Drop by Drop

Vacation Days 9-12

Cagnes (the “g” is silent) sur Mer is located about 10 kilometers west of Nice on the coast of extreme southwestern France. The directions we were given to find the villa in which we stayed, are technically correct; however, they presume an acquaintence with the streets. We are told to follow a particular street all the way up to the castle and then down the hill to the villa. Unfortunately, they do not mention that one turn on the road is almost hidden -- at east we couldn't see as we were heading up the street.  It was a sharp right turn at the top of the hill that, when approaching the turn from downhill (and all you can see is the hood of your car, the tops of the uildings and the sky), it looks like the street comes to a dead-end.

Arriving at the villa only after finding someone that both spoke English and knew where the villa was, we unload our bags at the front step and are directed to the private parking lot at the next street down. But when I take the car down this narrow one-way street (Linda stayed at the villa), I approach the next street to find that two cars are coming out in the opposite direction of the way I was supposed to go on the street. With two cars behind me, I am unable to make the 150 degree, three-point turn necessary to go up that street to the parking lot. "No problem," I say, "I'll just turn at the next street and come back to the street from the other direction." THAT was an error! 

Fifteen minutes later I find my way back to the villa along the route that we took to get to it to begin with. My "No-Complaints" bracelet had a workout on that little jaunt! After arriving back to the villa and getting explicit instructions from our hostess to make sure I insist upon turning up the next street below (that is, to not be bullied by the other drivers), I find the parking lot, negotiate the very tight turn into it (I can see why the French like their cars small), park the car and find the steps that take me up to the villa -- there are 82 steps, I know because I counted them. But they take you past the garden at one terrace, a patio at another terrace, the living quarters of the owner of the villa on another terrace and finally to the patio of our villa.  What a lovely place!

The oldest part of the villa was built before Columbus discovered America, in the mid-1400's. It had an addition made during the 18th century.

There are eight rooms in our bed & breakfast, the Villa Estelle, located about 300 meters down the hill from the Grimaldi Castle. Our hostess, Celina, is a wonderfully expressive woman, the daughter-in-law of the owner of the villa. She takes great care to explain the sights of the city and surrounding area and to ensure we have what we want to be comfortable.

One point of interest that she did not point out to us was the “Loop of the Lost”. As one of the main streets of Cagnes sur Mer winds through the city and approaches the freeway A-8, part of the system of freeways that wind along the coast from Spain to Italy, there is an exit ramp that has no other function than to take you in the opposite direction on the same street – hence, the “Loop of the Lost.”  We have become very familiar with this off-ramp-on-ramp, frequenting it about every time we leave the parking lot. But when we happen upon it, we know exactly how to get back to our villa.

There are about 2,000 people that live in the Medieval Village, the 15^th century development that grew up on the steep hill around the Grimaldi Castle, or otherwise known as Chateau Eglise. And those 2,000 have to be in great shape – to leave your house, you have to either walk up or walk down, but if you walk down, then you’ll have to walk up when you return. That’s not to say there aren’t cars here – there are, lots of them, and they are parked in some of the most precarious places, separated by inches from the path of passing traffic. But if you’re not leaving the hill, it’s a lot easier to leave your car parked where it is.

The streets are narrow (of course) and they have little obstacles like stone steps leading up to a door way on the street, that from the scraps and marks on them have caught many a car.  Thankfully, we missed them all!

On our way back from dinner this evening we happened by a three-floor apartment in a building near the top of the hill. The real estate sign boasted of floor space about 105 square meters (1110 sq. ft.), well-appointed with high quality materials in a recent renovation with a view of the sea (3 kilometers away) from the top floor – it will only cost you 420,000 Euros (that’s about $580,000). That’s without a garage. (photo at right is a view off the east of the top of the hill -- the castle and the flat mentioned above are behind the photographer).

We had expected that the village would be separated from the rest of the metropolitan area by some rural area. It turns out that Cagnes sur Mer is surrounded by city much like Edgewater is surrounded by Denver, Lakewood and Wheat Ridge, more hilly certainly, and with different architecture, but surrounded by city. Up in the Medieval Village, on the slopes of the hill on which Chateau Eglise is located, there is a sense of isolation from the bustle below. There is a sense of "neighborhood".

From here we venture west to Grasse, a perfume producing city, along a narrow, winding, very busy road. On one turn, I catch a glimpse of the fender of a large truck coming in the opposite direction. It’s too large to allow both of us to pass. Thankfully, the brakes work well! Here’s another instance of our traveling the highway at about 30-35 miles per hour and coming to a complete stop in order to squeeze by the traffic.  France is an interesting place to drive!

After another trip to a hilltop village called St. Paul de Vence, we decide to park the car and hoof it for the rest of our stay in Cagnes sur Mer. But there is lots to see just here in the village -- and it's a lot more peaceful to not go down into the city.

Vacation Days 5-8

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We awaken Saturday, May 19, in Cadaques, Spain, with anticipation – mine of discovering a new place, Linda’s of introducing me to a familiar place. In July, 2001, she accompanied a friend here to attend a painting workshop presented by the friend’s friend and an acquaintance of ours, Robert Venosa, an artist of some repute. When Bob first discovered Cadaques in the early 70’s, he hung out with Salvador Dali. Dali is the artist perhaps most famous for his melting clock faces and elephants on stilts; he lived a kilometer away in Port Lligat, a village on the other side of the spit of land on which Cadaques is located.

It was on her daily walk from the island at the end of the spit (the location of the workshop and her apartment) to the village center that Linda passed Playa Sol, the hotel at which we were staying. A small pebble and sand beach in front of the hotel provided us with a wonderful, gentle surf sound for our sleep each night after we moved from the “emergency” room in which we stayed the first night. The road between the beach and the hotel is the village’s thoroughfare – everything from large trucks to loud, staccato motorbikes make their way along this strip of blacktop – often at speeds too great for the pedestrians that had to share the road in some spots. Being just barely two lanes in most places, less in the other places, drivers need to be focused when they enter this artery; blind curves, wide vehicles and motorbike drivers that apparently think a helmet will keep them from all harm make the road INTO Cadaques seem like a breeze. We were fortunate that we had reserved a third-floor seaside room; there the traffic noise was tolerable and the abrasive rat-a-tat-tat of the motorbikes lost its sting.

