Since I have not informed you all of what is happening in Rennes, I will start from the Loire Valley and work forward, since so many big things have been happening!
The Loire Valley... WOW. What an experience. I went with my friend Kelly, who is the girl I am closest to in my program. It was an adventure, and we made 230983 mistakes (a little exaggeration there, but still). Read on for more...
Day One
We get on the train at 8am and are headed to Le Mans, where we would change trains. We had a wonderful time time chatting on the train, and giggling at the little French 1 year old who kept giving us his toys. We arrived in Le Mans before too long, and found the "voie" for our other train. We waited in the cold, taking photos. We got on the train and soon arrived in a little town called Château du Loire and tout de suite got on our autocar (or bus), which would take us to Tour, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tours, the big, Paris-like city, located at the center of all the Châteaux we were going to visit.
Our bus stopped in front of a rather large Gare (train station) called St. Pierre Tours. Kelly and I assumed that this was it, and hopped off the bus. Upon walking into the gare to figure out where to go, we wondered why it was pretty much empty while we started at a map. The map was a bus map, and we soon realized that we had gotten off and the wrong gare, and that there are two in Tours. We got off at the one which was far away from Centre Ville. We soon realized after that that somehow neither of us had written down the address of the hostel. Luckily, Kelly's guidebook said that we should take bus 4 and get off at Vieux Tours. Problem was, Vieux Tours was not a stop on the map. After about a half hour of this, we decided it was finally time to ask someone. (Why didn't we do that to start with? We were nervous and scared, I suppose.) I bought a map of Tours while Kelly asked someone, and the woman confirmed that yes, we got off at the wrong gare, but also informed us which bus she thought we should take. We decided to stop at the tourism office to begin planning which Châteaux we would see over the next three days. We couldn't tell exactly which stop to get off for that, and when we thought we were getting close, and staring at the map, I happened to look up and notice the bright neon lights "Office du Tourisme". So we quickly got off the bus. Oops! The office of tourism was closed. Planning to come back later, we carefully noted the opening hours. We caught another bus, and took the bus towards Place Plumereau. Kelly's guidebook had said our hostel was near Place Plumereau. We weren't quite sure where to get off, but we took action and decided, but unfortunately got off one stop too late. We set off to search for the Auberge de Jeunesse (youth hostel), and using my map, went in EVERY POSSIBLE wrong direction before finally going towards Place Plumereau (how??? I don't know!). Finally we arrived at Place Plumereau, and by this time our backs are hurting and we're tired. We smile and jump for joy, only to realize that the hostel is not IN Place Plumereau. Kelly verifies in her guidebook, ok, it's 984 feet FROM place Plumereau. Sadly we realized that there were 6 winding streets going off of Place Plumereau. Time to ask someone! I went into a Tabac to ask, and felt guilty so I bought crackers, and asked the cashier. Malheureusement (unfortunately), he had no clue, asked two other customers who also had no clue, and told us to ask the bar "en face". We went out and realized we had no idea where en face was, because bars filled Place Plumereau. We wandered looking for some nice French person to ask. We ended up asking a chef and he knew where it was!! We were off!! Only to find that the Auberge was closed. Yup...closed until 5, and it was barely 3. I laughed pretty hard at this one, though I could see Kelly was fuming. We decided to go back to the Office du Tourisme before eating lunch because if we didn't, they would close. After taking the bus, we arrived, only to discover that they were STILL closed. Freaking out, we read the sign again, and realized that we didn't read the jour feries (holidays), and that Thursday, November 1st was Toussaint, a national holiday in France. Oops. This time we read the sign a few times verifying the time it would open the next morning, and went back to lovely Place Plumereau to eat lunch. Random funny event: There were at least two birds flying around the restaurant, and the waiters pretended not to notice, even when a little boy was crying, "Il y a un oiseau! Il y a un oiseau!!" Weird.
After lunch, we successfully checked into our hostel and spoke French with the wonderful hostel lady who basically runs this incredibly GIANT hostel all by herself. We relaxed in our room for a little while, then went on a walk around the centre ville (downtown). We found a movie theater but decided we didn't want to walk back at midnight so instead we bought some nutella and a smirnoff drink to share and went back to our hostel. We had a wonderful night and talked a lot, as usual, and also planned out which Châteaux we hoped to see each day.
