Chenonceau castle is one of the 3 Big C’s in the Loire Valley – Chenonceau, Chambord and Cheverny – and it’s definitely my favourite. A ladies’ castle, built in 1513 by Katherine Briçonnet, decorated by Diane de Poitiers, extended by Catherine de Médicis, and saved by Louise Dupin during the French Revolution!
We have discovered a wonderful cycle path that runs behind the castle and definitely gives you the best view. On leaving the castle, take the main road in the direction of Montrichard, take the first turn on your right and just over the bridge, you’ll see a path on your right that runs along the south bank of the Cher river. You may have to get off once or twice, but you’ll be able to get through and continue over to the other side of the château. These photos were taken in May, a perfect time to visit.
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There we were, two Aussies, a Southern Californian and two Frogs, standing in a street in Blois, talking ten to the dozen in French and English, just opposite a beautiful Renaissance building called Hôtel d’Alluye built in 1508. Next to us, there was this street sweeper with one of those plastic birch brooms they have here. And he started telling us, in basic English at first, then in French once he saw we all understood, about the history and architecture of the building. He really knew his stuff! So friendly and hospitable!
The owner was Florimond Robertet and he was the treasurer for three kings – Charles VIII, whose emblem was the blazing sword, Louis XII with his porcupine and François Ier symbolised by the salamander. Behind the façade is a courtyard with Italian-style galleries. We’ll visit it next time.
We had just come from lunch at L’Appart’ Thé, which is a double play on words. Appart’ is short for “appartement“, “thé” means “tea” and combined, you have “aparté” which means a private conversation. And that’s exactly what it is, an appartment converted into a very cosy place to have lunch, brunch, morning or afternoon tea. When you walk inside, the American-style kitchen is right in front of you and there are lots of comfy chairs and tables inside and out. Since there were six of us, we had a table upstairs.
If I remember correctly, the dishes on the slate perched on the fireplace included veal stew, lentils and duck fillets and zucchini and goat’s cheese quiche, all at about 9.50 euros. The wine list was written on a bottle label and we could choose wine by the glass. We mainly went for local cheverny which comes in red and white. The white is mainly sauvignon with sometimes a bit of chardonnay or menu pineau and the red is gamay and pinot noir.
I’m not sure what the others had for desert (maybe they can help me out!), but I had a very delicious café gourmand for 6 euros with panna cotta, moelleux au chocolat with French custard, a raisin biscuit called a palet solognot which is a speciality of Chambord, a cupcake, a piece of “cake” which is a French version of fruit cake and a heart-shaped shortbread biscuit. After that, we were ready to face the cold!
Our next stop was Troc de l’Île, a dépot-vente on the outskirts of Blois which, despite the cold – there’s no heating in these enormous places – was great fun. We came away with an antique oak wardrobe, matching bed and bedside tables, a sideboard and a very large wicker basket to put the firewood in. Not to mention very cold feet and hands from lashing it all onto the trailer in the Siberian wind.
When we got it all to the new house, where the current owners are providing storage for all this new furniture and other bits and pieces until we sign on March 16th, there was lovely hot tea – and palets solognots – waiting for us! And that night, we went back to stay at one of our two favourite B&Bs in France – Le Moulin du Mesnil.
Hôtel Alluye 8 Rue Saint-Honoré 41000 Blois
L’Appart’ thé, 12-14 rue Basse, 41000 Blois, 02 54 74 26 73
Troc de l’île 144bis avenue de Châteaudun, 41000 Blois, open 10 am to 12 noon and 2 pm to 7 pm
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Sometimes people ask me what language I dream in. I’m not sure that I really dream in any language but I guess it depends on what the dream’s about. I’m a translator by trade and when you’re working with two languages all day, you don’t necessarily know which one you’re speaking, let alone dreaming. I can remember once being asked by the tax department to come and fix up my GST cheque which contained an error. I went in and looked at the cheque carefully for a few minutes but still couldn’t see what the problem was. They pointed out that the amount was written half in English and half in French!
When I chose to leave Australia and live in France, I didn’t really know what I was going to. I only knew what I was leaving. I’ve never looked back and never been homesick. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss my family. I do, especially now that I have four nephews in Australia. But I love living in France. One of the things I like best is that you have greater freedom to be yourself when you live in another country and speak another language. You’re not bound by the same traditions and restrictions. To start off with, you don’t necessarily know that you’re doing something different.