The walk into the village center takes about ten minutes – along the seawall, around another small beach, along the boat tie-downs and along the central beach brings us to the “village square”, an elevated, sand/clay area that is about 10 meters by 30 meters.  During our first day in Cadaques we had the “pleasure” of listening to a mechanical mariachi band ("would someone please stop feeding that thing coins?" J). On one side of the “square” was the “Cadaques Freeway” and the beach with two beach bars; on the other were a number of restaurants, souvenir shops and small grocery stores. And up from the “Freeway” there rose a warren of cobble stone “streets”, the only vehicles that could travel them were motorbikes, on which, thankfully, there were few. Here residences were interspersed with shops, meat markets, vegetable stands and restaurants. Growing up the all-stucco building walls were bougainvilleas of various colors – pinks, reds and dark violet. Once in a while you’ll see a white jasmine, which perfumes the street up and down. I say “up and down” because Cadaques is built on a steep, rocky outcropping of Northeastern Spain, with its church at the top and the village spreading out below it to the beach and sea.

And some church it is. When you walk into the church from the seaside entrance high on the hill you are greeted to a most extraordinary altar – a golden wall of carvings that stretches 35-40 feet high and just as wide, lit by a bank of spot lights that are switched on by a 4-minute  meter that accepts 1 Euro coins. I’m thinking the church does not need bake sales to raise funds. To the left and right are crèches that house much smaller but just as intricate religious scenes. To the left of the nave is a lovely prayer chapel. It’s a bit more elaborate than our new church will be.

It takes us a day to feel comfortable navigating the warren of cobblestone streets – the rule of thumb is if you’re lost, go downhill. But because the mix of shops and residences, one gets the feeling of what it would have been like to have lived in the village – with the exception of the presence of motorbikes and the absence of raw sewage draining down the streets J.

This is the first day that we have parked the car. With a long breath out we feel like we can now start to relax – I can get used to this! But I need to be careful – the last time I really got into doing nothing, on a sales reward trip to Hawaii in 1991, I ended up not getting back into the swing of things in the work-a-day world until I got fired. J Ah well, that helped free me from the worldly aspirations so that I could eventually pursue ministry.

The streets, other than the “Freeway”, are paved with dark, flat stones laid on their edge. If you can imagine a wall being built of these flat stones and then toppled over, intact, you’ll get a sense of what these streets look like. The patterns are used to facilitate the drainage of water and to provide traction for the steep uphill climbs and downhill braking. In one street,  the entrance to a delightful little restaurant, La Serena, the stones are placed in a pattern that makes a mermaid. It was constructed in 1962 by an artist living on this particular street. One is reminded often that it is dangerous to drag your feet. Pick ’em up and set em’ down – that’ll keep you from tripping.

Three days of getting up, having a shower and breakfast, a fair amount of blogging (as you can tell), walking into town and a little bit of shopping (although we never did buy anything), having dinner, returning to the hotel and falling asleep – that’s pretty much how it went. Then on Tuesday, May 22, we headed north and east along the coast of France to a little village 5 kilometers from the Nice airport. Cagnes sur Mer is situated on the sides of a hill dominated by Chateau Eglise; these fifteenth century homes provide a peaceful redoubt from the noise and bustle of the city below.

Here the streets are just as steep as in Cadaques, except they are a bit wider. This allows cars to navigate many of the streets in this hillside village. Of course, there are lots of pedestrian-only streets here but cars routinely squeeze between the buildings into and out of the village. In our attempt to navigate these streets to find our villa, we got lost many times until we found someone that spoke English and knew the location of the villa. Once we arrived at the  villa and unloaded the luggage, I was directed to their private parking lot downhill from the villa. In her broken English, the hostess told me to take the immediate right just down the hill two hundred feet. But because it was a 150 degree turn, I was certain that this couldn’t possibly be what she meant. Added to that the car behind me urging me on and the two cars coming out of that street, I went on down the hill to what MUST have been her intended directions. Alas, she meant what she said – and I got lost again.  After another 15 minutes I found the villa again.  This time I negotiated the three-point turn and arrived at their parking  lot located 82 steps below the main level of the villa (yes, I counted them).

Thankfully, we have rented a small car. But you can tell from the gouge marks on the walls where the streets bend that there have been many attempts to put larger vehicles through the streets or unskilled drivers have been at the wheel. On several occasions, as we have walked up or down the streets, we’ve had to quickly get out of the way of a vehicle, lest we arrive home in a body bag. An interesting and charming place but I am certain I would not want to live here!

On the way across Southern France, I begin to get that “weird feeling” in my body that is usually my body’s signal that a bug is on its way.  Sure enough, by the time we arrive in Cagnes s/ Mer (another way it is labeled on highway and street signs), I am having a bit of a fever, an “almost cough” and an upset stomach. With the stress of finding the place, then getting lost again, then the 82 steps from the parking lot, I am ready for bed. “But wait,” says Linda. “Let’s get something to eat first.” So we hike about 300 meters uphill to a little pizza place on the grounds of the Chateau, have a meal and back to the villa. And so ends day 8 of our vacation.

Vacation Day 4

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We’ve been in France for three days and have not been able to access the internet. Our plan was to use Skype to call home upon our arrival in Paris – from Skype user to Skype user, the call is free.  Even calls over the internet using Skype to land line or cell phones are only 2 cents per minute, regardless of where you’re calling. Being without internet access, we have not yet contacted our daughter Shannon.

There is a little part of me that is wondering how she feels not getting that “arrived safely” call that we have not received on occasion.  Perhaps she’ll now see the value of that call J.

