Today we went and visited the Palace of Versailles – wow! You can’t imagine a more over-the-top palace – every room was more sumptuous than the last. The ceilings were beautifully painted with many chandeliers and beautiful cornices; every room was filled with huge portraits; statues everywhere and the furnishings were gorgeous. They are gradually tracing as many of the original pieces of furniture as they can to put back in its original position – it was all stolen in the revolution of course.
The bedrooms are over luxurious but the beds are still small by our standards.
Outside, the gardens are huge – here’s me trying to replicate a photo Mum had taken in the same spot (I think) in 1954 (except you looked a lot more elegant, Mum!) – got to keep up with family tradition!
There are two other small palaces in the gardens as well – we were quite exhausted by the time we walked to those and back. Apparently the smaller one was a favourite of Marie Antoinette’s. Gus found a room he could relate to.
It really is no wonder that the people of France got a little upset with their royal family and decided to have a revolution – bit of a shame they had to guillotine them but they were hard times! The shamelessly over-luxurious way they lived must have been hard for the starving peasants to stomach.
Today we hadn’t really planned to do another chateau so soon, but we are in the Loire Valley and there was one I’d read about... so Gus being very long suffering, went along with it. This one is called Chambord and was used mainly as a hunting lodge – various kings enjoyed a spot of hunting.
It’s got some quite unique features. One of these is a double-helix staircase, so that one person can be going up at the same time as someone else is coming down, and they won’t ever meet – very tricky. They believe Leonardo da Vinci may have had a hand in designing it; he lived in the area not long before it was built, and some of his illustrations match the layout of the chateau as well as the staircase.
The chateau is designed with four identical corners – all the rooms are laid out in a Spanish Cross (?), so that there are four identical wings, each with a turret at the end. It makes it very difficult to find your way around – every side looks the same.
They have some very old tapestries on the walls, although they said that the chateau wouldn’t have been furnished all the time – the Kings moved around their kingdom to keep the peace. The servants had to pack up each time and get ahead of the royal party to prepare the next chateau – they put up tapestries, installed furniture (all of which had to be carried with them), and lit the fires to get the place warmed up and welcoming for the royals – must have been a hell of a job!
It has a very complex roofline; Gus reckoned it would be a roofer’s nightmare. The original hunting estate, like the chateau is now publicly owned, and covers 5440 hectares (the same area as Paris), and is surrounded by a wall. There are 800 hectares open to the public, we went for a bike ride through a little of it.
Apparently there are wild boar and deer in the park – we didn’t see any, but plenty of sign – they must be big pigs judging from the mess they’d made of the ground in places. There are a lot of trophy heads in the Chateau from its hunting lodge days – some of the antlers are bizarrely mounted on ‘gold’ heads. Gus had to admit he did enjoy Chambord but still had enough of chateaux for now.
The rest of the day we followed the Loire River to Saumur. It was a beautiful drive, lots of chateaux – I think Gus put his foot down every time he saw one. He did stop though to take a photo of this chateau across La Loire.
Today we visited a Troglodyte Village – I had visions of something like a troll with a stalactite coming out of its head. The truth is luckily slightly less bizarre – it’s a Greek word for a cave dwelling. This particular village, Rochemenier, is in an old quarry from the early 1800’s and was lived in until the 1970’s. There are also dwellings, mainly used as sheds now, cut into the rock along the main road near Saumur, which we drove past yesterday.
Rochemenier is now a farm museum, as for a lot of its life it was lived in by 2-3 farming families. There are 2 kitchen/dwellings with deep ovens; a wine cellar; barns and an underground chapel – all built into the limestone. The church is on the surface above the chapel. The original church was burned to the ground in some raid so they decided to put the chapel underground, but then rebuilt the church in more peaceful times. As well as the ‘buildings’ themselves, there is also a really good collection of farm and kitchen implements; and wine making equipment from the 19th century. The grapes were sent down a shoot into the room below where they were crushed etc., all very ingenious.