Day Two
We left early and went to the tourism office (which was open this time!!). We picked up the brochures for the companies that do minibus tours (where you get to see 4 châteaux in one day), and headed over to the gare to figure out what trains went to the châteaux. To make a long story short, we planned out exactly what we wanted. We were going to see Chinon and Azay-le-Rideau by train that day (Friday); Chenonceau, Amboise, Chambord, and Chiverny on Saturday with the minibus tour; and Blois and Chaumont on Sunday by train.
I bought my tickets for Chinon and Azay-le-Rideau, using my 12-25 card, which gives me a pretty good discount. Kelly had forgot her's at the hostel, so she wanted to run and get it before buying the tickets. While she did that, I booked our minibus. We ended up randomly meeting another American and a girl from South Africa in the gare, and they invited us out for drinks that night. When Kelly tried to buy her tickets, the woman basically said, "I'm sorry, you're going to have to come back tomorrow, our printers aren't working." Freaking out, we asked the woman if there's anything we could do, and she said no, but upon talking to her colleague, the printer magically worked and we got the tickets. Finally we were off!
On the train to Chinon the ticket man asked to see my 12-25 card, which I showed him, and he told me I needed the real version (which I thought was just temporary, and left at the hostel), rather than my actual card (very confusing). He told me that I'd have to get off and change my tariff at Chinon. I said ok, though I was confused. Turns out he was very nice, and explained to the ticket man at Chinon to "ok" my tickets. Kelly and I had a lovely 30 minute walk along the Loire River to get to Chinon, which turned out to be, of course, amazing. There was hardly any people there, and we arrived just in time to go on an English guided tour. We were with the SWEETEST woman and it was just the two of us. We spent the next couple of hours exploring Chinon and taking tons of photos. Here is Chinon's history, if you're interested... if not, scroll down for a link to my photos!
Sitting high on a plateau, a huge ruined castle dominates the town. The site appears to have been used for a Gallo-Roman castrum. Towards the end of the 4th century, a follower of St Martin, St Mexme, established first a hermitage, and then a monastery on the eastern slope of the town. This foundation flourished in the Early Middle Ages, with a large and highly decorated church, a cloister and a square of canons' residences. Unfortunately the all too familiar pattern of Huguenot damage in the sixteenth century, followed by closure and partial demolition during the Revolution of 1789 and onwards has left only a much-damaged facade and tower, although the building is now being restored as a cultural centre.The mount of Chinon was fortified as a stronghold by Theobald I, Count of Blois in the year 954. In the 12th century Chinon, located in (then) Kingdom of Anjou, which was then independent of the kingdom of France, was a primary residence of Henry II (Angevin King and King of England) and served with Poitiers and Bordeaux as a key southern capital of the vast Angevin holdings. Henry was responsible for construction of almost all of the massive chateau, built over 1,300 feet long and 250 feet wide with a clock tower (14th century) rising 115 feet high. King Henry died in Chinon castle after being defeated by his sons Richard and John in a rebellion aided by Phillip Augustus of France; he, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their son King Richard the Lionheart were all buried at nearby Fontevraud Abbey.
In the keep or donjon, called the Tour de Coudray, Templar knights were imprisoned during the brutal suppression of the Templar Order that occurred in 1307. Some of the prisoners carved odd symbols into the walls of their cells: Hearts, Stars of David, grids, and other geometrical patterns. It is unknown if they were random symbols, or represented a code of some type.
The chateau was a residence of Charles VII, the Dauphin of France in the early 15th century. Joan of Arc arrived at the castle, at the beginning of her quest to liberate France from the English; March 8, 1429; it was here that she recognized the Dauphin from amongst his courtiers, a feat which helped to persuade him to accede to her urging to declare himself king and raise an army to liberate France.
In 1562 the chateau came into the possession of the Huguenots and was turned into a state prison by Henri IV of France. After that it was abandoned until 1793 when, during the Reign of Terror, the castle was temporarily occupied by Vendeans. Soon though, it was left to decay until Emperor Napoleon III began a partial effort at restoration.
Here is a link to all the photos on facebook, including the ones from before Chinon: http://colorado.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2214748&l=1d55f&id=10200941
More to come soon... I'm going to go Christmas shopping and go see a movie!