After breakfast of, yes, you guessed it – croissants, orange juice and coffee, we head out of town to Montsegur, a mountain-top chateau originally built as a sun-temple by the Visigoths in the 7^th or 8^th century and renovated by the Cathars as a defensive structure in the late 12^th century.  We had visited it seven years ago; I had climbed to the fortress at the top of the mountain while Linda and Shannon waited in the car below.  This time Linda was determined to make the climb!  Arriving just after 8:00 am, we had the parking lot at the bottom of the trail virtually to ourselves. One other person was up the mountain – we knew that, not just by the only other car in the parking lot, but by the black and white dog that would visit from time  to time as we made the 200+ meter climb.

It is a beautiful sunny day, not too hot after the full day of rain we experienced in our travel south yesterday. And it is very fortunate it is not raining – the soil and rocky trail would be very hard to climb if it were wet.  The night of no rain has let the soil drain and the rocks dry. But it is plenty challenging in that it is very steep. Thankfully, there has been substantial trail maintenance in years past so the trail is predominantly steps cut into the mountain and reinforced by railroad ties and rocks. Did I say it was steep?

Although winded by the time we were 100 meters up the mountain, Linda is determined to get to the top this time.  She has a particular connection with the two Esclamondes, a grandmother and granddaughter, that were in the party of 250+ Cathars that withstood a 6-8 month siege by the soldiers of the Ambigesian Crusade in 1211-1212. At the end of that siege, the entire party of Cathars were marched to the bottom of the mountain and burned at the stake. During their descent, it is said that they sang their sacred songs, knowing full well what was to be their fate at the bottom of the mountain.

After about 45 minutes of climbing we walk through the portal of the chateau into the courtyard. On our  left is the keep, the defensive tower with its customary bowman slits in the walls.  All around us are the 30’ walls that are essentially intact. In the walls we can see the holes into which the floor joist beams were fitted.  Of course, the floors and beams have long since rotted away. The floor of the courtyard is far from flat.  It appears that the mountain has something to say about its composition. Large rocks buried into the soil indicate it was never flat.  But the two floors above the ground level obviously provided substantial living space for the occupants. However, the 250+ Cathars lived mostly in lean-tos that were located just outside the walls on all sides of the citadel. With vertical walls on three sides of the mountain, the only approach to the top was from the side up which we hiked. But just outside the walls was a terrace that ranged from 20-50 feet most of the way around the structure.  It was thought that the people came into the castle only when they were threatened.

We spent about an hour moseying about the castle, even though it is only about 200’x100’. While we were there, Linda had an interesting experience – which, I’m sure, she will write about at some point in the future.

Making it back down the mountain in about 30 minutes, we headed off to northeastern Spain, to a little town on the coast called Cadaques, just 30 kilometers east of Figueres and 30 kilometers south of France. We had plenty of time to get there (our reservation in the hotel there wasn’t until the following night) so we decided to explore some along the way.

Not far from Montsegur, we saw a sign for another chateau pointing to the north of the highway on which we had driven earlier in the morning.  Not having seen anything that seemed interesting on that side of the road, we were curious. To the north we went!

We followed this one lane black-top road through the forest, thinking that it was a great design idea, a one-lane road.  Obviously, there wasn’t much traffic on it so it made sense to not waste the money to pave two lanes when one lane would do. Nice theory – assuming there wasn’t much traffic. Climbing through the forest, ascending the side of the mountain, we came around a corner with a bit too much velocity (that’s an innocent sounding word, isn’t it? “Velocity”?). We almost hit a car head on! Not to worry, the brakes worked and neither driver was distracted by an iPod or cell phone. Of course, it took Linda several minutes to catch her breath again. But as I told her, a little adrenaline is good for the heart from time to time.

As we approached the clearing we could see a little village clustered on the side of the  mountain, about 100 meters below an ancient structure – another Cathar fortress. As we entered the village, we saw a sign on the road that said, “Chambre de Hote”. Ah-hah! We know what that means.  Our reservation in Cadaques wasn’t until the following night – so we backed up, pulled up a very steep driveway into a parking area for three cars situated below a beautiful renovated home (we keep being exposed to renovated buildings – do you think there’s some of that in our future?). We had just taken a photo of the village at the clearing from which we first saw the village with the home sitting off to the right.

I walked up a steep walkway to the house and was greeted by a gentleman that came from the house into the yard.  His name was Yves and, yes, it was a bed and breakfast, but, no, he did not have any vacancies until the 27^th of May, a time when we were going to be 200 kilometers east with reservations in Menerbes in the Luberon. But the price was right – 50 Euros for two people including breakfast.

The view across the terraced lawn was directly to Montsegur. He invited us into the living room of the house. Well-appointed, the craftsmanship of the stonework and interior design was exceptional. And there in the middle of the large picture window was that same view of Montsegur, but this time it was also framed by the trimmed, upright junipers – it was an extraordinary sight! He told us that he had done the work; he had obviously constructed the house with loving devotion. I thought, “Are you sure you don’t have any rooms for tonight? We wouldn’t have been led here for nothing!”

He gave us a card on which he had his website address so that the next time we were to be in the area we could contact him. Then he asked us where we were from.  We told him “Colorado, USA.” He said, “Yes, I’ve had someone from Colorado visit my website recently.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any rooms for tonight?” “No, I’ve only got three rooms and one lady is here for a retreat from France, another couple from Rotterdam and a gentleman from Germany. Sorry.” Curious as to why we had ended up there, we bid “au revoir” and set off down the road.

The village was small but it did have a restaurant. At its edge, the village had the trail-head that went up to the Cathar fortress on the west edge of town. Passing the several cars that were parked there, we went across the mountain to what we could now see was another village a kilometer away at about the same elevation as the one we were leaving. Proceeding more cautiously, we arrived without incident, passed the fifteen or so houses and headed down the road back to the highway. Scratching our heads as to what that side-trip was about, we nonetheless appreciated the opportunity to see French life off the beaten path.