Tonight we’re staying at a Passion Scheme place. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, it’s easily the roughest farm we’ve ever seen, and we've seen some roughies over the years... Doors hanging off the shed and even the house; farm equipment lying all around the front paddock with long grass growing all through it – you get the picture. Quite strange really because we’ve noticed how immaculate most French farms are. Anyway the people are very friendly. We’ve had a visit from a little dog that lives here – how cute is he. Tomorrow we’re planning on going into the ‘Massif Central’ which is very mountainous, we’re both looking forward to that as all of France that we’ve seen so far has been very flat – it’s amazing but true that we miss having ranges in the distance. I wouldn’t have even thought I was very aware of them most of the time.
We had one of those big turnarounds you can only do with this type of travel and changed our plans completely – we decided to go down to the Dordogne Valley first and see the caves – then go up towards the Massif Central tomorrow, and bigger than that, not to go down to Spain after all. There is just too much we still want to see in France and we decided we’d rather enjoy the journey than start to feel too rushed – so the new plan is in action. The countryside has become rolling to hilly rather than completely flat. It was a very pretty drive with lots of villages on the slopes.
Tonight we are at a camping place for 5 euro’s – great value camping in France! Not a campground as such but more a place campervans are allowed to park. Is quiet, apart from the train that just went past, my god who put that there!! We can’t see the tracks for the trees. We are at Les Eyzies de-Tayac-Sireuil. The town has these overhanging cliffs with dwellings set into them – more troglodytes!
This afternoon we went to see Grotte Grand Roc, literally Big Rock Cave – you probably could have worked that out for yourselves... It was really beautiful, packed with stalactites and stalagmites; and a new word for me - damn I’ve forgotten it, anyway it meant ones that stick out in all different directions. There were so many different formations: some that looked like coral, some like pipes and others like crystals.
Even the ticket office was built into the cliff; I think the rock looks like a big soft pillow pressing down on the building. Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to a cave that has prehistoric cave art, the best still open to the public, we’ve been told to be there by 9am though because they only sell a few tickets for the day. The most famous cave, Lascaux, has been closed to the public since 1963 – I think because of damage to the art, so they have ‘recreated’ it 200 metres away at Lascaux II. Doesn’t sound at all the same to me, I really don’t want to see a copy – like seeing prints of Da Vinci’s work hanging in the Louvre (as long as it weren’t a Tuesday).
We did it, got tickets to Grotte de Font de Gaume! Was a bit of an experience in itself. We arrived at about 8.45 and were about the fifth lot there. It was pouring with rain and no shelter; luckily we had put on full wet weather gear... When the doors opened at 9.30 there was a general push for the door, luckily I was ready for them and pushed in to about where we should have been, no orderly queue here! Anyway we got tickets to the second tour starting at 10.30 – the 10am ones sold out just two people in front of me. The rock art was quite amazing – the tour lasted about 30 minutes, it was through quite a narrow cave passage – don’t ever agree to this if you are claustrophobic because there are no wide parts. There were about 15 people in our tour, and the guide showed us the various paintings as we came to them. There were lines of bison, horses, reindeer etc. Unfortunately I can’t show you any photos because we weren’t allowed to take any. This and the limited groups is all part of the conservation of the site. It was amazing to think that people from so long ago had really painted these images though, how their life might have been, and how the surroundings would have looked then. They don’t really know why they did these paintings, they didn’t live in the caves as such but in the rock overhangs like we saw yesterday. The other interesting thing is that there were huge stalactites/mites but there was no moisture in the cave. Gus pointed out that the cave must have already been dry when the paintings were done or they would have been ruined over time, but that there must have originally been moisture in the cave, as the stalactites/mites are formed by dripping water from the limestone.
The rest of the day we drove up into the Massif Central to see all the volcanoes and mountainous terrain. Unfortunately, it has poured with rain all day and we haven’t seen a thing, c’est la vie! We are now just past the volcanoes at Neussargues (in case any of you are following us on a really good map!) Tomorrow we’re going to head towards Le Puy (supposed to be a beautiful village) and then down to the Millau Viaduct. This is the only thing that Gus knew he wanted to see in France – the highest bridge in the world, only a few years old so we’ll check it out and keep you posted – women reading this may wish to skip that bit :-)
By the way the photos don't seem to be appearing beside their relevant text anymore - not sure what's happened there - hopefully you can work it out!
