Day 15: Langeais + Savonnaires/Villandry
We outdid ourselves today by getting out the door by 9.30am to get to the large, outdoor Sunday morning market at the foot of the Chateau de Langeais, in what was sunny but cheek-aching, nose-numbing cold weather. We were there by about 10am despite a bit of a detour in Azay-le-Rideau for some event we didn’t know about, and the GPS almost leading us to a tollway. Stopping to turn around and override the Tomtom, we still managed to get to Langeais early enough to get a park only two blocks from the square where the market is held.
More than just a fresh food market, you can buy chickens, guinea fowl and living rabbits (we weren’t sure if they were for petting or eating), Italian linen clothing, t-shirts, leather handbags and shoes, plants, knives and mattresses as well an incredible array of fruit, vegetables, poultry, pork, beef, cured meats, pastries, chocolates, breads, wine, oysters and more. The artichokes and white asparagus spears were the biggest I’ve ever seen - think bowls-sized artichokes and asparagus as thick as your two thumbs together. The cheese wheels were enormous too - over half a metre across. We got smooth-talked into buying a slab of Gruyere that will see us covered for the next five days for a neat 26 euro. It’ll go nicely with the pancetta bought yesterday and the fresh baguette bought this morning - croque monsieur for dinner tonight, followed by the rest of the mille-feuille had for afternoon tea, and maybe the punnet of strawberries. I’m also looking up recipes for asparagus soup and there’s a chance that some will end up in dinner tonight too as we bought a kilo of it!
With the day yet young and as still dry, the Handyman decided we were up for a visit to some caves he found near Villandry, better known for its chateau. There was a groan from the back seat when the travelling teen thought we were going to yet another historic monument. The caves are in the commune just up the road from Villandry at Savonnieres. Not far in kilometres, it took a bit of time getting there from Langeais as Sunday is cycling day in France - not just the tourists and locals but packs of lycra clad club riders who take up a bit of space on the narrow, winding back roads. There’s little to do but sit behind them and then take your chance when you can.
Grottes petrifiantes are a series of caves with an ancient history of limestone rock formations and usage dating to Gallo Roman times of the third century (remains have been found in one particular cave along along with the remains of pottery and a grain mill); the Middle Ages when they were used as a limestone quarry to supply the houses and chateaus being built at the time - the local tuff stone that many old buildings in the Loire Valley are made from; and more recently as a mushroom farm, wine cellar and restaurant (developed by a former owner) and now as a guided tourist attraction.
One of the key features of the caves is the petrification or limestone embossing process that occurs when objects such as ceramics or silicon mounds of 19th century lithographs are left under the seeping water in the caves for several weeks, taking on a four millimetre coating of lime, some end up with a red oxidisation and others gain the sparkle of silica. The premium product is a relief work that comes from the silicon mould with the lustre of polished ivory. They’ve created a museum and gift shop around the phenomena. It’s obviously big business as throughout the cave complexes are multiple deposits of ceramics and moulds destined for the gift shop.
There’s a tunnel leading to Villandry Chateau inside the second cave we toured that was used as an escape route in centuries past and again by resistance fighters of WWII. The tunnel has been filled in for safety reasons but I do wonder if it might be useful again one day…
Like all good tourist attractions, Grottes petrifiantes has its weird stuff - prehistoric animal models based on skeletons from various continents are gathered together in one cave. The previous owner was a prehistory buff but our guide book assured us they are purely fictional in size and colour and were never known to have inhabited the Touraine region. Adding to the mix of weird and wonderful animals, the current cave operators have put a series of taxidermied and paper mache fox-like creatures in a shallow lake inside one cave to study the petrification process. Expect to come back in a year or so to see them coated in limestone.
Coming up from the dark and a comfortable 14 degrees into the cloudy cold, we went in search of lunch, driving further into Savonnieres. After walking around in search of food and looking at the fast flowing River Cher that runs parallel with the Loire until they merge just below Villandry, we returned to the chateau in hope of finding somewhere to eat. Lunch hour does’t really start until 1.30pm here so we got in just before the chateau entrance restaurant started turning people away.
Today, I had coq au vin…a classic. We had a bilingual waiter who after asking us if we wanted to speak in French or English, insisted on speaking to me in French because I’d been answering him in French. The Handyman continues to slaughter the language and the French student doesn’t really come to the fore when English is on offer. She understands more French than she lets on as I found out when trying to make a purchase at the markets this morning. Like many other restaurants we’ve eaten at, the wait staff excel at customer service, particularly if you make an effort - friendly, polite, charming (the men in particular). I nearly choked on my champagne though when repeating our order our waiter started with, "One coq for Madame…”. I’m not sure if it was a case of lost in translation as he did ask what ‘coq’ would be in English, to which I replied chicken or more correctly, rooster. It just doesn’t sound as appetising.
Heading home through hectares of apple orchards and more fields of canola, we arrived to find the festivities of some sort continuing in Azay-le-Rideau. Determined to find out what was happening we parked the car at Le Plessis and walked into town to find the crowd all walking in the other direction. Bad timing. We still don’t know what was on.
We’re off to Chambord tomorrow for one last chateau. The Handyman has worked out a toll free route following the river. The biggest of the Loire Valley chateaux, it’s known as a distinctly French Renaissance building, constructed by King Francis I as a hunting lodge, but was never completed until much later. Another chateau with a chequered history since it rose from the swamp in 1519. The State seized Chambord from its not-French-enough (Austrian origin) owners in 1915, officially making it State property 30 years later. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. Sounds like a good one to finish on if just for the story alone.