You’ve probably seen the beautiful pastoral scenes of sheep herders in the mountains of northern Spain?  It could be those photos were taken in Andorra, a small, independent principality located in the Pyrennees between France and Spain – and we were only about 30 kilometers from there. Both Linda and I love the pristine, high-country panoramas we find on Trail Ridge Road. And 30 kilometers will only take us about 20 minutes – so we’re off!

We go through a few villages that remind us a little of Grand Lake (without the water) or Estes Park (without the salt water taffy and leather shops). We’re surrounded by high valley walls and the promise of glorious vistas. There’s a bit of unexpected traffic though.  Obviously, the French like those same sights. We motor along at 25 or 35 kilometers/hour, behind a line of cars and two big buses. From time to time there are passing lanes that let us make progress around the traffic until, finally, we are not breathing in diesel smoke (although we’re not sure how much our little diesel car is belching, particularly when we accelerate around the traffic).

But we must be getting close, the pass is not very far ahead.  We come around a curve and find two tall cranes at construction sites right next to the road. “They must be building a ski area!” Around another turn and we find that the ski area is already built; but what they were building were obviously hotels – or were they more department stores? Ahead of us is the largest mass of five and six-story buildings that were shops, stores, department stores, retail outlets of every kind!  And it wasn’t just for a few city blocks – these buildings went on and on for a kilometer or more, following the highway as it climbed the mountain to the pass.  And there on top of the pass were three gas stations – not one, not two, but three gas stations right on the top of the pass! Over the top of the pass we had a bit of break – apparently the sides of the road were too steep to have buildings on them. But about a kilometer down the road was another mass of buildings – these were far fewer in number.

By this time we were hungry. We had spent about an hour and a half coming those 30 kilometers so we stopped for some lunch at an internet café – it was also our first opportunity to email Shannon that we were safe (at least we thought we were). Twenty minutes on an internet pc and 3 Euros later, we’d finally made contact. I think a simple phone call from a phone booth three days earlier would have been less expensive and less trouble!

After lunch we headed on south through Andorra, expecting to find what was called Andorra-La-Vella a few kilometers away.  That must be the little Alpine village that we were expecting. Not to be.  Oh, Andorra-La-Vella was there all right, nestled in the valley just north of the Spanish border. Imagine Vail Village multiplied about ten times and jammed into the same valley as Vail sits, spread it over about five kilometers and make sure the buildings are really close together.  There you have it, Andorra-La-Vella.

It turns out that this independent principality is its own taxing authority. They have engineered it such that it is enough below the levels of France and Spain that people drive many, many kilometers to shop there.

It had taken us about two hours to travel about 45 kilometers (not including lunch). We were delighted to cross the border into Spain. We still had plenty of daylight left but we also had about 150 kilometers through mountainous terrain before Cadaques, by this time our intended destination for the night.

Much of the roads across northern Spain were fairly typical Colorado mountain highway. We came to one stretch, though, where we had the option of taking a tunnel through the mountains to a highway leading down to Barcelona (not our desired route) or up over the mountains on a more direct route.  Of course, we chose the latter.

It was a beautiful road, lots of vistas, well-maintained and narrow. And twisty. But our car handled well and we made good progress. We ended up in Figueres at about rush hour – it must have been rush hour because there was a LOT of traffic. We only got lost once. And we made it through in about 30 minutes. After Andorra, that was nothin’!

But the road to Cadaques east of Figueres was particularly challenging at this hour of the day. The trip across the narrow road earlier in the afternoon was just a warm-up for this 20 kilometer track. We did make it without incident (thank you, God) and arrived at our hotel 24 hours early. Being the Thursday after the national holiday on Wednesday and part of the holiday weekend, we were taking a bit of a chance coming into Cadaques without reservations. As I stepped up to the desk, another couple were being told that, sorry, the hotel was full. After they left, I asked the same question, explaining that I had a reservation for the following night but we had arrived early. “Ah, for you, my friend, we have one emergency room remaining. The view is not what you’ll get with your room tomorrow, but at least it is a roof over your head!”

We sleep soundly this night.

Vacation Day 3

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Heading south 3 kilometers and then east 12 kilometers, we reached A-20 Southbound in fifteen minutes. And the rain was still falling.

This was our day to see much of central France. There will be mountains to the left of us and mountains to the right of us as we drive south on A-20.  At least, that’s what I’ve been led to believe. In the light rain we can see perhaps a mile in either direction. We do experience some beautiful countryside and a castle or two within that two-mile-wide corridor. But the higher mountains will have to wait for another trip.  Our plans call for us to go back to Paris on A-75, a freeway about 100 or so kilometers to the east of our present path.  Ah well, another excuse to come back to France (as if the croissants are not enough).

Somewhere in the area of Limoges we stop for fuel.  Yes, we are fortunate in the US, our gas prices are only $3+/gallon. In France the prices are in the neighborhood of $6.25/gallon.  So when we pull into the gas station, I’m expecting a $100 fill-up.  It turns out to be “only” $75 due to the 60 kilometer/gal mileage we are getting on our rental car! Dieseled up, we’re headed south again – through Brive-La-Gaillarde, near Cahors, through Montabaun and into Toulouse – just in time for lunch.  But now we’re back in “familiar territory” since it was Toulouse that we flew into when we visited this area in 2000 with Shannon.

After looking in vain for a restaurant for about 45 minutes, we decided to continue south to Foix, one of our favorite towns in France.  But about 15 kilometers from Foix, we barrel into another traffic jam. May 17 is a holiday in France.  We have caught the holiday traffic heading east through Carcassonne to the coast northeast and south of Narbonne. Delayed by an hour, we finally reach the off-ramp to Foix by mid-afternoon. The rain has finally stopped.