I don’t mean that I want to be outrageous. I just want to be able to act spontaneously without having to worry about what other people say. Once I was in Townsville in the summer and was wearing a fuschia-coloured dress. I was told that it was not a summer colour and that I shouldn’t wear it! I was told in France that I had could only serve rice or potatoes with fish and that rice was never served with red meat, only with veal. In a meeting or a class in France, you’re supposed to put your hand up when you want to talk. None of this spontaneous discussion that goes on in Australia. But I’ve noticed in staff meetings now that some of my French colleagues are following my example.
Expressing emotion is very different here. If something goes wrong, everybody gets excited about it. They drop everything else they’re doing and try to solve the problem together. Leonardo who’s just moved to Australia was telling me about an incident in his first job there. A problem occurred and his team was supposed to be looking after it. Two hours later, the boss called them in and got very angry because they hadn’t found a solution. Leonardo didn’t even know there was a problem. He was mystified because he hadn’t felt any vibes despite the fact that he was working in the same room as the other people involved.
Yet, at the same time, people never interfere in other people’s lives. I once hadn’t seen my neighbour for several days yet her cat seemed to be prowling around. Since she was depressive, I was worried. I went to see the real estate agent who was selling her flat and he came and checked there was nothing wrong. As it turned out, she’d just gone away for a few days. Relationnel thought I was interfering but I was relieved to know nothing had happened to her.
Another thing I like is that when there are differences in customs and attitudes, you ask yourself why. And that must surely help you gain a better understanding of people and life in general. It certainly makes you more tolerant and open-minded. Some traditions were developed for reasons that are still valid today, while others no longer make any sense. When you have the experience of two different cultures, you can choose the best of both worlds!
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Not that the Pont Neuf’s really new – in fact it’s the oldest remaining bridge in Paris – but it was new at the time so that was what it was spontaneously called. If you’ve ever been to Venice and seen the Ponte Vecchio, you’ll have an idea of what most bridges used to look like in mediaeval days. The Pont Neuf, completed in 1607 during the reign of Henri IV (which is why there’s a statue of him halfway across) was the first bridge not to be covered. It was recently renovated and is now nice and new again.
Anyway, I decided to go in the opposite direction today, starting with the Galérie des Proues (as in prow ergo all the anchors) which is the only remaining part of Richelieu’s palace which is how the Palais Royal all started. Then past the Buren columns and Arago’s meridian plaque, across Rue de Rivoli and through the first part of the Louvre until I reached the glass pyramids which are stunning on a sunny day. Down to the left and into the Place Carrée with another fountain. Right towards the river, opposite the Pont des Arts where they have the padlocks and left down towards the Hôtel de Ville.
I think everyone’s heard the jokes about tourists mistaking the town hall (Hôtel de Ville) for a place to stay, but Actor Brother, who’s a country boy at heart, went one better. It was his first time in France and he’d rented a car and headed south (with his 12-year old son sitting in the back chanting his mantra “Dad, right is right, left is wrong”). It was getting late and he couldn’t find a hotel. Being Australian, he was expecting to see a motel appear at any time. Finally, he saw a big sign, “Hôtel de Police”. He headed off the highway, followed the directions and found himself in front of an unlikely looking building but, you know, it was France, and you could expect anything.
As he walked in, with his son close behind him, he realised something was wrong. “Euh, un hôtel?” he said in his basic French. The gendarme looked at him rather blankly but fortunately, a very helpful lady realised what was wrong and directed him to a more suitable place to spend the night than in the police lock-up!
But the one I was walking towards is not the “mega hôtel de ville” as Leonardo so aptly used to call the palatial building opposite Notre Dame that is home to the Mayor of Paris, but the town hall for the 1st arrondissement. It’s still not bad as far as neo-renaissance buildings go. Black Cat has got her heart set on getting married there, but she’ll have to get a move on because once Relationnel retires and we move to Blois, it’ll be too late.
In France, there’s none of that getting-married-in-a-garden-or-on-the-beach business that goes on in Australia. Here, you can only get married in the town hall of the place of residence of one of the spouses (or their parents if you can claim you’re still living at home). And having a church wedding doesn’t do away with the civil ceremony either which can complicate the logistics a bit.
