Bunny found this acorn while we were on a walk this morning. You can tell it is a French acorn because it is thinner than your typical American acorn.
Plus it obviously also has a better sense of style (that’s a “fascinator beret” it’s wearing). ☺😇😈
*PS: I had to resort to Google to determine if acorns are actually nuts. Seems they are, technically… 😁😁
Marty’s blog on our walk along the Dordogne covered our third full day while staying in Beynac. We skipped the second day spent mostly in Sarlat at their fabulous market. We had a great time there! More about that below.
Ironically, yesterday (fourth full Beynac day) we visited a much smaller market in Les Eyzies-des-Tayac, thinking the more intimate setting would give us a different but still memorable experience. It WAS memorable but not in a good way. ?:D
First, the market in Sarlat. Sarlat is one of the larger towns in the Dordogne region – and it is known for its immense market. There are dozens and dozens of booths, hawking everything from underwear to foie gras . Here are a few photos:
The woman in the green skirt (above) had a camera crew with her. They filmed her as she strolled along, narrating in Japanese. She would then stop and interview vendors and others in fluent French and English. Fascinating!
Our market experience yesterday started out fine. We bought some strawberries (believe it or not, they are BETTER than Oregon berries!), apples and (goat?) cheese. We stopped at another booth and tried some smoked ham and several cheeses. The vendor was very gregarious! But when she went to cut off some of the cheese we wanted to buy, the thin slice we indicated became a huge chunk (we could tell that this was her m.o.!). The cost: 40 euros. We didn’t want to make a scene so we paid and left.
Sheesh! After that, we were due for some good karma – and we found it when we wandered into a small restaurant and saw that it was filled with locals (Marty was the only guy there wearing a baseball cap!). We had to return about a half hour later to get a table. For 13 euros each (plus 5 euros for a demi bottle of wine) we had a delicious three course meal. Yum!
We spent the rest of the day at the museum of pre-history and checking out the countryside…
PS: the 40 euro cheese is pretty good.
This year the French Ministry of Affairs (insert French sex scandal joke here) announced “a multi-tiered campaign” to encourage the French to be nicer to tourists. Studies had found that, despite France being the most visited country in the world, tourist satisfaction ratings were 30% below the European average. Past attempts to improve tourists’ experience in Paris – including distributing “politeness manuals” to service workers and employing “smile ambassadors” at major tourist attractions – had met with marginal (no?) success.
I have always sort of agreed with the stereotype – i. e. that French people are not as friendly as, say, Italians. But I was willing to give them another chance, as part of this current vacation (and, in honor of my very friendly French heritage mother – who named me Yvonne!).
Here’s my very unscientific and limited view from three trips to France in the past four years: Once I got out of Paris (and other large cities), practiced some basic French customs and tried a little harder to speak (very rudimentary) French, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. On this trip, we have had a series of delightful encounters with the locals, peppered with smiles, laughter and offers of help. (We did witness one French waiter being super rude to a group of Italian tourists – but that was at a major tourist attraction. Oh and there was that encounter with the guy who ignored me, refusing to make eye contact at the train station near Villefranche Sur Mer on a previous trip. But maybe the exceptions prove the rule??)
We’ve all heard the expression, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” That advice does not just apply to Italy, of course, and it does not just dictate that we should drink lots of Chianti. When we travel we are well advised to learn a few local customs and phrases. It shows respect and a willingness to be open to new cultures. (Perhaps then it’s not the French but the tourists who need an attitude campaign?)
Certainly Americans – who have such an immense amount of power in the world, whose leaders and corporations can choose to make the world a better place or add to its misery – should try, and even feel obligated, to understand the rest of the world. Foreigners may greet each other “strangely”, eat different (delicious!) foods and observe odd (to us!) customs. When we take time to appreciate those differences we may find them endearing, even enchanting. And, as we do so, we are humanizing the “other”.
And we will discover that we are not so different after all.
