6. Castles galore! Real beds!

So I'm currently working on the tale of our war with Monsieur le Club, our neighbor who likes to play bad

techno long and loud, without any reason or right. But just earlier this week Megan and I went to Tours. Tours is a city about 240 kilometers or so south and a bit west of Paris (should I say kilometres? Klicks? How native should I go here?), chock full of history and overflowing with castles.

Megan has a dear wonderful friend whose mother is French. She maintains a small apartment in Tours and

spends a couple months a year there. There just happened to be a bit of overlap between her stay and ours, and her friend's mother invited us down for a couple days. Naturally, we accepted; aside from the chance to see a familiar face and a new town, any home whose owner felt could accept overnight guests was bound to be lavish luxury compared to Le Petit Bateau. We put a few days' worth of clothes and necessaries into one of our big backpacks and set out for the train station. Come along and let me tell you about it.

Our tickets had us riding the TGV to Tours and then the regular train back a few days later. The TGV is the fast train. Not Bullet-train fast, but there are fewer stops and (maybe) the thing goes faster. In fact, it is the current record holder for fastest conventional train in the world. And let me say this, ladies and gentlemen: travel by train is by far the most comfortable, civilized, and wonderful method of transport I have ever encountered.

The seats beat first-class airplane seats all to hell. They don't recline, but let's face it: essentially, neither do airplane seats. Cushy and comfy, there's a big tray that folds down with plenty of room for a book, a beverage, a Hungry Man TV dinner (heating method and Hungry-Man TV dinner not provided), a laptop, whatever you might want. There are even outlets for your laptop, but the teacher in my French class warned me against using them; she said doing that almost blew her computer up once. I didn't bring my computer anyway, as there was no indication that we'd have internet access at Megan's friend's mom's house (let's call her Madame M.), why would I want to spend a bunch of time online, and the thing is heavy. There's a bar in one of the cars; I didn't check it out, as the drinks were most likely spectacularly expensive, but to me a mode of transportation that has a bar in it says quality, no matter which language you say it in. In addition, the standing rule on the train is that you're supposed to be quiet. There were a few quiet conversations, but our entire trip was devoid of grating conversations behind us or fingernail-meet-chalkboard laughter ahead of us.

The train left the Montparnasse station like a boat, rocking gently side to side. The rocking lessened as the train picked up speed, like a hydrofoil rising out of the water. Within a couple minutes we were going faster than the Metro ever does, though still in the confines of Paris. On either side were noise-canceling walls with office buildings and concrete apartment blocks rising above them. Once were past the “old” Paris kind of stuff it was concrete and steel everywhere around us, mostly SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer francais- French National Railway Corporation) support buildings: warehouses, supply houses, machine shops, giant silos and pipes going every which way.Then we passed underground. My ears popped as the pressure changed. Were we descending that much? This feeds into my belief in an entire subterranean world beneath Paris, tunnel on tunnel, warrens where the people whose job it is to maintain this infra-understructure are only half-aware of the entire outcast society that lives beneath. Of course, we saw no sign of it. It's dark.

We burst briefly into the sunlight, shooting along between cuttings made of vine-strewn cement lattices with saplings growing in the spaces. This alternated with flat concrete slopes covered in graffiti. I didn't take any pictures because one the one hand I didn't want to shatter the peace and tranquility of the train by being that guy going click click click at the all banal aspects of train travel, and on the other I didn't think any of them would turn out that well; the glass between me and the subjects would be in the way, plus the lighting was all wrong for it. Sorry.

This is not the way to see the idyllic France of story and song. But all this industrial stuff, concrete poured in novel shapes to support and herd bridges, spare tracks, great barrels filled with spikes and spokes of steel, is intriguing, fascinating. It reminds me of when my friend Robert and I used to walk down the railroad tracks in Greensboro and Elon, walking until everything around us was strange and new, rusting boxcars, old clinker piles from which grew new species of grass adapted to old coal: a place where 12-year-olds did not belong and were therefore inexorably drawn.

For a time we rose and plunged in and out of the earth, ears popping with each transition. We must not have gone very deep; it happened too fast and didn't feel like a roller coaster. The train displaces the air in the tunnel with such speed that the pressure differential makes our ears pop. Something like that. But then suddenly we're rocketing along beside a freeway, two ribbons of speeding humanity in otherwise unbroken trees. We weren't far enough outside of Paris yet for this to be actual wilderness, though; back at home, checking on a map, I see we must have been passing through one of the big parks/ nature preserves that dot the outskirts. Before long even that was gone, and rather than moving through the artificial ecotone of apartment stacks and foret sauvage we're out in the countryside: fields and villages, that sort of thing.