Today we went and visited the Palace of Versailles – wow! You can’t imagine a more over-the-top palace – every room was more sumptuous than the last. The ceilings were beautifully painted with many chandeliers and beautiful cornices; every room was filled with huge portraits; statues everywhere and the furnishings were gorgeous. They are gradually tracing as many of the original pieces of furniture as they can to put back in its original position – it was all stolen in the revolution of course.
The bedrooms are over luxurious but the beds are still small by our standards.
Outside, the gardens are huge – here’s me trying to replicate a photo Mum had taken in the same spot (I think) in 1954 (except you looked a lot more elegant, Mum!) – got to keep up with family tradition!
There are two other small palaces in the gardens as well – we were quite exhausted by the time we walked to those and back. Apparently the smaller one was a favourite of Marie Antoinette’s. Gus found a room he could relate to.
It really is no wonder that the people of France got a little upset with their royal family and decided to have a revolution – bit of a shame they had to guillotine them but they were hard times! The shamelessly over-luxurious way they lived must have been hard for the starving peasants to stomach.
Today we hadn’t really planned to do another chateau so soon, but we are in the Loire Valley and there was one I’d read about... so Gus being very long suffering, went along with it. This one is called Chambord and was used mainly as a hunting lodge – various kings enjoyed a spot of hunting.
It’s got some quite unique features. One of these is a double-helix staircase, so that one person can be going up at the same time as someone else is coming down, and they won’t ever meet – very tricky. They believe Leonardo da Vinci may have had a hand in designing it; he lived in the area not long before it was built, and some of his illustrations match the layout of the chateau as well as the staircase.
The chateau is designed with four identical corners – all the rooms are laid out in a Spanish Cross (?), so that there are four identical wings, each with a turret at the end. It makes it very difficult to find your way around – every side looks the same.
They have some very old tapestries on the walls, although they said that the chateau wouldn’t have been furnished all the time – the Kings moved around their kingdom to keep the peace. The servants had to pack up each time and get ahead of the royal party to prepare the next chateau – they put up tapestries, installed furniture (all of which had to be carried with them), and lit the fires to get the place warmed up and welcoming for the royals – must have been a hell of a job!
It has a very complex roofline; Gus reckoned it would be a roofer’s nightmare. The original hunting estate, like the chateau is now publicly owned, and covers 5440 hectares (the same area as Paris), and is surrounded by a wall. There are 800 hectares open to the public, we went for a bike ride through a little of it.
Apparently there are wild boar and deer in the park – we didn’t see any, but plenty of sign – they must be big pigs judging from the mess they’d made of the ground in places. There are a lot of trophy heads in the Chateau from its hunting lodge days – some of the antlers are bizarrely mounted on ‘gold’ heads. Gus had to admit he did enjoy Chambord but still had enough of chateaux for now.
The rest of the day we followed the Loire River to Saumur. It was a beautiful drive, lots of chateaux – I think Gus put his foot down every time he saw one. He did stop though to take a photo of this chateau across La Loire.
Today we visited a Troglodyte Village – I had visions of something like a troll with a stalactite coming out of its head. The truth is luckily slightly less bizarre – it’s a Greek word for a cave dwelling. This particular village, Rochemenier, is in an old quarry from the early 1800’s and was lived in until the 1970’s. There are also dwellings, mainly used as sheds now, cut into the rock along the main road near Saumur, which we drove past yesterday.
Rochemenier is now a farm museum, as for a lot of its life it was lived in by 2-3 farming families. There are 2 kitchen/dwellings with deep ovens; a wine cellar; barns and an underground chapel – all built into the limestone. The church is on the surface above the chapel. The original church was burned to the ground in some raid so they decided to put the chapel underground, but then rebuilt the church in more peaceful times. As well as the ‘buildings’ themselves, there is also a really good collection of farm and kitchen implements; and wine making equipment from the 19th century. The grapes were sent down a shoot into the room below where they were crushed etc., all very ingenious.
