Better fuel up for a big day. Today we go chateau hunting. Fortunately our B&B comes well equip in that regard. I guess this is the continent where continental breakfast was invented.
Hard to summon up the motivation to roll out. Almost as hard as it is to summon up the motivation to tackle this mammoth blog post.
You think 15th century is old? Pshaw! I give you 11th century and still going strong.
We're definitely in Mei country now. Mei's seasoned eye evaluates the 2010 vintage.
Moulin Mei swings into action. Ironically the moulin, once so common but now almost gone, are making a big comeback. In the form of mighty wind turbines that are springing all along the windy ridges surrounding the valley.
The tiny village of Parny is an oasis in a sea of vineyards. Hang on, when you're surrounded by vineyards do you really need an oasis?
This treehugger seems to have confused... well... a tree with the nuclear power plant down the other end of the valley.
Chateau number 1. It does have an actual name, but by the time you get to the end of the valley they all start to blur together.
It wouldn't be a chateau without a fair maiden to keep the knights on their toes.
Today's lunch stop is the bustling town of Chinon. Like any good town in this valley, it's nestled in the shadow of a ginormous castle. Which can certainly wait until after shrimp salad.
Climbing up to the castle is hard work, even without 40 kg of armor. That must be why they built a brand new glass elevator. It's transparent, so it doesn't spoil the view you see. The flaw in that logic is that it's only transparent if it's not stuffed to the brim with fat yankees.
The old red inn is a fine spot to grab an ale before heading for the battlements. By ale, Rock is of course referring to to that fine sugary brew with the dynamic ribbon device (tm) from across the pond.
The lower wall of Chinon castle. From up here it's almost like looking back straight into history. The tiled roofs and stone bridges haven't changed in five hundred years.
You want to take my grapes and my patisseries? We'll you gotta come through me first!
Where's my sniper bow when I need it? I dare say I can nail that pirate down there to the mast of his bark.
Mei surveys her domain. Seems the shoe budget is getting low. Time to tax those lazy peasants some more.
The king, on the other hand, is more interested in whether the royal cook has finished the latest batch of steak frites. If not, off with his head!
You just don't get better real estate than this.
Get the boiling oil ready, I spy an intruder down there! Say what? Darn it, I told you not to waste it all on French fries!
Little Miss Piggy meets her biggest fan. Mmmm... pork ribs.
Thank goodness for the castle, it seems to have kept the marauding Britons from stealing our croissants.
What's this? Could it be yet another chateau? Why it is indeed. It turns out there's over 300 of them dotted along the valley.
Next stop the busy university town of Tours. It doesn't matter where you live, students are all the same. Only here they procrastinate between assignments in airy cafes instead of huddled together in a frigid flat warmed only by the wall of CPUs humming away in the background.
As the J00sters progress down the valley, one can't help but notice the chateau are increasing in grandeur. The Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau is a case in point. How to differentiate one's extravagant castle from Le Joneses down the river? How about a decorative moat?
Darn it, it seems it doesn't matter what century you live in, the rich dudes always get the good digs.
Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wuhan presides over he subjects with an iron fist. No! There shall be no more baguettes today! Now drive faster! I'm tired! It's too hot in here! Are we there yet!
This is as close as Mei will get to holding the keys to a castle.
Ok, ticked another one off the list, what's next? Ah, it must be the famed Chateau de Chenonceau. This one starts off with the old hedge maze trick. A good way to cut down the flood of tourists.
Even the out buildings are bigger than most houses.
If you want to really elevate your property to the top of the list, a front lawn isn't enough. Anything short of a formal garden just won't cut it.
Bah, anyone can build a chateau on a plot of land. Well mine is built over water. Take that!
Looks like some of the servants are playing king and queen for the day. Let them have their moment of fun before herding them back down into the latrine pit.
And to think they didn't have ride-on mowers back then.
No wonder all the women back then were fat and ugly. All they did was lounge around in gardens all day.
Room with a view. Nothing like waking up to the sound of the river below. Also convenient for emptying chamber pots. Perferably downstream from the kitchen.