The land is used to the hilt, but even though I've only been living in a supercity for a couple months, already the sight of so much space not being used to house people and the various support shops and cafes they need to survive is startling. The people here are all crammed into tiny villages that, save for a few modern allowances, could be transported back in time fifty, a hundred, five hundred years and not look out of place. Stone houses line tiny streets and surround a chapel with a mortar-and-flint steeple rising out of the middle, the tallest structures for miles around. Well, tallest if you don't count the giant ultramodern wind turbines, waiting for the call to begin their march of destruction. 

See what I mean about the glass? You're supposed to be squinting at the
wind turbines but instead all you see is my thumbs.

Sometimes all you see are the red tile roofs barely rising taller than the clumps of tress that envelop the village. Farms look like farms, one house surrounded by barns and open-sided storage buildings, though more often than not they're made out of stone green with moss. I see a granary that looks older than California, where local farmers have been bringing their grain to be milled and stored for longer than most American kids believe history has existed; on the other side of the tracks is a John Deere sales lot and something that looks like a Wal-Mart.

But amidst these clustered villages, spotted here and there in the fields, standing out with their edges rigidly maintained are clumps of dense forest, large enough that you could wander in and forget that you were in a totally domesticated land. Why do they do this? Is this to preserve wild life and biodiversity, maybe to maintain an accessible population of wild birds and rabbits and boars to shoot? Or maybe there are truffles? Madame M. says this isn't a good region for truffles; it's partially for the wildlife (for its own sake and for the sake of the locals' dinner tables) and “to break up the monotony of the fields. Fields, fields, everywhere, it's not pretty.”

I see places that remind me of rural North Carolina. Half-eaten by a stand of trees, a slumping wooden building barely houses the wrack of an old tractor wedged through a bowed doorway. What most people would call a ruin, but its owner proudly refers to it as his barn. I see homesteads that probably started as a single room in the 14^th century and have been lopsidedly, none-too-professionally added onto over the years. It's now a sprawling multi-bedroom home of stone and wood and aluminum siding lounging in a yard filled with future building materials and defunct vehicles.

As we pull into our station we pass through a rail transit graveyard. Old ghost trains hang out on webs of rusting rails, doors open and askew, looking decrepit and inviting. I hope, fervently, that kids sneak out there at night and do harmless mischief. They cry out to have teenagers creep into them with nothing more on their minds than the purloined beers in their backpacks and maybe getting to second base. Or maybe I'm being too...what's the word? Innocent. Naive. Yeah.

It's gotten progressively cloudier as we travel, and now that we're out of the train, out into the town of Tours itself, it decides to rain. Of course we didn't bring our umbrellas. But Mdme. M is there to meet us, with an extra umbrella, bless her. We walk back to her house. I get rained on because, no matter how hard you try, unless it's really pouring it's just not worth it to try to share an umbrella. But her apartment is only a few minutes from the train station, and we're soon inside.

Oh my Dear Ones the luxury! The place has multiple rooms! A kitchen! Dining room! An entire room set aside just for sleeping in! I know, I know; these things are nothing, simple, required. But I would direct your browsing fingers to my first entry, describing how it is with Le Petit Bateau. In a word, it's tiny and small and tiny and everything is cramped and it's tiny. Someone told us that it's actually illegal to rent an apartment the size of ours, but that's why it's so “cheap.” But that's neither here nor there.

M. shows us our bedroom. There are two little twin beds snugged up against opposite walls. Not being able to share a bed with my love for a couple nights pales beside the prospect of actually sleeping in a bed. They are soft and piled with blankets, which is good because the apartment...well, saying it is poorly heated is misleading and sounds like I'm casting aspersions. Say it is Frenchly heated. The French (according to several French people I have spoken to) do not think you should be too warm when you sleep; likewise, or contrariwise, they believe it is bad for you to breathe air-conditioned air when it's hot outside. But none of this matters right now. Beds!

This is staged, but that's totally what I look like sleeping.

After a short chat while M. finishes preparations, dinner is served. First course is a pumpkin/carrot soup into which a dollop of creme fraiche is dropped, for to stir around until it melts into a creamy swirl. Now, I am not generally a mighty eater, and mindful of tales of the massive meals that French folks like to bring out when given free reign, I meant to sip lightly at the soup in order to leave room for what came next. But omigod so good! Within minutes my spoon was scraping against the bottom of the bowl as I tried to get the last drops.

The main course was tomatoes stuffed with what someone just looking might have called meatballs or meatloaf, but was in fact something so much better. Cut up and mixed in with rice the whole thing was so delicious I had two helpings before I realized it. 

Oh my god the wine! I have a friend who kept rhapsodizing about the wines that I would experience here, how jealous he was. I'm afraid I am doing him an injustice by being unable to satisfactorily describe the wine we had: it was red, I think maybe a Cote du Rhone, but don't hold me to that. I cannot tell you of its undertones or overtones, whether it had hints of chocolate or red berries or any of those things you see on the sides of the bottle that try to to explain in words what will be happening on your tongue as soon as you get home and uncork that baby. It was very good, and I was sad when the last drops were upended into my glass.