Foix is not a “party town” – so don’t plan on cuttin’ the rug when you arrive. There’s not much night life and there are no outstanding restaurants that we know of, but it is nestled in the mountains on the north side of the Pyrenees with the beautiful Chateau de Foix built on a  pedestal of rock in the center of town. Of course, the Chateau and the village grew up together, the laborers needing a place to live while the chateau was being built. Seven years ago this was my first experience of driving through streets narrow enough to force me to pull in the side view mirrors of the car to pass through some of the streets. 

At night they have the Chateau lit up from all sides.  It’s quite a sight to see it hanging in the air in the middle of the night.  Having been through the Chateau on our prior trip, we decided we’d save any further climbing for Montsegur. That’s the site about 35 kilometers southeast of Foix that was the Cathar’s last significant stand against the Catholic Church in the early 13^th Century (more on that in my first talk after our return).

We find a roadside motel and go to bed early. We’re still trying to get our body clocks oriented to the sun and get caught up on our sleep.

Vacation Day 2

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A long night’s sleep does wonders. Getting up fairly early, we go to the breakfast serving area of the hotel, a quaint, beamed second-floor room above the office with a coffee and croissant bar.  The hostess had just visited the southwestern U.S. last year, seeing the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks.  It seems the southwestern U.S. is considered a very exotic place by Europeans, who also have a fancy for the Native American culture. She visited Phoenix and San Francisco with her husband and children but their most favorite spots were the national parks.

After breakfast we headed south, reaching Orleans in about 30 minutes.  Our chosen route was to Tours (the “s” is silent), with a visit to the ten castles located along the Loire River between Orleans and Tours (a recommendation that we visit this area was made by Xavier). But first, let’s get lost in Orleans! By the time we found our prescribed route, we had also found the cathedral of Orleans – but there was not a parking place to be had within the several blocks of the cathedral. As we later discovered in a book of the Chateaus of France, there are some spectacular castles in this area but we saw only one of the ten up close. It turns out that Xavier’s description of the castles being located on the river was not exactly the way it was – at least from the road we saw only one on the river and another we saw through the trees about a kilometer away from the river. Even though we slept for about seven hours (our body clocks were way out of kilter by this time), we were not rested enough to go hiking through castle grounds; we were more interested in seeing the countryside – and that was a lot easier J. Besides, we had been on the road for about four hours and covered only about 150 kilometers. With our destination being the South of France, we were not making very good time through the countryside.

We sped through Tours, heading back through the countryside towards Chateauroux, hoping to get a place to stay there that second evening in France. We had not converted any dollars to Euros yet. While I have been told it is cheaper to buy Euros in the US than it is to sell dollars in Europe, the one place I checked at DIA put a conversion rate of $1.46 per Euro, an eight cent premium over the prevailing market conversion rate. Plus he wanted another $5 just to do the deal. As I said, “No thanks,” he told me “good luck” with a knowing inflection in his voice. But it turns out that buying Euros in France is less expensive than doing the conversion at DIA. In any case, in France the most likely place to get money converted is at their post office, La Poste.

As we circled around Loches, a moderate-sized town about half-way between Tours and Chateauroux, we decided to stop at La Poste before they closed for the day to get some Euros in our pocket – it was only mid-afternoon but we didn’t know when we would happen by a La Poste office later that day. The clerk in the office told us that while she could not convert the funds, the central office in the center of Loches could. So she gave us directions to go back into the city center (we had arrived at her office following the highway by-pass around the city).  It was a busy town, lots of traffic and a minimum of parking spaces.  But we found one right by the door of La Poste.

With Euros in hand we headed out of the city once again.  But as we were leaving town, I decided to turn left towards the castle up on the hill just adjacent to city center (“just because we’re on vacation, we can do this,” I said).  Winding through the streets, we came upon the west entrance to the castle complex, finding one of several parking spots about 50 meters from the gate. Inside the castle walls we found shops, restaurants and apartments – as we might imagine were there a millennium ago, serving different food perhaps, and appointed with different furniture certainly, but in those very same buildings! We came upon a cathedral that was built in 1045-1060. It had been renovated (much more so than we plan in our new church) in 1160 by none other than the Count of Anjou, the husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine, an ancestor of ours on my mother’s side. Nearby we found the “keep”, the defensive structure of the castle complex.  With fresh Euros in hand, we paid the 7 Euro entrance fee and started walking through the “keep” – down the stairs into the dungeons, into the dungeon where the Duke of Milan, the patron of Leonardo DaVinci, was held for eight years by a 16^th century Count of Anjou.

Back up the stairs to the torture room, then on up to the top of the smaller tower, where we could see the entire surrounding city of Loches – except for that part of the horizon blocked by the taller walls of the “keep” – which rise some 180’ about the castle grounds.  The walls of this keep are the tallest remaining of any castle in Europe. Six meters thick at the base and one meter thick at the top, there are a lot of “volunteer hours” invested in building this fortress! Enclosed in those walls were the stairs to the top floors of the keep – long since collapsed into the bottom of the structure.  But the beam holes in the wall defined the locations of the floors of each level, somehow giving a sense of what it might have been like to hold a cross-bow as a defender of this enormous structure. On the upper levels of the keep, they’ve built steel catwalks to some of the defensive positions, vertical slits in the wall through which bowmen could fire at the attackers of the fortress – of which there were many over the many centuries the place was occupied.

As we were taking the tour of the keep, reading about the various kings and would-be kings that held this spot, we realized that it was Jean Sans Terain (otherwise known as John Landless to the French and John Lackland to the English) that held the castle (and then lost it) during Richard the Lionhearted’s detention by Leopold in 1193.  It was John Lackland (or King John of Robin Hood fame), the youngest son of Eleanor of Aquataine, that was our direct ancestor.  And this was one of only two castles in France that held any connection to our family – and we “just happened upon it.” Linda insists that we were led to it because of the “series of fortunate incidents” that landed us at the castle gate.