I was going to tell you about the church of Saint Germain l’Auxerrois next door, a favourite with Valois royal family in Renaissance times, but I got a bit distracted and I wouldn’t like leave out any of the interesting bits so it’ll have to wait for next time.
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Do you remember in Part 2 that my nutritionist said that I should divide my plate into 4, with ¼ protein, ¼ carbs and ½ cooked vegetables? Well, I haven’t heard anyone say, “I don’t like vegetables” or “It’s too much of a nuisance to make vegetables”, which is surprising when you see what most people actually eat. And restaurants are certainly not into serving vegetables, not in France anyway unless you also go to the more expensive restaurants.
I like good food and will occasionally get pleasure out of spending hours in the kitchen, but it’s not something I like doing two or three times a day. Everyday cooking, in my opinion, is boring. But vegetables obviously don’t appear out of nowhere. In France, we have Picard, of course. This is a concept that doesn’t seem to exist in Oz, to Leonardo’s great disappointment because he’s very keen on whole leaf spinach. It’s a frozen food supermarket where you can buy practically anything, including unadulterated vegetables, and that’s where I got my best vegetable idea from.
They have these plastic bowl affairs, a bit bigger than a Chinese bowl, containing three or four different vegetables e.g. broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, or peas, zucchini, broccoli and cherry tomatoes, or carrots, green beans and cauliflower. It has a transparent plastic seal so you can just put it in the microwave for a few minutes and, lo and behold, there are your vegetables, all ready to eat.
Doesn’t sound very appetising? You’d be surprised how tasty they actually are. One of the problems with vegetables is that they’re often over-cooked. And a half a plate of carrots or zucchini or green beans is sort of boring. Combining a small number that you can vary at each meal and cook to perfection solves that problem. Buying them from Picard though is expensive and time-consuming at 1.40 euro for 250 grammes so I looked around to see what else I could find.
And I did! Ziploc freezer containers by Albal are the answer. These are square plastic containers with expandable lids that contain just the right amount of vegetables for one person and can be washed in the dishwasher. On Sundays at the market, I buy a range of vegetables (whatever’s available) and store them in my green bags. I bet you don’t know what they are. My mother discovered these many long years ago and I stock up on them whenever I go back to Australia because you can’t buy them in France. The funny thing is, I haven’t found any Australians who know about them!
According to the blurb, they “contain natural ingredients which slow down the ageing process of fruit and vegetables by allowing them to breathe more easily. This process decreases the rate of ripening and preserves freshness, vitamins and flavour”. You use a different bag for each type of vegetable. You then expell the air by pressing on them and seal with a twist though I prefer those coloured clip-things you buy from Ikea. You can also wash out the bags after use and keep using them until they get holes in them. This is important if your stock comes from the other side of the world!
I could do one of those with and without ads, but I wouldn’t like to waste my broccoli. You know how broccoli goes brown then yellow almost as soon as you buy it? Well, you can easily keep it in a green bag for a week without it changing colour. It’s quite amazing. That way you only have to shop every 8 or 10 days and still have a store of fresh vegetables in your fridge. By the way, it takes about 4 minutes in the micro-wave to cook one container of cut-up vegetables. You have to slice carrots very thinly, zucchini into 1/2 cm slices and the cauliflower and broccoli into 2/3 cm pieces.
These taste better than the photo would have you believe
The other way I like cooking vegetables is in the oven. For example, I cut up a couple of eggplants, a few zucchini and and two or three capsicums into chunks (aubergines, courgettes and bell peppers for the non-Aussies), put them all in a large baking dish with a few teaspoons of olive oil and lots of thyme, then into in a 200° C oven. After half an hour, I stir well, then put the dish back in the oven, stirring every 10 minutes (usually another 30 minutes) until the vegetables are cooked. Delicious hot or cold. Also works for potatoes, sweet peas and real pumpkin (as opposed to the sort you find in France).
Enjoy my A to Z and don’t forget to click on the links for more …
A – Aussie: How else could I begin? Aussies come from Oz or the Land Downunder where I was born and bred.
B – Blois: In the middle of the Loire Valley, where we’re in the process of buying a house built in 1584 which we’ll be renting out as self-catering holiday accommodation until the NEW ADVENTURE in my life starts in June 2014.
C – Cycling: Our favourite activity from April until October in France and wherever. Next trip: Paris to London once they’ve completed the bike route for the London Olympic Games.