By now the meal could have been over and I would be a happy man. But no! Now came the salad, which is the normal placement in the course of things here. Hidden amongst the leaves and sharp, sweet dressing were little bits of tender pork called rillons. With the salad there was bread and a small wheel of Camembert cheese.

And then came dessert: salted caramel ice cream and the little petit macarons we had brought with us as a gift for M. By now I had no business eating any more, but- and maybe I'm not alone in this- no matter how full you are, if someone puts something delicious in front of you, you just keep eating. It was like that.

Not the proximity of the wine to Yours Truly.  I'm a smart man.

After that we had tisane (herbal tea), talked late into the night, and then stumbled to bed. In beds! Real honest to god beds! It was magnificent.

The next day M. had arranged a tour of some local castles for us. She would not be accompanying us because, “I live here! I grew up here! I have seen them!” This woman charms even as she abandons us to strangers in vans.

She made us bag lunches and walked us to the bus stop. At some point it would be interesting to figure out what it is about me and Megan that makes people of a certain age treat us like their children. This is not the first time we've been firmly lodged beneath the wings of caring strangers in other countries. I'm not saying I object to it; quite the contrary. But it would be nice to know if we put out a helpless vibe, or maybe have an aura that triggers the same response in people that they have toward their own grown children. Maybe we could harness this power, and use it to...well, it pretty much already does what it's supposed to. In Paris, in Cyprus, and now here in Tours, somehow we engender in older folks a need to take care of us. And that is fine with me.

M. dropped us off with Pascal, a man in possession of a French minvan analog, a headset with a PA, and a dry, clipped style of English that was at times hard to understand. We sat in the front row of seats behind the driver's; the three other passengers sat in the row behind us. They were all Japanese and only one of them knew any English at all, which she spoke with a Californian accent.

As we set off for our first stop, Le Chateau Chenonceau, Pascal told us how this house figured into the story of Henry II, his wife Catherine de Medici, and the king's mistress Diane de Poitiers. It just so happened that I had recently begun reading a biography of Catherine, so I was intrigued to see a real-life set piece in this historic royal love triangle. After Pascal told us the story he activated a Japanese recording of (I assume) the same tale, so the Japanese ladies in the back, who until now had been talking amongst themselves somewhat distractingly, finally shut up.

While the grounds were spacious and the gardens sprawling- both the one built by Diane and the one later built by Catherine to outdo her- the house itself was smaller than you'd think the second most visited chateau in France would be. As you approach it on foot (or by carriage, as back in the day you'd have no business calling on the place unless you at least rated a coach-and-four) it's sort of narrow, and the guard tower off to the right is cool if unnecessary-looking. I mean, it's not like the thing could do any serious attacker-repelling.

But, as Megan pointed out and had to show me on a post card later for me to get, the thing is meant to be seen from the Cher, the river it spans.

I used the 'turn photo into 19th Century Romanticism painting' app for this one. Plus I rented a boat.

In fact, the way I was I thinking of the whole place as largely indefensible falls apart if you see a nice aerial photo:

For this one I used my jet pack. 

Now sit back, babies, and pretend I just whipped out my slide projector, because here come pictures. I will spare you much of the tapestries and stained-glass windows, as my camera doesn't do them justice and I wouldn't know what to tell you you were looking at. 


First, some important beds:

Catherine de Medici's bed

Diane de Poitier's bed

There are a couple other famous royals' beds in this place, but these two represent the most interesting story. Catherine de Medici was an Italian lady from a prosperous merchant family in the 16th century. She was married to king Francis I's second son as a political land-grab money-grab thing, which is how you roll when you're a king and stuff, I guess. I'd tell you about how Francis I used his two sons as collateral to get him out of being a prisoner to Spain and then just left them there for four years, but that's neither here nor there.  So Catherine's married to Henry II (who became king when his dumbass older brother went and played around in a plague house), but Henry is absolutely smitten with this lady Diane de Poitiers. He lavished upon her the kinds of wealth that corporate CEOs point to when they say they're not all that wealthy. He ignores Catherine, snubs her.  But then, ladies and gentlemen, Henry II died when he took a chunk of wood through his frakking EYE during a joust. Took several days to kill him, too. There were "physicians" taking recently-deceased criminals' heads and trying to recreate the injury so that'd have a better idea of what they should do. Poultices involving egg white were applied; trepanning the wound was discussed, but when they took off the bandages there was so much pus that they lost their nerve. Or something. I'm getting a lot of this from Leonie Frida's Catherine de Medici, by the way; since I'm using so much I should probably cite my source.

