Loire Valley

When my mom came to visit, she took us on a weekend trip down to the Loire Valley as a birthday present/adventure.  Here are the highlights of the trip.

We rented a car and had a beautiful drive down to the small town of Langeais the first night.  Margaret did a great job of conducting our fearless Fiat Panda down the French highways.

We stayed that night in a bed and breakfast run by an older gentleman.  It had amazing rose gardens and was directly across the street from the chateau.  We got there a little late and walked to the only little family restaurant still open. Turned out to be a great meal with pitchers of the cheap local wine.  Margaret and I had a room on the top floor and listened to the night showers on the roof as we went to sleep.  The owner had warned us against taking the room that fronted the street because it might be a little noisy.  See the picture below to grasp the contrast between Langeais busy streets and Paris busy streets.

My mom and I fighting through the hordes of tourists in Langeais.  Chateau at the left, restaurant straight ahead, B&B just off-screen to the right

We had a breakfast of wonderful pastries, breads, fruit, and jams in the morning and then toured the Langeais Chateau.  It is a fairly minor chateau compared to others in the Loire Valley, but was beautiful and very well maintained.  It was a picture-perfect morning and very peaceful, with only a few other people at the chateau.

Chateau Langeais, with the town in the background

In short, Langeais has the heavy burden of being just about the perfect French small country town in our memory.  I hope the responsibility doesn't cause decades of urban decay and corruption.

From there, we headed towards the next chateau, Villandry.  On the way, we stopped at random at one of the hundreds of vineyards along the road and struck gold.  The place, called Pascal Pibaleau, was wonderful.  It was completely organic, a family operation, and everything I hoped for in a small French winery.  Grocery store wines here are certainly good, but I wanted to find one of these backroads places with fascinating unique wines, made differently each year depending on the weather, and dirt cheap.  Pascal Pibaleau was all of those things.  We walked away very happy.

Villandry is known more for the gardens than the chateau, for good reason.  They are the most beautiful, perfect gardens I have seen anywhere (better even than Versailles, which we visited yesterday).  Rather than describe it, I'll put up a few pictures that hopefully will display the beauty we saw.

The gardens of Villandry

Flowers as big as Margaret's head!

The brightly colored Sun Garden

The herb garden

The kitchen gardens

 After the two gardening-obsessed women with me finally satiated their plant-seeking eyes, we headed towards Chinon, a somewhat bigger town at the heart of the Loire wine region.  Our hotel there was a little bigger, but even more charming (if possible).  We had a great dinner (except a small dispute between my mom's stomach and her meal on how much cream is appropriate in broth for mussels) and went to bed early.

Breakfast the next morning was amazing, as the inn made all of their jams and jellies- probably 20 different varieties.  Within France, the Loire Valley is known as the fruit-growing region, and the flavor of the jams was so fresh.

For our last stop, we visited a mushroom cave.  It was completely awesome, in a way familiar to any American schooled on road-side attractions like Wall Drug Store and Ruby Caverns.  We wandered through a deserted cave with signs and mannequins illustrating the mushroom growing process; it looked like nothing had been changed in 30 years.  Also, for reasons that were never explained, the cave was named Wolf Caverns and random wolf statues were scattered through the tour.  Incredible.

Maybe the wolves guard the mushrooms?  Or do they try to steal them?  So confusing...

Bet you weren't expecting mushroom fantasies!

The Loire Valley was really amazing.  Outside of France, it is known for its chateaus, and the two that we saw were beautiful.  Within France, it is known as the country's garden.  Everything we ate was so fresh, and the countryside looked incredibly fertile.  The French are mocked sometimes for being unjustly proud of their culture.  I can understand the mocking sometimes in Paris- the Parisiens can be proud of things that aren't all that great.  But if someone from the Loire Valley told me that his hometown was the perfect place to live... I wouldn't argue with him much.  Thanks Mom!