7. A Tale of More Castles (Tours, part II)

If you haven't read the first part of our trip to Tours, I would recommend doing so here: http://111stepstoparis.blogspot.com/2011/10/soim-currently-working-on-tale-ofour.html

It explains where we are, who we're staying with, and why we're riding around in a stranger's minivan.  I should also mention that this one runs a little long. Last week I had implied that I would try not to do this (by asking you if you thought they were too long), but there were pictures and stories and such, and I didn't want to make this thing a three part tale. So it's long. But, I hope, enjoyable. 


When last we left...um, us, we had just quit Le Chateau Chenonceau on the river Cher, a place where Catherine de Medici worked part of her much-gentler-than-you-might-expect revenge upon her dead husband's mistress.

The five of us- me, Megan and the three Japanese ladies- were waiting in the parking lot when Pascal returned. He said he had needed to get gas, but does it take an hour and half to get gas? It might, come to think of it. Gas stations are not the bright shining oases of pumps and lights and hot dog rollers and soda coolers that they are in the US. Usually a parking garage will have pumps, but the only indication is a little icon that means gas. And there're no minimarts or convenience stores added on. My guess is that the selling of gas is a nationalized deal here, so there's no need to advertise. People need gas, so they'll find it.

We pile into the van and head off to the Clos Luce. There's supposed to be an accent aigu ( / like that but small and over the e, makes it say -ay) on the end of Luce (Klo Loosay), but I'm not going to start trying to fit them all in. French is peppered with all sorts of accents, and the US keyboards are not set up to make them with any ease. I am lazy, so I am not going to do it. Forgiveness, please.

Clos Luce is a house not far from Chateau d'Amboise. Brief history time: Remember Francis I? He was the king who got captured by the Spanish, and then used his two sons as collateral to get him his freedom, then left them as prisoners for four years? Well, Francis I spent most of his time at Chateau d'Amboise, this big castle/house thing on the Loire river. Francis I looked at Leonardo Da Vinci as a mentor of sorts, and invited him to stay with him in his old age. Leonardo gladly accepted and brought some things with him as gifts, most notably this one painting he'd made of some lady with a weird smile, which explains why the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre instead of Italy.

I had heard that one of the reasons that Da Vinci was invited to France was because Francis I had eyes on parts of Italy. That was all the rage at the time if you were a French king: go into Italy and conquer parts of it. Italy hadn't been incorporated into one whole country by then (this was in the early/mid 1500s) so all you needed to do was conquer certain parts and not worry about a whole country rising up against you. If Da Vinci had still been living in one of those towns or nearby, he might be asked or forced to come up with some weapon of renaissance destruction. So Francis wanted him in France to keep him from making a clockwork besieging army-burner or something as much as he admired the man.

Madame. M says she too has heard this but doesn't believe it. Also, looking around on the ol' internet comes up with nothing corroborating. So did I make it up? Or I am I just confusing our world for this one?

So, at any rate, prisoner or not, Da Vinci lived at Clos Luce from 1516 to 1519 when he died. The house has been turned into a museum, both of what it looked like while DaVinci lived there and a collection of some of his inventions, I believe recreations and a couple originals.

I don't have a huge number of pictures of this one, as the place was super crowded and small, thus hard to get pictures of things that didn't have a bunch of people in the way.

More beds! First off, Francis I's:

See what I mean about people getting in the way?

This next is Leonardo's. Well, it used to be Leonardo's. Now it belongs to a cat.

I loved this. It reminded me of Cyprus, where the whole country was just lousy with ancient ruins from the Romans or the Crusades or Moors so they didn't really care about trying to keep them pristine. There were some fences, sometimes, but not much else. They had more than they could handle.

Same with this cat. Maybe the family that runs the place reveres cats or has more of them than they can successfully herd. Or maybe they, like the internet, think everything is better with cats. The lady taking tickets downstairs had to stand because a cat was curled up in her chair. I mean, I assume that those aren't actual covers and stuff that date from the 16^th century. It's not like you can just send them through the washing machine to get rid of the cat hair. And this cat acted as though he was used to it. The bed and table have ropes around them, and there are tons of people filing by, all of them trying to get the cat's attention so they can get a cute picture of the cat looking at them. But the cat did. Not. Care. It just sat there giving itself a bath.

A picture sat on a nightstand in another room, which looked to me like it could be a test sketch for the Mona Lisa, but I don't know. Thoughts?

Not as enigmatic a smile. This one's more,
"Oh, look! A gift! And it's a sweater. How...nice."

Downstairs was the collection of DaVinci inventions. Models and diagrams of the ornithopter, helicopter, and parachute lined one wall, along with a video screen showing these things being used, rendered in CGI. Here's a link to a site that has images of all three. Not the best, but better than the pictures I tried to take. 

Another wall had his tank, basically a hollow cone on wheels with cannons sticking out all over.

Now imagine that hole not being there, nor that little guy,
and it rolling across a battlefield at you looking like this.
And then remember that you still think riding a horse into battle
 makes sense.