Annie and René didn't speak much English but we felt like friends after our lunch at their farm house in Planay, france
We should have been more open to the plat du jour at this cafe - horse steak ☺;)
Hello dear blog followers (all two of you)! We are once again offering a prize to the individual who comments the most and/or the best on our Europe 2015 travel blog. The grand (and only) prize is a package of Speculoos! These biscuits/cookies are very tasty and very popular here. Honestly, I’m not sure how to describe them but I guarantee that you will like them.☺☺
We keep buying them and eating them up but promise to bring an intact package home with us for the winner. Per usual, we will determine, in our sole discretion, which of you will be awarded this prize.
Keep those comments coming! And we’ll try to post some sassier (or more insightful, less boring) blogs!
Yesterday was our first full day in Beynac. The weather was glorious, which it really must be to do this amazing village justice. It’s so very beautiful!
A few photos from around the town:
This is where we are staying, a sweet but tres old building up a winding cobblestone path off the main drag.
We are not staying here (☺😥) but it is just a few yards from our place. So cute!!
In the afternoon, we made the torturous (for Bunny’s knees) climb up to Beynac castle. It was well worth the effort!
Once we had climbed to the top, we decided to first have lunch at a café with a view of the castle. The waiter was great; he grabbed the chalkboard with the plats du jour on it and brought it to our table:
Marty and the view from our table (and some cute French kid photo bombing us:).
The castle was also a treat. Parts of it date to the 12th century; it feels a lot more medieval than the la-de-da Châteaux of the Loire. And the views were spectacular! Here are some photos of the castle:
And the views:
All for now!
We drove from Amboise to Beynac today – a drive that Googlemaps claimed would take us about 4 and a quarter hours. We decided to add a stop at Oradour-sur-Glane which still should have made it less than 5 hours driving time. We left at 10:30 and we were scheduled to arrive at Beynac at 6 pm. Pas de probleme, right? Well, let’s just say the day has its lows – but highs as well.
Stopping at Oradour-sur-Glane was similar to visiting Dachau: you can’t say you enjoyed it but you are glad you took the time to experience it. Oradour is a small French village that the Nazis ordered destroyed four days after the D-Day invasion. On June 10, 1944, all 632 inhabitants, including some 200 children, were killed; many were tortured and many were burned alive. De Gaulle ordered the town preserved as a testament to the horrors of war (and the Nazi regime in particular). An emotional experience.
We took the country backroads, passing through numerous small French villages. We couldn’t stop at each one but we were tempted! Truly, there were so very many that were so very beautiful! Here are a few castles that we came across – no signs, no tourists, just these incredibly old, amazing fortresses.
Sometimes Bunny just took photos from the window as we passed through QUAINT little towns:
Traffic took an ugly turn at around 5 pm (rush hour? we were close to a larger town). We tried to call/text our Beynac contact but our cell phone wouldn’t work. Sheesh! Bunny was freaking out a bit because we were going to be at least a half hour late and had no way to let the woman who would be meeting us know. The town of Beynac is small – we were meeting here at the post office. 🙂 So we get there; still no cell service. Bunny walked into the town pharmacy and asked if she could use the phone. The woman spoke a smidge of English – but she knew the woman we were supposed to meet and called her up and she met us and it all turned out fine. Martine (Beynac host) speaks virtually no English so Bunny again got to try her French out. We all survived (I guess that means Bunny speaks “survival French”?).
MUCH more about beautiful Beynac in our next blog!
Today (our fourth and final full day in Amboise) was full of hills and valleys, literal and figurative. 🙂
We decided to drive through the countryside to a few of the castles we hadn’t seen. Just for a peek. Our first stop was Azay-Le-Rideau. Lovely town – but the castle’s roof was being refurbished and there was a ton of scaffolding. We caught a glimpse of the castle (below) but not much.
We were hoping to see more of the troglodyte caves that are everywhere in the Loire. We read a brochure at our apartment about an “authentic troglodyte farm” in Azay-Le-Rideau and we made the mistake of: 1) believing the reviews on tripadvisor; and 2) ignoring the fact that Rick Steves’ does not recommend any of these places in his book. It was a semi-interesting stop but not worth either our time or the entrance fee.