During our visit to Loches, our camera's battery dies so we ended up with only a couple of photos of the cathedral and one of the castle grounds overlooking the city, none of the keep.  Ah well, an excuse to visit the place again in the future. And this was another opportunity for Linda to forgive me for not preparing more completely for our trip.  I could have bought an extra battery for the camera, but noooo, I had to save a few bucks and get one on the internet – too late to receive it before we left for Europe.

But with lots of memories in mind, and nearing four o’clock in the afternoon, we headed east to Chateauroux. But the lack of sleep caught up with me. We took a side trip off the highway into a barley field – which was in full seed but not yet ready to harvest. Finding a spot where we could back the car off the road, I caught about 20 minutes of sleep while Linda read a book.  The afternoon breeze was blowing through the barley, giving a wonderful fragrance to the air. Waking up refreshed, we headed east once again. A few kilometers down the road, we passed a sign that said “Chambres de Hote”. Following the signs back into the fields for about a kilometer, we found a farmhouse that didn’t quite suit our fancy for a place to stay that evening. Back to the highway!

About ten kilometers further east we came into a village – it was now about 6:00 pm and we were both getting tired of driving.  We passed by a very large golf ball sitting on a tee. Of course, it was the sign for the village golf course.  So we followed the drive down into the course to the clubhouse.  What a beautiful golf course it was! Nestled in a forest, the fairways were a deep, lush green and the greens  were as well-groomed as any I’ve seen. The late afternoon sunlight drove the greens deeper into the spectrum. It was obvious they had no lodging, but I went into the clubhouse to ask if they knew of any bed & breakfast nearby (of course, only one person spoke English but she was very helpful). Another person there suggested to her that the house about 3 kilometers north of the village had rooms for rent. She started to give me instructions on how to get there, but the fellow offering her advice indicated he would take us there instead.

So into his truck he hopped and off we went into the countryside, along a one-lane blacktop road through fields of grain waving in the breeze. What a gorgeous evening. A pheasant cock popped out of the grain field about 50 meters ahead of us, then turned and went back in – but not before we passed by to see his bright green head and red neck as he ducked into the stocks of grain (or should I say “he pheasanted into the stocks of grain”?).

It had begun to drizzle by the time we arrived at the chateau, which also had a sign that said “Chambres de Hote” on its front gate. The hostess did not speak English but our guide made the point that we needed a place to stay that evening. Not surprisingly, no other guests were there that evening. She led us upstairs to a musty-smelling AND wonderful bedroom full of antiques with a private bath, overlooking a lawn which opened out over the trimmed hedge into the fields south of the chateau. Exhausted and famished, we went back into the village to find a place to eat. With one restaurant not appealing to us, we found a little grocery, bought some dried bread/crackers and went back to our chateau where we had some brie cheese and wine.

During the night the rain became more persistent. Upon waking at 5:00 am (body clocks still playing tricks on us), the smell of rain in the farmland was wonderful. The large cedar trees in front of the  chateau glistened in the gray light of the cloudy morning. Deciding to forego a cold shower (apparently they had not yet turned on the hot water for the tourist season), we packed and made ready to depart.

With our arising so early, we thought the hostess had not yet prepared our included breakfast. So we loaded our several bags back into the car. I wandered the grounds of the chateau taking pictures of the lawn, the trees and the surrounding buildings.  When I got back to the car, I saw the hostess peeking out the window.  So I went to the kitchen door of the chateau to apologize to her as best I could for our being up so early. As I was trying to make the point that she didn’t need to fix our breakfast, she was trying to make the point that the breakfast was waiting for us on the dining room table.  Luckily, she made her point before I made mine J.

Croissants made in France surpass any I’ve had here in the U.S. They are flaky, buttery and oh-so tender – well worth the trip to France for them alone.  She had home-grown strawberries, great coffee, several flavors of jelly – I’m guessing made in her kitchen – and orange juice.  As we ate our breakfast in that very old dining room (I really wanted to ask her about the history of the chateau), she was doting on us, all decked out in her knit suit and gold necklace, presenting herself as best anyone could at that hour of the day! Fully filled, with an “au revoir”, we bid her goodbye and headed off into the rain, to the highway three kilometers south, then to Chateauroux about 12 kilometers east, and then points south along the A-20 freeway.

We have met so many wonderful people in France. Our hostess this night spoke not one bit of English but she made us feel so welcome in her home. The many antiques in her home were there for our enjoyment, and apparently not a bit of worry on her part for the treasures she had exposed. The fellow at the golf course chose to lead us to our lodging rather than risk our getting lost. The many people along the way who pointed us in the right direction as we discovered we were lost.  It reminds me of that farmer who was tending fields along the road that was asked by a traveler, “What are the people like in the village ahead?” The farmer answered with a question, “What are they like where you come from?” The first traveler along the road answered, “They are unfriendly and rude,” to which the farmer said, “You’ll find the villagers here the same, unfriendly and rude.”  To a second traveler who asked “What are the people like in the village ahead?” the farmer asked the same question. The second traveler said, “The people where I come from are friendly and helpful,” to which the farmer answered, “You’ll find the villagers friendly and helpful here, too.” And the farmer was right in both cases.

Vacation Day 1

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Travel can be stressful – displaced from the familiar, sometimes a new language, a new culture and the associated “normal behaviors”. And you might have the experience of finding something different than what you expected. Our trip to France has included all of that, although my expectation of meeting patient and welcoming people has been gloriously fulfilled.

The flight from Denver to Frankfurt took us just north of the Great Lakes, over Baffin Island, almost to the Arctic Circle, past the southern tip of Greenland, over Iceland, north of Ireland, over Scotland, to the south of Paris and into Germany. Every few minutes when the movies were not being shown, they would flash a map of our route and our progress along it onto overhead displays. Taking off at 5:30pm on Monday, the sun stayed to our left the entire trip; even at the darkest hour, it was still twilight out the left side of the plane. And arriving in Frankfurt from the northwest at about 11:00 am local time, there was the sun on our left – until we slipped through and below the clouds that were offering their water to the ground.

