Weekend in the French Countryside

I spent Saturday and Sunday in a little village outside of Tours with my friend, Ophelie, and her family.

I woke up Saturday to pouring rain.  I was taking the train from Gare Montparnesse to St Pierre des Corps to meet up with Ophelie.  I have this great online site that I studied on Friday night because the only time I've been to Gare Montparnesse was to return a rental car years ago and it was a nightmare.

I took the metro to Montparnesse which only required one transfer.  Luckily since I had studied the station I know that I would have to walk miles (maybe an exaggeration!) in the station to get from the metro to the trains.  And because I was a little stressed about the whole Gare Montparnesse thing I arrived an hour early.  They only release the track twenty minutes before departure, so I had awhile to sit around and watch the military police sweep the station with their automatic weapons (they are always in the train stations).

The TGV (fast train) only took an hour to get to St Pierre des Corps.  Ophelie was waiting for me at the station.  I hadn't seen her for ten years, so we had lots to catch up on.  The two of us had a nice quiet lunch in Tours, and then took a walk through the pedestrian streets in the old town.

It was raining there too.

Ophelie and her family live outside a small village outside of Tours.  Instead of taking the highway, she drove the country roads so I could see the villages that her parents and her sister live in, and the spot where her daughters go to school.

She lives in the country, in a new development that is full of other young families.  All of the yards had swing sets.  I had never met her husband or daughters before, and I loved them all.

In the afternoon they took me to Azay-le-Rideau Chateau, a beautiful residential castle built in 1510.  It's a little chateau, so was easy to visit in an afternoon. The apartments were full of tapestries, paintings, and furniture.  The Marquis Charles de Biencourt had purchased the estate in 1791 and restored it, but as the years passed, and financial ruin came to his descendants, the State ended up purchasing the castle and part of the gardens in 1905.  The Loire is full of chateaux, but this one is particularly charming.  Ophelie and her husband celebrated their wedding here so there was that sentimental value for us.  I was assured by Ophelie's daughters, that it is a princess castle.

And here is the family in front of the castle..............

After we toured the interior, we walked through the garden, ignoring the drizzle.

And I got to be in a photo with the little princesses........

When we got back to the house, the girls quickly put on their princess dresses, so I wouldn't have any doubts.....

Aremance (4 years old) couldn't understand why I spoke English with her mother, and Cassandre (6 years old) corrected my French.  We read books, drew pictures, and ate a marvelous dinner that Ophelie prepared in her fairly large and very modern kitchen.

Sunday morning Ophelie and I drove to the village of Langeais to a marche'.  She needed some honey for Aremance's cough and brought me some too.  (I was a little worried that having the honey might precipitate me having the cough, but so far I have no sign of it.)  At Langeais we saw another castle, but it wasn't a "princess" castle, more of a fortress for defense. Some of the remains are from 1465.

On the way back, we drove along the river so Ophelie could show me the cave houses.  Back at the house, Stephen explained that  to construct the chateaux the builders dug into the hillside to remove rock, which left tunnels that people moved into.  And people still live in the caves today.  They have doors and windows on the front and some of the windows looked fairly new.  Ophelie told me the caves were comfortable, but Stephen said they were humid.  I wish I could have gone in one.

While we were gone, Stephen fixed lunch.  Filet Mignon marinated in honey.  I have to say it was the best beef I have had in France.  After lunch we drove to Tours, wandered through a Marche' Noel, and then they dropped me at the train station for my trip home. They wanted to stay at the station until the train left, but I knew the girls were anxious to get home.....to put up their Christmas tree.  Cassandre had been working on decorations.

I took a slow train back to Paris, which took about 2 hours.  It dropped me at Gare Austerlitz, a station I had never been near.  In fact I'm still not sure where it is located. My modus operandi is that if I don't know where I'm going I just follow people who appear to know where they are going.  I knew from my great website that there was a metro line 5 near the train station and Ligne 5 would bring me right to the Bastille.  So I followed some signs and people that were walking with a purpose and found the metro station outside of the train station.  I stepped off the train from St Pierre des Corps at 7:10 and was in my apartment by 7:30 (only two metro stops!).

I loved spending time with this little family. The most interesting thing was how much their lives paralleled my kids' lives.  Ophelie works for a catering company, organizing business events.  She has some long hours.  Stephen works from home - banking technology, I think, and he has to travel a bit.  They share cooking, household chores, and the pick-up/drop-off of the girls.

I'm really hoping that they can come visit us in the States!