(Lest you feel yourselves tearing up over this demonstration of patriotic spirit, it's worth noting that most of these castle owners receive government funds to subsidize their upkeep, and they're actually required to open their doors to the public one day a year so that taxpayers can see how their money is being spent. Still, most folks are down with it, because they've put a lot of work into their homes, and they like showing them off. Sort of HGTV goes live.)
Two of Miss Cake's friends, Annie and Richard, invited me to join them for the fun. When Annie called, she kept saying that if I got any better offers for the weekend, I should feel free to bail on them, because they're not young and obviously I would rather spend my time with hot French guys. (Okay, I added that last part.) So I was pretty much expecting a geriatric couple with walkers-- I even watched for them at my window so they wouldn't have to climb the stairs.
Um, they're not old. They're quite spry and adorable, and absolutely too much fun. Richard kept me laughing all day, and Annie took good care of me.
Our first stop was the church in the village of Pirmil. For a rinky-dink church in a rinky-dink village, the interior was quite impressive, well-maintained and full of little surprises. After the church, we drove just outside the village to visit the Chateau de la Balluère, where our visit was lead by a man who identified himself as "the young mayor of Pirmil."
Interesting character. He was indeed young, and rather handsome too; originally from Paris, a few years ago his mother died of a heart attack and he decided he needed to slow his life down substantially. So he and his partner bought the chateau and he ran for mayor; he lost, spent some time ingratiating himself to the population, and won the second time. He told us all kinds of stories about his constituents, and when we seemed shocked that he should know such intimate details of their lives, he just leveled a look at us and said, "Mayors know everything." I swear, this guy needs his own reality show.
After the chateau, we went to the little village of Asnières-sur-Vègres, because Richard read their was a restaurant there run by English people. (He and Annie are both retired English teachers, and though French by birth, they are Brits at heart.) Off we went to Le Pavillon, where a very harried English guy whose entire staff was on vacation single-handedly ran the only restaurant in the village. We spent a typical 90 minutes on our typically massive French meal, and I was typically useless afterward.
Lunch was followed by a guided tour of the village, which included a church whose bland exterior didn't even hint at the gorgeous frescoes inside. Also, there was a newspaper guy there who was taking so many pictures I began to understand why Britney did the umbrella job on the paparazzi. Dude, seriously, trying to admire some art here...
And then we went to another private castle, this one the Chateau Dobert. It was straight out of a fairy tale. It's been in the same family (their name is de Bastard, heh heh) for a ridiculous amount of time, something like 600 years. Can you even imagine?
Our tour was led by Philippe, grandson of the current owner. He was so cute, charming, and very excited about leading the tour but a little shy, too-- he kept looking at his grandmother for backup. I'm not even going to lie: it took me about 30 seconds to fall madly in love with him. He's probably all of 20 years old, and that doesn't bother me nearly as much as it should.
As he was showing us pictures of de Bastard ancestors, he turned his head to answer a question, completely unaware that this put his face at the same angle as the painting, and I swear to goodness I was looking at the exact same nose on him as on the guy in the Revolution-era wig. Mind-blowing. I mean, we're standing in the guy's castle, surrounded by an honest-to-goodness moat, looking at paintings of his identical (if bewigged) twin and admiring the dining room table (set with china which had an emblem reserved for a count, which they never mentioned but I recognized), and he could not have been more normal and down-to-earth. He had a grand time telling us about his plans to become a military pilot, all the while showing us the 200-year-old bidet in one of the upstairs rooms.
I would have taken tons of pictures, but I was in someone's house, and it felt a bit like I was casing the joint, you know? But I took plenty of the exterior. After we wandered the grounds a bit, Richard lobbied for a detour in Annie's carefully planned itinerary, because it had become essential that I be taken to Solesmes, which is famous for its Benedictine monastery where Gregorian chant was revived and restored in the 19th century. (I have a soft spot for Benedictines, based on my brief but profound experience with Father Joel and the rest of the gang at St. Bernard's.) We walked in to the chapel on the tail end of a mass, and the singing was truly magnificent. Equally impressive were the "saints de Solesmes," some of the most beautiful and affecting sculptures I've ever seen (and that would include my little jaunt to the Vatican). I opted not to play Asian tourist during mass, though, so no pictures for you there.
Side Note: the prime minister of France, François Fillon, is from Le Mans and went to the university here, and now keeps a home in Solesmes. I can see why-- it's a lovely, charming little village, straight out of Central Casting. We had a drink in a little café on the main road and it was everything that is good about France.
Tomorrow we are going to meet some friends of theirs outside Tours, at a place which I gather is something like a mushroom farm, and we will eat in the dining establishment of said farm and have a three-course meal consisting of all mushroom-based foods. (I am concerned about dessert, but otherwise game.)
See all the pretty pictures of today's adventures here.
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