Rock keeps a close eye on his loaves. Can't have a castle without non-stop feasting. Or a French road trip for that matter.
Hard to imagine the ladies ever found such... uhm... stylish garb attractive. I guess everyone likes a man with a hairdo.
Architects back then shared a fascination with the art of the olde world. Which back then was actually somewhere other than France.
Chateau envy makes one thirsty. Look on the bright side, the blokes who lived back then may have had magnificent palaces, but coke hadn't been invented yet. Take that!
Talk about saving the best for last. The almost impossibly lavish Chateau de Chambord is a fitting finale for two days of cruising the Loire Valley. And almost unbelievably, it earns France her fourth jump! Critics are stunned, many of whom had accepted they'd never see such lavish praise in their lifetime. Or even in their children's lifetime.
For a residences this big, the attention to detail is phenomenal. Nothing can be added without an ornamental flourish.
Nothing like a couple of armed guards to keep the tourists off the grass. And I'm not talking batons and pepper spray either. Try three foot broadswords instead.
Maybe if I wait a few days the Euro will have fallen far enough for me to hoist the stars and stripes instead.
Room with a view II. It's always nice when your house is so big you can see bits of it out the window.
This chateau is so big they use the spare rooms as an art gallery. Mei tries to perfect her manners in time for the royal banquet. Turns out they weren't needed after all since Rock took her to the local chinois takeaway shop instead.
The central spire is where the famous double helix staircase culminates. More on that later. From there you can step out onto the expansive roof deck and engage in some royal sunbathing.
Rock spies a fine architectural feature worthy of further study. Actually he's just trying to make sure that pigeon doesn't get the wrong idea.
Finally, a house without a shoe storage problem.
The famous double helix staircase. Reputed to come straight from the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci himself. Like a giant strand of DNA, the marbled elegance of not one but two grand staircases looping around each other is a sight to behold.
Our own chateau for the night in the little town of Orleans. Fine, it's not a chateau, it's more like a 2 star hotel. But with a view like this, one can't complain. Ok, one can always complain about something if one's name is Mei.
Mademoiselle, can I proffer you a towel? It may not be Chambord, but the smallest room in the house has a nice view.
Hard to summon up the motivation to roll out. Almost as hard as it is to summon up the motivation to tackle this mammoth blog post.
You think 15th century is old? Pshaw! I give you 11th century and still going strong.
We're definitely in Mei country now. Mei's seasoned eye evaluates the 2010 vintage.
Moulin Mei swings into action. Ironically the moulin, once so common but now almost gone, are making a big comeback. In the form of mighty wind turbines that are springing all along the windy ridges surrounding the valley.
The tiny village of Parny is an oasis in a sea of vineyards. Hang on, when you're surrounded by vineyards do you really need an oasis?
This treehugger seems to have confused... well... a tree with the nuclear power plant down the other end of the valley.
Chateau number 1. It does have an actual name, but by the time you get to the end of the valley they all start to blur together.
It wouldn't be a chateau without a fair maiden to keep the knights on their toes.
Today's lunch stop is the bustling town of Chinon. Like any good town in this valley, it's nestled in the shadow of a ginormous castle. Which can certainly wait until after shrimp salad.
Climbing up to the castle is hard work, even without 40 kg of armor. That must be why they built a brand new glass elevator. It's transparent, so it doesn't spoil the view you see. The flaw in that logic is that it's only transparent if it's not stuffed to the brim with fat yankees.
The old red inn is a fine spot to grab an ale before heading for the battlements. By ale, Rock is of course referring to to that fine sugary brew with the dynamic ribbon device (tm) from across the pond.
The lower wall of Chinon castle. From up here it's almost like looking back straight into history. The tiled roofs and stone bridges haven't changed in five hundred years.
You want to take my grapes and my patisseries? We'll you gotta come through me first!
Where's my sniper bow when I need it? I dare say I can nail that pirate down there to the mast of his bark.
Mei surveys her domain. Seems the shoe budget is getting low. Time to tax those lazy peasants some more.
The king, on the other hand, is more interested in whether the royal cook has finished the latest batch of steak frites. If not, off with his head!