We then drove over to see the Usse castle, which is purportedly the model for the castle in Sleeping Beauty. Got a good pic of it (below).
We decided to kind of roam around the area (small, lovely, medieval towns everywhere) on our way back to Amboise. We were meandering along the backroads and Marty said that he needed to go to the restroom. Hmmm… No cafes or public toilets (or even large trees close to the road) in sight. The situation was becoming desperate, if you know what I mean. Marty saw a little vineyard with an “ouvert” (open) sign and we decided we really wanted to do a wine tasting. 🙂 Marty managed to taste one wine before asking where the restroom was. Anyway, it was a GREAT stop. The guy (Francis Jourdan) did not speak much English but between his English and Bunny’s limited French, we had a lot of fun. He brought out a wine that was among those tasted by Obama and Putin at the 70th D-Day commemoration in 2014. Bunny asked him if Obama liked it and he said, basically, that he must have cuz he and Putin weren’t talking in the morning but after the wine tasting they had a long chat. 🙂 We bought a bottle and we’re hoping to bring it home to share with friends/family.
A good day!
The title of this post is a quote from an English gentleman who – with his wife – was tailgating in the parking lot of Chambord Castle. We stopped to talk with them on our way in. (These little unexpected conversations with locals/tourists/both are probably the best part of the trip!)
Anyway, on our third full day in Amboise, we visited two beautiful chateaux – Chaumont and Chambord. Chaumont is another fairy tale castle overlooking the Loire. There has been a castle here since 973 (!!) but construction on the current one started in 1468. This is the castle that Diane de Poitiers, King Henry II’s mistress, was given when Catherine de Medici kicked her out of Chenonceau after Henry’s death. Pauvre Diane! (I thought they just had them guillotined!)
The true granddaddy of the Loire castles is Chambord. It is IMMENSE – 426 rooms, 282 fireplaces and 77 staircases (every source I check has different numbers – e.g. “440 rooms and a fireplace for every day of the year” – I guess those in charge of keeping track lost count and just ballparked the number). This was one of Francois I’s (“Francois Premier”) castles, built for hunting weekends, parties and, just generally, to impress folks. And it does! We got lost (okay, Bunny got lost) several times while touring this gigantic castle. Construction began in 1519 and took over 40 years (Francois had passed on by then). And, although no one is sure, the rumor is that Leonardo da Vinci (Francois’ pal) may have been the main designer, particularly of the double helix staircase in the center of the castle. We kept saying “WOW!” over and over as we walked around; we also concluded that perhaps the construction of “weekend chateaux” like this one may have prompted the peasants to revolt…
This is a view of my morning briochette et café au lait – with a backdrop of a 15th (?) century tower wall – from my ringside seat at the sidewalk cafe just steps from our apartment in Amboise. From here I can watch villagers walk by with their morning baguettes tucked under their arms, reply bonjour! when the occasional gregarious local acknowledges me, eavesdrop on lovers’ arguments – or simply post obnoxious blogs about the joys of sitting in sidewalk cafés in small French towns…
We spent most of the day yesterday at Chenonceau. We were sooo very impressed by this 16th century castle which is dubbed The Ladies’ Château due to the involvement of numerous women in its construction and history. It was a beautiful day, perfect for photos and for walking in the gardens and surrounding forest. Here are a few photos.
Marty REALLY liked the numerous, humongous fire places.
Marty was also fond of the paintings. This one was a favorite of his. When I asked why, he replied succinctly, "I like art." (Methinks it was the subject matter??)
This place and its history is SO amazing! I will try to give more history when I’m not basically texting all of this on my tablet…
One more note though: The motto of the husband and wife who built Chenonceau was S’il vient a point, me souviendra. Basically it means “If I make it to the end of this construction job, I will be remembered.” Marty is seriously considering posting this sentiment on his garage. ☺