(Not Much of a) SURPRISE: More Castles!

Annie and Richard arrived bright and early this morning for another road trip adventure. This time, instead of staying in Sarthe, we ventured out towards Tours. Our first stop was the Chateau de Montsoreau. It appears Alexandre Dumas wrote a novel about the Lady of Monsoreau (who marries one bloke and falls in love with another one, blah blah), and has been turned into a made-for-TV movie a couple of times.

I've realized that when one is restoring a chateau, there are two options available to draw visitors: you can carefully refurbish and refurnish the place with correct period pieces, though this is a major money pit in terms of upkeep; or, you can not keep a stick of furniture in the place and turn it into a quasi-scientific exhibit. At Montsoreau, they opted for the latter.

This isn't meant as a criticism; it was pretty interesting stuff. During the Renaissance, the Loire River was Where It Was At, and this castle is literally spitting distance from the river. So there was a lot of information about commerce and how goods were transported down the river by boat, stuff about the wines that are stored in the soft-rock caves all along the river, and the ever-popular mushroom farms.

Along with Annie and Richard's dear friends Claude and Christiane, we turned the castle inside out, then went to lunch at a mushroom farm. Our first course was mushroom soup; the main dish was a plate of three large mushrooms: one stuffed with goat cheese, one with rillettes (think pulled pork), and one with... mushrooms. A mushroom-stuffed mushroom. We had a quick dessert (no mushrooms, thank goodness) and jumped in the car to head off to a little tiny church a few towns over.

The village is noteworthy because of its famous castle, Ussé, which is best known as being Charles Perrault's inspiration for Sleeping Beauty. The church, Notre Dame de Rigny, is truly off the beaten path; it's in the middle of nowhere, the exterior is completely uninspiring, but the interior is breathtaking. The church was constructed in the 11th century, and was believed to be a favorite of King Louis XI. Though they don't know for sure, they think it was Louis who commissioned the murals inside, and his royal painter who executed them. Unfortunately, during the period of the counter-Reformation, they were painted over, and have been a bit difficult to salvage.

Claude and Christiane's daughter is a musician, and she and three others performed an impromptu concert in the church. The acoustics were astonishing and the music was gorgeous. The church is a treasure, really beautiful, and there's an association who bought it and have sunk wild amounts of their personal money into saving it. (Their leader is an 85-year-old guy who shocked the crap out of me by telling me he'd been to Birmingham twice.)

When the concert was over, we drove to a nearby village situated prettily on the river. As soon as we got out of the car, I looked down at the boats on the river and realized, holy crap, I've been here before! This past spring, when I was in France with the kids, my hostess Odile took my joyriding through the area and we'd stopped there to walk along the river and admire the boats.

We had chocolate in a little café then took the long way home; I got to see a nuclear power plant! Did you know they make smoke? I didn't. I also couldn't stop the big stupid grin on my face as I kept imagining Smithers and Mr. Burns making nefarious plans inside. I mean really, how can anyone take themselves seriously working at a nuclear power plant? They are all Homer Simpson, one way or another.

Pictures are here. Good times had by all. Don't want to go back to work tomorrow.

Journées du Patrimoine

This weekend is one of the most-anticipated in France. "Heritage Days" are exciting because throughout the country, many normally private buildings throw their doors wide and welcome the unwashed masses. In Paris, you can stand in line for hours to take a tour of the Elysée Palace, where President Sarkozy lives with his hot wife; elsewhere, many private chateaux give guided tours; churches hold concerts, city halls throw parties, and good times are had by all.

(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.