Tonight we’re staying at a Passion Scheme place. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, it’s easily the roughest farm we’ve ever seen, and we've seen some roughies over the years... Doors hanging off the shed and even the house; farm equipment lying all around the front paddock with long grass growing all through it – you get the picture. Quite strange really because we’ve noticed how immaculate most French farms are. Anyway the people are very friendly. We’ve had a visit from a little dog that lives here – how cute is he. Tomorrow we’re planning on going into the ‘Massif Central’ which is very mountainous, we’re both looking forward to that as all of France that we’ve seen so far has been very flat – it’s amazing but true that we miss having ranges in the distance. I wouldn’t have even thought I was very aware of them most of the time.
We had one of those big turnarounds you can only do with this type of travel and changed our plans completely – we decided to go down to the Dordogne Valley first and see the caves – then go up towards the Massif Central tomorrow, and bigger than that, not to go down to Spain after all. There is just too much we still want to see in France and we decided we’d rather enjoy the journey than start to feel too rushed – so the new plan is in action. The countryside has become rolling to hilly rather than completely flat. It was a very pretty drive with lots of villages on the slopes.
Tonight we are at a camping place for 5 euro’s – great value camping in France! Not a campground as such but more a place campervans are allowed to park. Is quiet, apart from the train that just went past, my god who put that there!! We can’t see the tracks for the trees. We are at Les Eyzies de-Tayac-Sireuil. The town has these overhanging cliffs with dwellings set into them – more troglodytes!
This afternoon we went to see Grotte Grand Roc, literally Big Rock Cave – you probably could have worked that out for yourselves... It was really beautiful, packed with stalactites and stalagmites; and a new word for me - damn I’ve forgotten it, anyway it meant ones that stick out in all different directions. There were so many different formations: some that looked like coral, some like pipes and others like crystals.
Even the ticket office was built into the cliff; I think the rock looks like a big soft pillow pressing down on the building. Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to a cave that has prehistoric cave art, the best still open to the public, we’ve been told to be there by 9am though because they only sell a few tickets for the day. The most famous cave, Lascaux, has been closed to the public since 1963 – I think because of damage to the art, so they have ‘recreated’ it 200 metres away at Lascaux II. Doesn’t sound at all the same to me, I really don’t want to see a copy – like seeing prints of Da Vinci’s work hanging in the Louvre (as long as it weren’t a Tuesday).
We did it, got tickets to Grotte de Font de Gaume! Was a bit of an experience in itself. We arrived at about 8.45 and were about the fifth lot there. It was pouring with rain and no shelter; luckily we had put on full wet weather gear... When the doors opened at 9.30 there was a general push for the door, luckily I was ready for them and pushed in to about where we should have been, no orderly queue here! Anyway we got tickets to the second tour starting at 10.30 – the 10am ones sold out just two people in front of me. The rock art was quite amazing – the tour lasted about 30 minutes, it was through quite a narrow cave passage – don’t ever agree to this if you are claustrophobic because there are no wide parts. There were about 15 people in our tour, and the guide showed us the various paintings as we came to them. There were lines of bison, horses, reindeer etc. Unfortunately I can’t show you any photos because we weren’t allowed to take any. This and the limited groups is all part of the conservation of the site. It was amazing to think that people from so long ago had really painted these images though, how their life might have been, and how the surroundings would have looked then. They don’t really know why they did these paintings, they didn’t live in the caves as such but in the rock overhangs like we saw yesterday. The other interesting thing is that there were huge stalactites/mites but there was no moisture in the cave. Gus pointed out that the cave must have already been dry when the paintings were done or they would have been ruined over time, but that there must have originally been moisture in the cave, as the stalactites/mites are formed by dripping water from the limestone.
The rest of the day we drove up into the Massif Central to see all the volcanoes and mountainous terrain. Unfortunately, it has poured with rain all day and we haven’t seen a thing, c’est la vie! We are now just past the volcanoes at Neussargues (in case any of you are following us on a really good map!) Tomorrow we’re going to head towards Le Puy (supposed to be a beautiful village) and then down to the Millau Viaduct. This is the only thing that Gus knew he wanted to see in France – the highest bridge in the world, only a few years old so we’ll check it out and keep you posted – women reading this may wish to skip that bit :-)
By the way the photos don't seem to be appearing beside their relevant text anymore - not sure what's happened there - hopefully you can work it out!
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