Men sat inside and fired the cannons and worked the gears that made the wheels move. In his diagrams DaVinci drew the gears backwards so that if you built the thing according to his specs it wouldn't work. Only if you arranged the gears facing backwards would it do its stuff, an early attempt at copy protection, I suppose.

Another room had a wooden bicycle he designed, which looks much like today's single gear cruiser style (though made of wood and heavy-seeming) and predates the “official” introduction of the bicycle by about three hundred years. Next to the bike was his automobile, a clockwork wind-up toy that resembled a giant three-wheeled crab.

Only vaguely crab-like, I guess. If you'd seen the animation you'd understand.

There was more to see, but Pascal had only allotted us about forty five minutes here. Already it was time to go and head over to Le Chateau d'Amboise, visible from one of Clos Luce's coutryards.

See that? Walls, roundy tower things? Castle.

So we left with some pictures untaken and secrets undiscovered. Alas.

Chateau d'Amboise started life as an armored tollbooth overlooking an important ford across the Loire. In the early part of the 11^th century Fulk the Black, famous for cruelty and piousness, went all third-little-piggy on it and rebuilt it out of stone. How is that for a name, by the way? Fittingly, he was a huge jerk. So Fulk the Asshole made it more castley, and later more kings came and built a big old house on the clifftop, with towers and churches and gardens. Francis I grew up here, and Hank and Cathy raised their kids behind its battlements. Remember them? Henry “I like taking jousting lances through the eye” Valois and Catherine “bide my time ignoring my husband's mistress until he dies and I can take all her stuff” de Medici? They keep coming into this.

Actually, there's very little, if anything, of Henry and Cathy at Chateau d'Amboise. The paintings, fittings and furniture have more to do with later kings, notably King Louis-Philippe, the last king of France. During the French Revolution, Napolean's time, and World War II the place got trashed several times, so much of what's there is heavily repaired and rebuilt.

I took some pictures of the inside, but without a lot of prior knowledge about the things and not being all that into the fashions (19^th century finery seems more uncomfortable than cool), it didn't really grab me.

Too tight and bind-ey.

The good-looking stuff was the view from the outside, on the walls of the castle and on the grounds.

You can't have a fortress-on-a-hill without a chapel.  Supposedly
Leonardo Da Vinci is buried in there.

Crafty stonework over the chapel door.

It's this kind of view of the people below that makes you want to say, "Pheh...peasants."

I wonder how these people feel about tons of tourists staring into their yard all the time.

We didn't get to see the gardens, past this awesome-looking old wall,

because our time was up and Pascal would be waiting. So we descended from Chateau d'Amboise and climbed into the minivan. The highlight of the trip back was going through this large roundabout in the midst of which, on the grassy island in the center, was a tiny vineyard, complete with the little shed for tools that all vineyards are required to have and vintners are forbidden from altering in any way. By then, though, my camera was full and my cellphone's wasn't quick enough for the task, so I can't show it to you. Sorry. But I wondered how wine made from grapes forever steeped in exhaust fumes would taste.

Madame M. was waiting for us back at her place with dinner just about ready. Tonight the soup was mushroom, and again my spoon scraped the bowl. The lamb chops that followed were the first I think I've had, and while I have tried to avoid eating critters killed when still little I'm not going to turn down food made for me when I'm a guest. Plus, they were delicious. Along with the salad afterward was this pork dish called rillettes. Tours is one of the places known for its style of rillettes, which is sort of like pate in texture, but like Carolina barbecue in color and taste. I could live happily off that stuff until my arteries shut down in protest.

The next day, our last in Tours, M. had planned a walking tour of Tours, in which she would show us the best parts. And so she did.

Megan telling secrets to Anatole France.

Not far from Madame M.'s apartment is a courtyard that has a huge tree. Inside an alcove is a huge stuffed elephant.His name was Fritz, and he was one of the largest elephants in P T Barnum's circus. When ol' PT came to Tours, however, as they were parading down the street, someone fed Fritz a cigarette. Apparently the poor guy went crazy and had to be put down.

Lucky for him, he got to be stuffed and put on display.

Of all the plethora of really old castles and massive cathedrals and similar centuries-old things France is rife with, I think the things I like the most are the casually ancient things.  Funnier people than I have remarked on this disparity between American and European attitudes towards architecture and even having the ability to have an attitude towards really old stuff. Running through Tours and inevitably being part of people's lives is this old wall:

The closer two ladies are Megan and Madame M. The further ones are nuns who
live in the nearby, full-on wimple and vow-of-silence nunnery.

Those two towers belong to St. Gatien's cathedral, of which you'll be
 hearing more shortly.  Remind me to tell you about bacon.

It dates back to the halcyon days of the Roman Empire. Like, 1st century CE and stuff. Just sitting there, being a giant old wall. It's in the middle of town because it used to be the wall around Caesarodunum (hill of Caesar), later called Turones (and if you can't infer from there how its current name came about I'm not going to help), which was much smaller.

