All The Leaves Are Brown
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
29
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Amboise,
Centre,
France
Monday, October 6, 2008
The drive to and from the Abbey was a spectacular sight in itself
Church at Fontevraud Abbey
. We drove along the Loire River, which is surprisingly lacking in water at this time of year. Each town we drove past seemed to have a magnificent chateau towering over it and a hillside full of troglodyte dwellings that we have developed a real fascination with. It is quite incredible to see eaves and balconies jutting out from the rock and knowing that the house goes back far into the chalky cliffs behind. The other spectacular sight that we have been watching develop over the month that we have been here is the changing colours of the autumn leaves. It was probably the most marked example we had seen as we travelled along the banks of the Loire. We are both quite impressed by how beautiful it makes the countryside and we worked out neither of us had ever been anywhere at this time of year and seen the leaves start to fall. Some of the trees look like they are on fire with the brightest orange and red colours you can imagine. I think it would definitely be my favourite season if we were to ever live over here as not only are the leaves beautiful, but you get to dress in stylish scarves and coats which are never required at home.
We spent the afternoon exploring the town of Tours which also lies along the Loire River. We had seen the impressive spires of its cathedral this morning as we drove past and decided to go back and explore. The Cathedral St Gatien is enormous with two identical towers on either side of the church, much like Notre Dame but bigger. It is also one of the most spectacular displays of stained glass I have ever seen in a church.
Tours is a very old city which has an enormous number of old timbered buildings scattered throughout its old city
Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine
. Some of them are so old they have quite an impressive lean but still appear to be inhabited, albeit mostly by uni students who probably don't care about the asymmetry. Tours is mainly a university town, which became more obvious as the only shops in the main street were video game stores and pubs. We got ourselves purposely lost in the old cobbled streets and seemed to stumble on something of interest at every turn. We were quite impressed when we realised that the two huge towers we had been admiring about a block apart were actually the only remaining parts of an enormous church that had once stood there but was destroyed by fire. It would have been an incredible church as it took up about two whole blocks. Exhausted from a relatively short effort at sightseeing we headed home via a local wine merchant where we picked up our dinner supplies for the night. It has become a bit of a tradition when we travel to do a room picnic one night with ridiculously expensive food and wine that would be way too expensive to order in a restaurant. It is essentially skimping on the ambience factor in order to eat great food and drink expensive wine. It started in London and has continued on most trips since then. Tonight we dined on smoked salmon, duck liver foie gras, blue cheese and baguettes. We also enjoyed a very nice local Savignon blanc from Vouvray, one of the little towns along the Loire we had driven through on our way home. Matt also wanted to try a small bottle of dessert wine, which was the perfect end to a decadent meal. We had quite a buzz up after all the wine and somehow managed to watch 7 episodes of our recently discovered favourite sitcom, How I Met Your Mother.
