The Road to Burgundy...

Tuesday, August 10th

Wow what a day! I am sitting in our hotel which was built in 1490 in Place Richelieu in the center of Amboise in the Loire region. I read out to Ross that it was originally built as a boarding school for young girls and he said that means they were young girls from well to do families who got pregnant and had to be sent away. My husband, ever the romantic. Then it became a laundry and there is still a small stream running under the hotel. After that it became the home of a blacksmith. It was left abandoned for forty years and restored in 1992 as a family run hotel. We have the cutest room with a huge wood beam running across. Ross needs to look out if he gets too close to the wall, so that he doesn’t bump his head, but he is charmed by it just as I am. It is odd to be using their WiFi with wood beams and stuccoed walls all around --the building has aged/been restored well.

The day was spent mostly on country roads heading to St. Nicholas de Bourgeuil to check out the little town of a wine we were taken with back in the day when we drank wine with dinner. Outside the church was a plaque we stopped to read. From the town two families left in 1636 to begin a new life in New France --wonder if their descendants are still in Canada and if they have ever been here.

Then we headed to Bourgeuil where it was market day. Lively with people and traffic being diverted so we parked away from the town center and walked as we wanted to get picnic supplies and what a great place to get them. Live young chickens, guinea hens, the knife seller, baskets, a man recaning the traditional chairs and of course delicious smelling food. There were all the stalls lining the cobbled, twisty streets and then the covered market. We headed in there to have a look and of course stopped at the sausage man. Ah the choice! We chose our lunch and off to Chinon. Chinon is the home of Rabelais, one of Ross's favourite writers and a well known gourmet of the middle ages. Sitting on the banks of the Cher River, we parked the car and took our picture with the statue of, you guessed it, Francois Rabelais. Usually statues look very serious but Francois was smiling --very apropos. Down one of the narrow streets was a well with a plaque. On the well was where Joan of Arc stepped down from her horse as she was too tiny to step onto the road. She had come to Chinon to recognize Charles II as the true king of France and pledging herself to him and telling him of her purpose. Also in Chinon, but we couldn't locate it, was the house where Richard the Lionhearted died. Off again, to Azay le Rideau.

Lunch was a picnic in a little public garden before our visit to the Chateau. Spread out the tablecloth and dig in --saucisse de sanglier, yes that is boar and it is delicious, fresh baguette,fromage de chèvre cendré that just melted in the mouth, cavaillon melon, petit pot de crème au caffé. A couple of French people walked by and wished us bon appétit. So very French.

The chateau and its park sits on a tiny island in the middle of the Indre River. It is a lovely Renaissance chateau with the first straight staircase ever built in France. The whole structure was built in the Italian style of the Renaissance. From here on to the next castle and what a castle --Chenonceaux.

This is definitely fairy tale castle material and has been photographed countless times. It straddles the Cher River and was the home of Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers and Louise de Lorraine, among others. The views are spectacular from all the windows of the gardens below and the river. The rooms are elegantly Renaissance with a Florentine style gallery on the first floor. Loved the rooms but the gardens took my breath away, can't wait to share the pictures with you. Didn't want to leave this gorgeous spot but we had to hit the road for our evening stop, Amboise.

Dinner in Amboise was in the old part of town under the walls of the castle. We thought we might not get any dinner as the whole town seemed asleep. I joked that we might have to cut into the boar sausage that we had bought to take back to Marc. We walked to the center of the old town --that is where everyone was hiding. The area is closed to cars and there are restaurants and cafes and stalls selling food and artisans offering their products along the walls of the Chateau d'Amboise. This is where Leonardo da Vinci lived and died. What looked like a small restaurant, Le Parvis, down a side street, was in fact two patios and three rooms in an old medieval building with exposed beams and a open fire place where they were cooking some of the dishes. Both outdoor areas were full and if we wanted to eat it would have to be inside. No hardship to eat in a room so full of ambiance. We chose the pre-set menu where you get to choose one of three different appetizers, one of three mains and one of three possible desserts. Ross and I both decided on the same thing. To start, a lovely salad with warm goat cheese on baguette slices, rillettes, which is a thick cut bacon, cucumbers and tomatoes on a bed of baby romaine lettuce. Next came a marmite, not the spread, but a slow cooked meat and vegetable combination. It had rabbit cooked with chunks of the local jambon to help keep it moist, two kinds of mushrooms with leeks, and on the side a roasted potato that was heavenly with a homemade mayonnaise on it, sort of the way we use sour cream, as well as half a tomato grilled with herbed bread crumbs on top. Boy am I ever full of run on sentences, but once I get started it is just like a stream of conciousness, so please disregard my grammar. I am not going back to edit. Dessert was chocolate mousse for Ross and because I knew I would be too full for pastry or chocolate I had a home-made lemon sorbet and cassis sorbet. Of course both desserts had a huge dollop of whipped cream on them. With all this we sipped a half bottle of St. Nicholas de Bourgeuil. It is as nice a red as we remembered.