Chinon Castle
Walking to the old ville in Chinon
Hannah, Jessica, and Mari
THE GIANT Tours Religieuse
Cathedral de Tours24 fevrier 2010 (Day 177)
Well, I didn’t sleep to well last night. I woke up to a rainstorm and went out walking in it at 4:30am. You see, I booked the train for Tours at 6am because I figured that the tram would be running well before then. The tram doesn’t come by where I live until 5:25am…whoops. Needless to say Hannah, Jessica (cute girl 21 from Washington), and I went out in that rain to walk to the train station. It was a really nice walk (besides the wind and rain) and we made killer time. We got to the train station in less than an hour (normally it takes 60 minutes just to get to Commerce). Needless to say the shortcut that I found to the train station yesterday on my run was indeed a shortcut.
I loved Tours. On the train ride there we saw the most beautiful sunrise. The sun was gold and the clouds were purple and blue. It was amazing. Elder Bourgeois’ map was more than accurate. We saw the turtle fountain, the tree-lined walkway, and I found THE BOULANGERIE. It is only the boulangerie that ALL the missionaries talk about that is in Tours. It is a perfectly normal boulangerie except that everything is huge. There were meringues as big as my head and éclairs that were about a foot long. They had the infamous Tours Religeuse so I bought one and took it to the Tours Cathedral and tried to down it there. It was toffee flavored so I didn’t really like it and it was HUGE! It was about the size of my head. I downed about half of it and had to stop for a while. We went into this gorgeous gothic cathedral from the 15th century with flying buttresses and amazing stained glass windows, it was beautiful. We went back in again later and someone was playing the organ. It was an experience to be in that cathedral with the music playing. I can see how they would find it so mystical. We then wandered to a park-like square that looked like it was straight out of Pride and Prejudice. I wished I was wearing an old fashioned dress and had some handsome young man trying to woo me. Instead there was a 16,000+ dead elephant! It was from Barnibum and Bailey’s circus in the early 1900s. The elephant was about 80 when it died and they stuffed it. There was also this humongous Lebanon Cedar. I really have never seen such a large tree. It was 31 meters (102 feet) tall with a branch span of 33 meters (108 feet). The trunk has a circumference of 7.5 meters (24.5 feet)…does that give you a picture of how big it is? It was planted in 1804, so it is pretty amazing…over 200 years old of CO2 stored up in that baby.
We went by the opera house and some of the older part of Tours to go see the cemetery. On the way we went past the chateau of Tours and over a bridge. The cemetery was really impressive. French cemeteries aren’t like American cemeteries…there isn’t really any grass. They also will frequently have mass family graves. By the time we got back by the train station the girls were pooped so I went exploring by myself. I found the Place Jean Jaures with the Town Hall and the Palais de Justice that was white and taken right out of Greek antiquity. I followed along the tree-lined walkway and found an infinitely long (I never made it to the end) flower market which then turned into a clothing/food market.
We hopped on the train and headed to Chinon. Chinon is a ridiculously old city. King Henry II (England) developed Chinon a lot and Charles VII met Joan of Arc at the castle in Chinon in 1429. It was so unbelievable to be where Joan of Arc was. She is such a mystical historical figure that it was so weird to think that she walked on the same ground. Hannah also peed on that ground, lol. I was proud of her for peeing in the forest, I wouldn’t have. We headed up into the hills where some of the old fortress remains and had lunch looking down on the countryside. The vielle ville (old city) was completely deserted. I felt like I should have been on a horse instead of walking down those cobbled streets with my tennis shoes and backpack. It was incredible. We went into a wine cave which was really cool. They had huge barrels of wine and hundreds if not thousands of bottles of wine.
We then found the official castle and went in. It was really windy on the top of that hill! We had a tour and our guide was great. She taught us about how Phillipe II perfected the circular guard towers because it was more economical, has a better view, and it is more crash resistant against cannon balls. Our guide also told that store about King Richard and how Robin des Bois came about. I wish I would have taken notes (it was cold and windy and hard to hear her as it was). Needless to say, that castle has an amazing history. We went to the room where Joan of Arc supposedly met the king. I also went to the dungeon that Joan stayed in. Yes, she stayed in the dungeon. Apparently it wasn’t that bad of a place to stay (they’d have guests stay there). It was a nice dungeon because it had a freezer and toilets. I got lost in it. I also ran through (literally) the Joan of Arc museum and then the castle was closed.
The girls were pretty whiny by now so we went to a cute café and got some hot drinks. I had some pretty good hot chocolate and the girls warmed up. Jessica also remembered at this time that she forgot her toothbrush. We went to a grocery store by the train station, but they didn’t have toothbrushes! We went into a nearby café/bar to ask where we could find a toothbrush. We asked (in French) this older man and he was so funny. He immediately tried saying our question in English and asked how you spell teeth. “T-ee-double e-t-h.” It was really funny. The lady who ran the place then came, corrected his English spelling and they told us to go to the pharmacy. We walked back to the middle of town (not far) and found a tooth brush. I bought a delicious pear at that grocery store that was amazing. We also bought some avocados for tomorrow.
We totally almost missed the bus. You see, we thought the bus was going to be a train. Luckily some nice gentleman that was also riding on the bus informed us that it was a bus we were waiting for and that it was going to leave. We all lounged out in the back of the bus and got nervous that the driver forgot our stop. Luckily he didn’t and we got dropped off in a small city by Tours to catch our train to Blois.
We spent a while in Blois trying to figure out which way to go to find our hotel. We guessed the right way but couldn’t find it. I asked a lady who was walking her dog. She was very nice and showed us the way. The man at the hotel was interesting. He tried to talk to us in English but I kept on answering in French so finally he spoke in French. He asked if we found the place alright because people always get lost (I wonder why…they don’t have any directions on their site). He showed us to our room and the girls were in heaven. Three beds, a tv, and a bathroom with a bathtub/shower was all they needed to think that I was the greatest in the world (never mind seeing stuff). They decided they were going to sleep in tomorrow and I was going to explore Blois on my own. We all took showers and watched some of the Olympics. Watching the figure skating without the Todd Hamilton commenting was just not the same!
