in the region.  Our first choice was Chateau Chambord but it is currently flooded.  Our second choice ended up being an absolute winner – the Chateau Chenonceaux, bridging The Cher River in rural Loire.  Far out.  This Chateaux was built in the 1400’s as a flour mill using the hydro power from the flowing Cher as a means to grind the millstones. It has housed many famous From French history.  A couple of Henry’s, a Marie, a Medici (from Italian heritage) and a bunch of poms.

It burned down in the 1500s and the “new” chateau was built on the foundations of the mill.  As is always the case with these places, everyone who takes possession of it adds extra stuff – the most prominent extension of this place was a “Gallery” or portico built across the entire river sometime in the 1700’s.

Moving forward a few hundred years this addition became historically very significant during the German occupation of France during WWII.  The Germans took control of the area including the property, and stood guard of the Chateau and housed (ie imprisoned) those captured who were against the German ideology.  The brilliant thing here was, the bridge crossed the river and had a secret exit that the Germans didn’t know about….on the other side of the exit was the resistance line and dense bushland  where the captured were enabled to escape to their freedom with the assistance of the owners of the period. Fascinating stuff.

The property is simply magnificent, and we saw it at its most dramatic, with all the flooding in the area, the river was a raging torrent and every room in the Chataeu has inspiring views in every direction.  Can’t rave about this place enough.

So – we had to get across to the other side of the Loire Valley to our lodgings in a tiny village of Saumur.  We decided to give electronic Karen another chance and this time she didn’t let us down.  Winding through some of the most magnificent scenery ever, we popped out along the Rhone River in Saumur, where for hundreds of years, houses have been built into the cliffs of the surrounding towns. As well as residences, they are caves used for storing wines – thousands upon thousands of bottles – and growing mushrooms.

We found our own piece of paradise to stay the night; The Chateau de Beaulieu which was built in the early 1800’s and in a magnificent Georgian style.  Currently owned by two lovely Irish, this place is just beautiful and it basically run as a B&B.  We were treated like royalty and had a great opportunity to meet some other travellers and compare notes. You don’t often get to stay in some place like this and it was a shame it was just for the night.

We intended an early start, but breakfast in the dining room ended up being a massive chat fest – shock me! We hit the road for what was to be our longest day on the road for the whole trip heading south toward Arles.

Eight hours in the car literally flew by at 130kms/hr as the changes in scenery from Paris to Arles are considerable.  Flat plains, sparsely treed Between Paris and Loire, then genuine farmland beginning to undulate ever so slightly in the distance with many colours populating the views.  The closer we got to Arles, the landscape took another dramatic turn, with rolling hills becoming steep mountains, and the lovely farm land becoming rocky outcrops.  It’s hard to comprehend such dramatic change in such a short distance – approx 1000kms: +/- a couple of hundred thanks to detours…..

Arles is on the edge of the Provence area of southern France and has a very strong Italian history and heritage.  Julia’s Caesar set up camp here for a while and it is significant with the buildings and history all resembling parts of Italy.  Many Roman ruins are found in this area and are in meticulous order.

Arles itself is, well let’s be honest – it’s a bit “meh!”  It’s a great place to base yourself for touring through Provence but as a town it’s underwhelming.  It does have a lovely little Old Town with some terrific restaurants which we sampled over a couple of nights.  It also does have the best and most complete Roman Amphitheatre set of ruins that I’ve seen anywhere.  They still use it today for bullfights, concerts and sporting events.

Vincent Van Gogh lived in Arles for a couple of years in the late 1880s after his time in Paris.  He painted a couple of thousand works while he lived here, focusing on portraits and some still life from the surrounding locales.  By chance they had an exhibition of some of his original works in a lovely old studio right near where he used to live, so we spent a nice afternoon checking it out.

Can’t say I don’t do culcha when we travel!

We then spent an unreal day doing a circle drive out to Avignon and then to Nimes.

Avignon rocks. No doubt about it.  Avignon was the location of the start of Christendom in France, and has since become a pseudo Papal City.  The history around this is fascinating – tales of divine intervention, assistance from the Holy Trinity to ensure buildings were completed are everywhere. Believe it or not. I like to believe it because it makes for good stories.  Running alongside the Rhone River again, it is just a beautiful town.

Karen wanted to check this place out as well because it has an unbelievable bridge that we wanted to visit.  There it is, right in the main drag….wait, that’s not it at all! What we were looking at was the Pont D’Avignon which linked the old town across the river to where the Popes set up residence. It’s beautiful. And the highlight here was even though it wasn’t the bridge we thought it was going to be, Karen still knew a high school song in French “Sur la Pont D’Avignon” that she sang…and sang…to the extent that I couldn’t get it out of my head.  It’s a rubbish song.

Anyway, where is that other bridge? Viola! It’s called the Pont du Gard. We saw it on a post card in a souvenir shop and half an hour later we happened upon one of the most amazing pieces of engineering I’ve ever seen…..2,000 years ago, they determined they needed fresh water supply to the town, so they set about building a water aqueduct…by hand…in just five years. It is still in perfect condition now.  Mind blown.

Back roads are good in France and save a freaking fortune as tolls on the Autoways are terrifying.  Heading down to Arles we spent over €50 ($75) in a day trip. So across through the beautiful backroads full of vineyards, olive groves, fruit farms we head to Nimes which is another place of historical significance.

Back in the day, good old Mate Julius Caesar decided this would be an awesome place to invade and set up camp.  Close access to the Mediterranean, lush and verdant fields to grow his vino and olives and the ability to spread his might across the south of France. It’s a fairly large town, but has some brilliant ruins still in excellent condition which strangely and interestingly sit side by side with modern buildings in the city centre.

After another long day touring, we headed back to Arles but decided to stop in one of the thousand cellar doors to vineyards we’d been seeing all day. We must have picked the ONLY one where the staff spoke not one word of English.  Not one.  I speak more French than they speak English. I speak more Egyptian than they speak English.

So, how do you pick out wines when no one has a freaking clue what they are?  By the
Label of course! They had some “Gold Medal Winners” (it was on the label) so we bought them. One rose (we think) and two reds…one of the Reds is good.  Anyway, the funniest thing was when I asked her if she spoke any English and she quite quickly said  “non”.  She asked us if we spoke any French and we said “un peu” or, “a little”. So, she set off for the next ten minutes explaining everything about these wines – in French – at a hundred miles an hour.

Karen was very polite and kept nodding and saying “oui” and “non” at seemingly the right times.  In the end I picked up the three bottles and walked to the cash register.  Then she told us in French how much she enjoyed talking about wines when neither of us knew what we were saying to each other.

Only in France.

For more of our pics of the Loire Valley click this link

For more of our pics from Arles click this link

For more of our pics from Avignon click on this link

For more of our pics from Nimes click this link

Au Revoir !