I had intended to sleep on the flight from Denver, because I knew we were to escape Paris immediately after picking up our rental car the following afternoon.  But sleep was not in the cards for me. Lufthansa treats its passengers well – with food and drink periodically served throughout the flight (with a couple of breaks for movies thrown in). Add to that a Frenchman from near Toulouse (pronounced “too-luz”) on my left and an oil man from Casper, WY, on my right, interesting conversation filled the rest of the flight.

Linda and I had been given center seats in a middle block of four seats. So when two seats in the row ahead of us opened up (the teenager occupants wanted to join their friends further back in the cabin), Linda moved into the middle of the three empty seats. Since no one wanted to sit in the middle block of seats, Linda was able to have an open seat to her left and right, making the flight substantially more comfortable for both her and me (we could still whisper “sweet nothings” to each other between the seats).

The Frenchman on my left, Xavier, was a specialist in sugar beet seeds. His employer had contracts with a seed processor in Sheridan, WY, and a grower in Oregon.  He made the trip to Sheridan quite often – he was scheduled to return there on May 29. The Casperian on my right was not nearly as talkative as Xavier. He was on his way to work – in Omar – a trip he made every four weeks for a four-week “shift”. This was a record breaking trip for him – he was able to make the trip to work with only four flight legs, not the normal five or six it usually took. But when we arrived in Frankfurt, he was only halfway in his day-long commute. Even when I worked for four months with a software developer that made systems to facilitate international trade, I did not get the sense of what “globalization” was all about until I sat for almost ten hours between these two commuters.

Xavier had five boys, a 20 year-old, a 16 year-old, one 14 year-old, another at 11 years and the last one at 8. With one daughter at 24, and observing the intense energy exhibited by boys around the church on Sunday morning, I just can’t imagine what having five boys in one house would be like. Being the youngest of three boys – my brothers were 6 and 10 years older, I had no idea at the time what my parents went through to get us out of the house in one piece J! Xavier’s 20 year-old went to school in Toulouse, about 75 kilometers away from home. Upon hearing that, I guessed out loud that his son came home about every two weeks – with a basket-full of clothes to be washed. He said, “How did you know that?” I shared my theory that 50 miles was “laundry distance” for a 20 year-old.

When we arrived in Frankfurt, we were put on a bus-train, hauled about a mile to the terminal and let out in front of multiple automatic sliding-glass doors.  The crowd, seeming to know where it was going, led us into the terminal, through a large open room, into a twisting hallway with frosted glass on one side, up the stairs and into a room with half a dozen customs agents sitting in their respective booths. Getting in one line, making it up to the agent, we were then told in German to go to another line. “Ah, so that’s what those overhead signs are about!”, I thought. Recognizing that we couldn’t possibly be a threat to their national security, they waved us through without even a question.

Down a long hallway, more frosted glass (what are they hiding on the other side?), up a couple of escalators, through a very busy concourse, down a long tunnel, catching as many moving sidewalks as we could (thankful that our bags were checked all the way to Paris), through gate areas where smokers imbibed before boarding their respective flights to wherever, finally arriving at the last gate on a very long concourse, A-42, we sat down to wait for our flight to Paris.

Whew! I was now ready for a nap. Catching a few winks here and there, after two hours we boarded our one-hour flight to Paris. Almost immediately I fell asleep. And I missed out on a traditional German lunch – two pieces of buttered dark bread surrounding a thick slice of cheese.

Upon awakening as we were approaching Charles DeGaulle airport, I noticed that the French country-side – at least here in the north – had very few rectangular fields.  It was as if the fields were defined by being “on the left side of the path” or “on the right side of the path” – wherever “the path” led.  And there were small villages spotting the countryside, literally every one to three kilometers along these winding roads.

Up to this point, our travel plans were unfolding uneventfully, just as we had planned. When we arrived in Paris, we went to the baggage claim area, found a luggage cart and loaded our bags in just a few minutes.  No worries, right? Well, almost right.  I was expecting to find right outside the baggage claim area the booth of our rental car agency, Kerwell.  Alas, no Kerwell. There was Hertz, Avis, National, Budget, Eurocar – but no Kerwell.

I asked at one booth where the Kerwell booth was – “Kerwell? What’s that?” was the reply, in very broken English.  Apologizing for not speaking French, I tried to explain that we had arranged for a rental car on the Internet with a company called Kerwell. “Not here, try Hertz,” was the reply. Not yet understanding that Kerwell was only a broker of rental cars, I asked one or two company’s representatives if they knew about Kerwell. Finally, I was told that I needed to have the confirmation slip that was given to me by Kerwell when I booked the reservation to know which rental agency had my prepaid reservation. I began to get a sinking feeling. With one hour of sleep in the last 24, I was not feeling up to the challenge ahead.

Coupled with that, Linda was asking me why I had not paid more attention to one of the few tasks assigned to me in preparation for the trip. Our last two months before the trip were rather hectic.  With me starting a part time job, trying to get the ducks in a row for an extended leave of absence from the church and the preparation for the upcoming Association of Unity Churches conference at which my new employer was going to be sponsoring the digital signage, it was not as if I didn’t have anything going on.  However, I knew that she had a point! I could have been more attentive to making the arrangements for the rental car. J

So off I went to find an internet terminal to access the Kerwell website to find our reservation confirmation.  That would seem to be easy enough, right?  We found Linda a spot to sit with our luggage; I walked ten paces to an elevator, pressed the “down” button without noticing which floor I was on (there were cars driving by outside the window and there was a fountain in the center of a circular drive – you’d think that I was on the “ground floor”). I noticed a “boutique level” on the elevator panel. I pressed it, the doors closed, then they opened; I was facing another similar concrete wall like on the floor I had just left. I walked around the corner… into the twilight zone.

