Road trip in the French countryside

Our time in Paris is over and we’ve headed out to see more of the country.

We picked up our leased car and drove out of Paris on Monday.  I think I talked about the arrangements we’d made for the car in an earlier post, but it’s worth repeating.  Three French car companies – Peugeot, Renault & Citroën – have similar lease/buy-back programs designed for foreign travelers.  You can choose the model that works best for you and get a brand new car (our Peugeot 308 Diesel- standard transmission with cruise control and GPS – had 1.1km on it when we picked it up!).  You can lease for between 21 and 170 days; the first 21 days cost us $65/day and every day thereafter is $15/day.  Our 4 month rental (Oct 24-Feb 20) averages out at about $25/day. At the end, you just return the car and there is no obligation to buy.  All 4 of our small suitcases fit into the trunk and we’re motoring on…

Our first stop was Chinon, a medieval town in the Loire Vally.  We love the cabernet franc wines produced here and are having fun drinking the local product and exploring the nearby chateaux. We began at La Cave Voltaire (13 rue Voltaire), where Patrice, the proprietor and sommelier, shared five of his favorite Chinons.  He knows all the winemakers and talks proudly about the wines of the region. This is a place where all the locals seem to congregate in the evening. From what we could tell on the two nights we stopped there for wine & cheese before dinner, rue Voltaire is the busiest (walking) street in sleepy Chinon, at least this time of year.

We continued down the street for dinner to a quirky place called Restaurant-Musée Animé du Vin et de la Tonnellerie (12 rue Voltaire), run by an equally quirky fellow named Dédé.  There is no menu here.  He pours you wine, all you can drink – two glasses at a time from his specially designed pitcher, and serves you food – rillettes, and delicious bread called fouée that comes from his wood-fired oven along with white beans, salad and dessert, all for 19 euros!

The Loire Valley is well-know for its beautiful chateaux.  We had time to visit two – Villandry and Azay-le-Rideau. The latter was undergoing a major renovation so we were somewhat limited in what we could see, but Villandry was spectacular!! The gardens are amazing, arguably the best in France, but the inside of the chateau is worth a visit, also. It is still privately owned and they maintain it beautifully.

We followed with lunch, accompanied by a local sparkling rosé, at l’Etape Gourmande, a lovely stone farmhouse about 1km out of the town of Villandry.

Venturing south from Chinon, we stopped at Oradour-sur-Glane, a town that was obliterated by the Nazis with all 642 people killed on June 10, 1944, just four days after the Normandy invasion by the Allies and two months before the liberation of Paris. The French government has preserved the ruins as they found them as a memorial to the martyrs.   It is very moving to walk through and learn the story of what happened here.  The buildings are marked to indicate what they were before the destruction (like the ‘Sabotier’…the shoe maker’s shop).

We drove another hour or so through beautiful countryside – rolling hills and ancient towns, one more charming than the next. Our destination was Moulin du Roc, a lovely hotel in the peaceful village of Champagnac-de-Belair. Rick quotes our friend Robert Parker saying that this is “the most romantic place he has stayed in France.”  We agree!

We then ventured out through the Dordogne, home of foie gras!  We hope to spend some concentrated time here next year but, for now, it was a pass-through.  We stopped for lunch in Sarlat-la-Canáde, a really charming old town where there are foie gras shops on every corner. and we drove through Les Ezyies-de-Tayac, a narrow, but beautiful town that seemed to be carved out of the stone faces of the surrounding mountains. The afternoon’s drive was just beautiful…rolling farmland interrupted by ancient villages nestled into the hillsides and small towns with impossibly narrow streets. It was a beautifully clear sunny day for appreciating the countryside.

Our next four nights were spent in the Bordeaux area, two in Saint-Emilion and two in Paullliac. Rick has fond memories of a trip that he made here in 1990 with a group organized by Bob Schindler of Pinehurst Liquors including friends from the Baltimore Wine & Food Society.  Thirty-five chateaux in eight days…yes, really(!).  In all my travels, I’ve never been to Bordeaux, so I was looking forward to reliving those heady days of 1990.  Well…it was not to be.  I’m convinced that the best (and maybe the only) way to experience this region is the way those guys did it back in the day – with all the chateau visits pre-arranged and a driver to get you home at the end of the day.  We find that we are here on a weekend with a bank holiday on Monday, and most of the chateaux are closed! But we took pictures from the outside…Beychevelle, Lafite, and Latour…plus the lovely wild flowers that appear randomly as you drive through endless miles of vines.

Our only full day in Saint Emilion was foggy until 3pm, so even the ‘route panonramique’ was a disappointment.  But, our little hotel is well located in the middle of the town and we did have a wonderful dinner at Logis de la Cadène, so it wasn’t a total loss. The town itself is charming with VERY narrow streets and a wine merchant on every corner!

On to Pauillac…although, in hindsight, it might have been better to book a hotel in Bordeaux and venture out to Pauillac.  Again, we faced the weekend closure of most of the chateaux. Pauillac itself is a kind of seedy town…not much to recommend it except the location.  We spend more time in the city of Bordeaux…at the Sunday Market on the Quai des Chartrons (great produce, meats and prepared foods, including oysters on the half shell), the Miroir d’Eau (a shallow pool of water that reflects the Place de la Bourse), and La Cité du Vin, a new museum devoted to the culture of wine that is striking in its architecture and in the breadth of interactive displays inside. The bar on the top floor, where everyone is served a glass of wine at the end of the visit, has a ceiling chandelier made of wine bottles!  We later learned, on a visit to Cordeillan-Bages, that Silvie, sister of Jean-Michel Cazes was instrumental in the planning of the museum.

We’ll soon arrive in the Languedoc where we expect the pace to be slower. More from there…