Anyway, suddenly Catherine is in charge of a bunch of stuff, as her son, the new king, is a bit...off.  Surprisingly, Diane doesn't meet with a particularly nasty end.  True, she lost most of the stuff that Henry had given her, much of which- lands and jewels, money garnered from selling unclaimed land- was supposed to belong unequivocally to the Crown anyway, but she lived out the rest of her life in a perfectly acceptable castle. One of the places that Henry gave her, and one that Catherine was quick to kick her out of, was Le Chateau Chenonceau.  Catherine looked at the gardens that Diane had had built and quickly had another set built to outdo them.  Apparently Catherine then went and did some pretty nasty stuff- at any rate, she gets reviled a bunch- but I haven't gotten too far in that biography, which is pretty sympathetic to her anyway. But in spite of or because of all this, Megan and I have acquired an affection for Her Majesty de Medici and call her Cathy. The rivalry between her and Diane is the high point of this affection, and seeing for-reals places and things relating to this was cool.

There are paintings of Catherine out there, but I didn't see one at Chenonceau.  I did, however, see one of Diane. She was a widow and always acted all chaste and pure and forever in mourning for her husband.  In fact, she was sometimes depicted in paintings as Diana, the virgin Greek goddess.

Was it intended to be sarcastic? You know,
chaste virgin huntress =  widow committing adultery with a king?

Meanwhile she was off doing naughty things with the king of France and garnering vast hoards.

As I'm sure you know, lots of time has passed since the 1500's. Catherine died and all that, yet France endured, kept on popping out king after king, until somewhere in the 17th century (you don't really need exact dates, do you? Those of you that care, know, and those of you that don't know can use wikipedia or just go on not caring) comes the king, the guy who said, "let's get back to when we were comparing kings to gods all the time. I liked that idea." I'm speaking, of course, of Louis XIV, Louis the Great, the Sun King, Le Roi. In addition to building Versailles so that the nobles would be beggaring themselves trying to maintain a house nearby and therefore wouldn't have time or money to get rebellious, he also inherited Le Chateau Chenonceau. One of the rooms here is called his study now, and there's a big picture of him.

Among his other titles were King of Wigs and Lord of Picture Frames.

All these rooms are stacked next to and on top of one another. Well, I guess that happens in a house, huh? But there's a closeness, almost cramped, that I never thought of when I thought of royal houses from long ago. I've been watching the Tudors or reading The Baroque Cycle too much, I guess. But remember that part of the house that stretches out over the Cher (that's that river)?  Well, from the inside it looks like this:

Pascal had told us that during World War I this room had been used as a hospital ward. It must have been a nice place to convalesce, you know, aside from being gassed and shot at and then having these bas-relief faces staring at you all over the place.

I'm not sure who these people were supposed to be, of course. There's a guy on the right in that picture above that looks like he's wearing light-colored headphones; in fact, those are dark headphones with some sort of headphone-net over them to keep them hygienic. There's an audio tour you can take that I suppose gets rid of the language problem as you can probably get them in whatever language you want. But Megan and I didn't do this because A) we didn't know about it until we saw people using them and then found out we should have ordered them at the gate and they cost extra; and B) because we couldn't have talked to one another then.

We'd be all by ourselves, essentially, in this big old house, with these stern old paintings and carvings to frown at us.  That wasn't what we signed up for. So we went off in search of the kitchens.

The kitchens were a weird mish-mash, like they couldn't decide at which point in time they were supposed to have been frozen. For instance, there was the bread oven that had been there from the beginning:

On the other side of the room was this giant cast iron monstrosity that clearly had gas burners.  It looked antiquated, like even Donna Reed would have turned her nose up at it. But to someone baking bread for Cathy this thing would have been beyond space age technology.

Ancient, blackened cleavers that probably could have dated to the 16th century hung on one wall,

and across the room sat beaten copper pots that had clearly never been used:

Eventually I caught on that this kitchen wasn't meant to show one specific time, just like this house didn't exist in one specific time. It has been used by kings and queens, nobles and commoners; it's been alternately lived in, used just as a place to hold parties, and stood abandoned for hundreds of years.  Trying to choose which time period to display it as existing in would be like forcing your parents to keep your bedroom looking like it did when you were eight once you moved out. Sort of.

But with this thought about time I remembered that we were supposed to meet Pascal soon. He seemed pretty easy going, but at the same time he had been pretty emphatic about us meeting him at a certain place at a certain time.

Just as we had to leave even though there was more to see, this is where I'm going to end this post even though I've got more to tell.  This thing is huge!  Don't worry; I'll tell you about our trip to Clos Luce, where Lonardo da Vinci spent his last years; and the castle at Amboise which is a big old thing on the top of a hill.  But I'll do that later.

I'll leave you with this. This is The Three Graces, who in addition to those mythical figures are supposed to look like three sisters who were each in their time lovers of Louis XV:

Heh. Boobies.

See y'all later.