There ahead of me was an information desk. Yes, the person spoke English. She directed me to a hallway around the corner to the internet terminal. I found it – and it was occupied by a person checking her email, and writing responses.  When it as apparent that she was a long way from being finished, I went into a newsstand and asked if there was another internet terminal nearby. “No, but you can buy a wireless access card for either 7.50 Euros or 15 Euros, depending on how long you need internet access.” That’s equivalent these days to about $11 and $21. Not wanting to blow our travel budget, I went back to wait at the terminal. She was still writing an email. So I went back to talk with Linda about our options. That’s when I realized that Rod Serling must be off in the corner somewhere narrating the plight of the lost American minister.

I went back to the elevator twice, each time entering, pressing the “ground floor” and having it open to a room full of people – but Linda was nowhere to be found.  She should have been just a few paces to the left of the elevator.  But there was just a wall there! There weren’t even any chairs like there were a few minutes before!  Functioning on one hour of sleep, I was not able to get my brain around the fact that Linda was two floors ABOVE the “boutique level”, not below it. You remember that theme of the Twilight Zone?  It was playing loud in my ears!

With a bit of panic, I located a fellow that looked like he spoke English (he was wearing an airline uniform). I asked him where the rental car booths were located (I couldn’t think of any other landmarks on the level which I left Linda). He directed me to the “Parking Level” – two floors above the “Boutique Level”. Back to the elevator, feeling a bit contrite and a lot embarrassed – and greatly relieved – I found my long, lost Linda sitting just a few paces to the left of the elevator – just where I had left her fifteen minutes before.  There are exit ramps from the Twilight Zone!

But we still did not have the confirmation slip from Kerwell. As a last resort, I opened my laptop computer (Linda had wondered with a little disgust why I had brought the computer on our vacation!) to search for any email that included the name “Kerwell”. Then I remembered the reservation was made through a website, with the confirmation slip being presented for printing but was not emailed to me. “Maybe I have the document stored on the system somewhere,” I thought in the midst of my “no-sleep” fog. Sure enough, there it was, in my “European Vacation” folder.

And there was the reservation, booked with the Eurocar rental agency, the first booth that I had inquired about Kerwell (the one that claimed they did not know of "Kerwell"). Pointing to the displayed confirmation slip, the person noted that I had made the reservation for the day before – and that my booking was assumed to have been cancelled since I had not picked up the car on the 14^th (we had left on the 14^th and arrived in Paris on the 15^th).  But they did have the car in the garage, they would just have to retrieve it – it would take 15 minutes. “Have a seat”.

After 30 minutes, the car did arrive – and we were two hours late.  We were given a map of Paris and of France, directions to the freeway out of the airport and sent on our way – right into the midst of the 5 o’clock rush hour crush! It took us about an hour of stop-and-go traffic to make it from the northeast side of Paris to the south side on the equivalent of C-470, the “peripherique” freeway. After I nearly fell asleep several times (luckily we were only traveling a few kilometers per hour at the time), we made it to the route out of town – but not before we missed two turns and found ourselves in the suburbs south of Paris, winding our way across the residential areas in search of “N20”, our escape route. Once there, we decided to stop for a meal and get a bit refreshed (read that “coffee”) for our drive to Orleans, about 100 kilometers south of Paris.

We found a restaurant just off the highway about 25 kilometers south of Paris. Up on the side of the hill, it was easy enough to find. But arriving at about 6:45 pm, they were not yet open to serve dinner. Being the silly Americans that we were, our meal habits probably seem very weird to the French. Their restaurant opened at 7:00 pm, if we wanted to be the “early-birds”. So we went off to see if another restaurant was open earlier – there was one just down the hill from this one (John Elway could literally have thrown a football from this one to that one). 

Easy enough, right? We began another lesson we were to be taught many times before realizing that this is just the way it is.  Roads in France do not follow the same “square block” layout as in most American cities. As a result, what seems to be a logical route to a known location is often just exactly the wrong way to get there. This spiritual lesson wasn’t learned in the early days of our trip: preconceived ideas can often prove unreliable in navigating through the cities of France. Being open to the present, being willing to be led by intuition, and being willing to circumnavigate the roundabouts as long as it takes to be sure which way to exit, is often more effective.

After ten minutes of trying alternative routes, making u-turns to backtrack and finding ourselves on the wrong side of a one-way, no-exit highway, we finally arrived at what turned out to be the “Long John Silver” restaurant chain of France, not our idea of the first meal we should enjoy in France.  So back into the car, back on the road and up the hill to the first restaurant at which we stopped.  Ten minutes later we arrived at our first destination. Noting that we could have ordered ten minutes earlier had we been patient enough to wait for this first restaurant to open, we climbed up the ten steps to our first meal in France.

Of course, the menu was only in French – we were off the beaten path of most tourists. So we ordered what we could figure out from the menu descriptions that made some sense.  We were famished and the food was good!  Thank you, God.

After dessert (crème brulee, of course!) and a very strong cup of kaffe, we were back on the road, headed south. Not having gotten any sleep in the restaurant J, the only thing that stood between us and the tree on the side of the road was that small cup of expresso. Of course, the crème brulee didn’t help matters. But after 25 kilometers or so, we exited the freeway and found the first hotel we could. “Sorry, no vacancy,” we were told. But the desk clerk called ahead to check availability for us and directed us to a delightful little hotel off the side of the freeway about 10 kilometers south. Had we not stopped earlier, we would certainly have missed it. 

The hotel was nestled in a group of seemingly abandoned off of a non-descript freeway exit (no flashing "Hotel -- Next Exit" signs here!). It had a beautiful shaded lawn and a garden enclosed in rock walls, antique hay wagons covered with lichen/moss and ivy growing over much of te building. The room we were given (one of the few rooms they had left) was beamed with plaster flush with the exposed face of the beam, and comfortable beds. We fell, exhausted, into a deep sleep at 9:00 pm local time, 30 hours since I had last slept (with the exception of the 45 minute nap on the flight from Frankfurt and the few unintended cat-naps I had on the highway J).