Next stop was St. Gatien's cathedral.  This thing has quite a history. And it would, seeing as how it's been around for 1700 years. That's right: one thousand, seven hundred years. Well, sort of. Actually, it's been built, burned to the ground, rebuilt, burned, rebuilt again, destroyed, and rebuilt again several times. Each time it's been sort of repositioned, enlarged, added to and otherwise embiggened. But its current incarnation enabled one of those come-to-history moments that's enchanting and nerdy in a way I'm not used to. The reason for that is the cathedral's flying buttresses:

Those bits that stick out like walls or windows that
haven't been filled? Flying buttresses.

 Flying buttresses are one of the hallmarks of Gothic architecture. When I was a child, when we lived in England for a few months and at other times, my mother would be quick to take advantage of any chance to bring up things like the English royal lineage or Gothic architecture or the Norman Invasion of 1066. So: flying buttresses  act as a sort of exterior load-bearing arch, allowing one to build gigantic walls of stone with huge windows and have them not collapse under their own weight.  Thus, Gothic architecture is about allowing more light into a place. Draw whatever irony you may as to the term's current aesthetic use.

Also, flying buttresses give Batman somewhere to hang
 out before leaping into empty space.

Another big thing in Gothic architecture (are you getting this, mom? See? I listened!) is ribbed vaults. And no, that's not a sex thing. Perv.  Look:

While you can't actually hear them, you can
almost feel the monks chanting.

This particular cathedral, St. Gatien's, is famous for its organ, which I didn't manage to get a picture of (there's a lovely one on its wikipedia page, if you're really into organs), and the tomb of two of Charles VII's children, which is sweet and kind of creepy.

Now, moving on from the cathedral, we...I'm sorry? What was that? Bacon? Oh! Right.
So, in this cathedral there are a bunch of stained-glass windows. I know. Crazy. I'm not going to show you all of them, but there's one I'd like to share.

The story being told here is about one future saint who was oppressed and killed by someone or other that refused to hear and believe the word. In this story, another future saint comes along and raises him from the dead. That's right. That's messiah-level power, right there. You can see the panel, fourth one down on the right side. Let me give you a close up:

Saints-to-be were always wearing the hippest in monkish fashion.

  So, the logical interpretation of this panel, assuming you hadn't read the description of each panel on a little stand in front of it (or had it read to you, as it was in French), was that these two holy men had gotten together to exalt and play Lady and the Tramp with a gigantic piece of bacon. But if you did read the panel (yes, or had it read to you), then what seems even cooler is that whoever made this window, centuries ago, believed that the act of resurrection should be portrayed by energy beams shooting out of your mouth and into the dead guy's, and you get a red power-halo around your head.  Note that it's not the typical golden one you see around the heads of holy folks in paintings and such. No. Red.


After the cathedral Madame walked us through a downtown-ey, active sort of part of Tours, filled with shops and cafes and all those sorts of things. But hidden amongst them, just hanging out like it was nothing on the side of a building, was this:

Basically, this says that in 1429 Joan of Arc had her armor made  here.

And to this day it's still a lady's clothing store.
 Tradition, ladies and gentlemen. I give you it.

There was more to see and more to tell, but the day was beginning to wane, and it was almost time to go. The train waits on no one. But Madame M. must feed us once more. Simple fare, this time: A thing sort of like coleslaw but made from celery, tabouleh, and more rillettes. In fact, M. really wanted us to finish off all this stuff, as she was returning to the US in just a couple days and had to get rid of all the food she had. We tried to accommodate her. But then she brought out a quiche. More salad. At last, she urged us to eat some of her fruit. We both protested that we were full, stuffed. But then Megan turned on me. “Go on, Nat. Have a pear.” At that point I would have had to resort to straight rudeness to get out of it, so I ate a pear. Just as I finished it, M. said, “And now I have a cake.”

It was not a whole cake cake, but three individual ones, things called religieuses. That means nuns, and they're these little cakes filled with fluffy chocolatey sweet stuff, then a tiny eclair on top of that, and then a little chip of chocolate or something. 

Note: stock photo. Not the religieuse I ate. But essentially the same thing.

They were beautiful, but I was already overfull. My belly hurt. But I had to at least try mine (we each got one). So I did. Do you remember in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when the queen gave Edmund those Turkish Delights, and she reflected upon how they were magical and someone would stuff himself to death eating them if he were allowed? Did you know that the Eastern Box Turtle loves strawberries so much that it will eat them until it can no longer pull into its shell? I was like that with this religieuse. I told my stomach to just shut the hell up and ate the whole damn thing.

Not long after that it was time to head to the train station. The trip back was on the regular train- no TGV this time- and would take two hours. I didn't mind. I needed the extra time to feel like I could walk back to Le Petit Bateau from the Montparnasse station. As we walked- I waddled- to the Tours station, I tried to think of some analogy, something to tie our experience in France to making myself eat that whole religieuse despite how uncomfortably full I now felt. Something about grabbing an opportunity when it comes to you and getting everything you can from it. Don't worry if it's more than you can handle; over time you'll digest it, make sense of it, and have richer memories as a result. But it was too hard. I would think about the wonderful time we had and the delightful treatment shown us by our lovely hostess when my my stomach stopped hurting.