You just don't get better real estate than this.
Get the boiling oil ready, I spy an intruder down there! Say what? Darn it, I told you not to waste it all on French fries!
Little Miss Piggy meets her biggest fan. Mmmm... pork ribs.
Thank goodness for the castle, it seems to have kept the marauding Britons from stealing our croissants.
What's this? Could it be yet another chateau? Why it is indeed. It turns out there's over 300 of them dotted along the valley.
Next stop the busy university town of Tours. It doesn't matter where you live, students are all the same. Only here they procrastinate between assignments in airy cafes instead of huddled together in a frigid flat warmed only by the wall of CPUs humming away in the background.
As the J00sters progress down the valley, one can't help but notice the chateau are increasing in grandeur. The Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau is a case in point. How to differentiate one's extravagant castle from Le Joneses down the river? How about a decorative moat?
Darn it, it seems it doesn't matter what century you live in, the rich dudes always get the good digs.
Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wuhan presides over he subjects with an iron fist. No! There shall be no more baguettes today! Now drive faster! I'm tired! It's too hot in here! Are we there yet!
This is as close as Mei will get to holding the keys to a castle.
Ok, ticked another one off the list, what's next? Ah, it must be the famed Chateau de Chenonceau. This one starts off with the old hedge maze trick. A good way to cut down the flood of tourists.
Even the out buildings are bigger than most houses.
If you want to really elevate your property to the top of the list, a front lawn isn't enough. Anything short of a formal garden just won't cut it.
Bah, anyone can build a chateau on a plot of land. Well mine is built over water. Take that!
Looks like some of the servants are playing king and queen for the day. Let them have their moment of fun before herding them back down into the latrine pit.
And to think they didn't have ride-on mowers back then.
No wonder all the women back then were fat and ugly. All they did was lounge around in gardens all day.
Room with a view. Nothing like waking up to the sound of the river below. Also convenient for emptying chamber pots. Perferably downstream from the kitchen.
Rock keeps a close eye on his loaves. Can't have a castle without non-stop feasting. Or a French road trip for that matter.
Hard to imagine the ladies ever found such... uhm... stylish garb attractive. I guess everyone likes a man with a hairdo.
Architects back then shared a fascination with the art of the olde world. Which back then was actually somewhere other than France.
Chateau envy makes one thirsty. Look on the bright side, the blokes who lived back then may have had magnificent palaces, but coke hadn't been invented yet. Take that!
Talk about saving the best for last. The almost impossibly lavish Chateau de Chambord is a fitting finale for two days of cruising the Loire Valley. And almost unbelievably, it earns France her fourth jump! Critics are stunned, many of whom had accepted they'd never see such lavish praise in their lifetime. Or even in their children's lifetime.
For a residences this big, the attention to detail is phenomenal. Nothing can be added without an ornamental flourish.
Nothing like a couple of armed guards to keep the tourists off the grass. And I'm not talking batons and pepper spray either. Try three foot broadswords instead.
Maybe if I wait a few days the Euro will have fallen far enough for me to hoist the stars and stripes instead.
Room with a view II. It's always nice when your house is so big you can see bits of it out the window.
This chateau is so big they use the spare rooms as an art gallery. Mei tries to perfect her manners in time for the royal banquet. Turns out they weren't needed after all since Rock took her to the local chinois takeaway shop instead.
The central spire is where the famous double helix staircase culminates. More on that later. From there you can step out onto the expansive roof deck and engage in some royal sunbathing.
Rock spies a fine architectural feature worthy of further study. Actually he's just trying to make sure that pigeon doesn't get the wrong idea.
Finally, a house without a shoe storage problem.
The famous double helix staircase. Reputed to come straight from the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci himself. Like a giant strand of DNA, the marbled elegance of not one but two grand staircases looping around each other is a sight to behold.
Our own chateau for the night in the little town of Orleans. Fine, it's not a chateau, it's more like a 2 star hotel. But with a view like this, one can't complain. Ok, one can always complain about something if one's name is Mei.
Mademoiselle, can I proffer you a towel? It may not be Chambord, but the smallest room in the house has a nice view.