A bike path around the city of Innsbruck
D – Down Under: Not the Land, but the book by Bill Bryson. Full of clichés, but most of them are just so true! And a good read any time.
E – Early bird: Which I’m not, but it’s the only way to beat the tourists and I hate standing in line! And that’s what siestas are for.
F – Foie Gras: One of my very favourite foods and that I now know how to make.
G – Garret: Where I thought I was living when I first moved to France, even though it was just a room in a third floor apartment.
H – Home Exchange: Our new way of holidaying. First stop Madrid and lots of exchanges planned for Australia, some simultaneous, some not.
I – iPhone: Something I’m crazy about and which can certainly make life easier on holidays. Perfect for Twitter and Facebook too.
J – Jam-packed: The metro at peak hour so why not take the bus instead and be a real Parisienne?
K – Kilos: The 20 I have lost and never intend to put back on!
L – Loire Valley: Land of kings and queens and castles. Our future home. Less than 2 hours’ drive from Paris.
Chambord in the Loire Valley
M – Mushrooms: Our second favourite activity after cycling, from April to December. But next year we’re heading for Provence in January to check out the truffle market!
N – Natural skinnies: The people who don’t ever have to lose 20 kilos.
O – Oysters: Another of my favourite foods, especially on Sundays – “spéciales” with fresh homemade bread and a lovely cold bottle of Sancerre.
P – Palais Royal: My home for another two years and for the last seven. Right in the middle, with a view of fountain from my balcony, directly above Miss Bibi!
Q – Queensland: Where I was born, in the tropics, a true-blue Banana Bender!
R – Relationnel: My very French husband whom I cycle, pick mushrooms and travel with. Among other things.
S – Summer time: The very best time of the year, when it’s still light at 11 pm and the days seem to go on forever.
U – University: Where I’m still teaching translation, despite the sad lack of equipment and outdated installations.
V – Vélib’: Paris’ rent-a-bike system that’s immensely popular with Parisians and great fun along the Seine on Sundays when the road’s closed to traffic.
W – Wolves: To be found in the Palais Royal only when it snows.
Snow in the Palais Royal Gardens in December 2010
X – Xtraordinary: What everyone in Australia thinks my life is, what with living in a Royal Palace and speaking French all the time, but they don’t know how hard it really is!
Y – You-tube: The very best way to learn anything these days, particularly all that new technology and how to set up a blog.
Z – Ze only way most French people know how to say “th”, including Relationnel, giving them a highly recognizable accent.
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“Maybe it was the Latin mass that started it all. I loved chanting away in a language that wasn’t my own even if I didn’t know what I was saying. So when I started to learn French at high school, I was delighted. And it all fitted together so well, just like a puzzle. I actually liked learning verb tenses and vocabulary. I even talked to my dog in French! We had a TV programme at school about a family of four that lived on a barge on a French canal. From Townsville suburbia, it looked like paradise”. Read more
How come I don’t understand what my Tom Tom’s telling me to do? I bought one a few years ago for Relationnel but I’ve hardly ever used it. Now that we live in the middle of Paris, I rarely drive because it’s mostly just as fast to take the metro or the bus inside the city and when we go into the country, Relationnel always takes the wheel. I’d much rather look at the scenary or talk to Black Cat or snooze. So I’m used to hearing the Tom Tom but not to following the instructions.
I practically turned round in circles in the 16th arrondissement the other day trying to understand where I was supposed to be going and yesterday, when I was going to the sales at Usine Center in the north of Paris, I overshot the turnoff completely. Relationnel tells me I should be watching the screen as well. But I have to confess it doesn’t really help! Maybe it’s just a question of practice. I certainly hope so because once we start going down to Blois more often I’ll be driving to a lot more in places I don’t know, not like in Paris where I can usually navigate pretty well, even around Place de l’Etoile.
In French, they call it a “GPS” but I noticed when some friends friends came over from Australia recently, they called it a Tom Tom. I must say it’s extremely useful when we travel to other countries. I can remember some terrible arguments in Italy especially when I didn’t manage to direct us where we should, one of the main reasons being that Relationnel follows his sense of direction which doesn’t work too well when there are one-way streets. I remember one horrendous day in Pisa when the river kept getting in the way.
But now that he’s got the Tom Tom to talk back to, I don’t have to navigate any more. “Faites demi-tour dès que possible” it says imperiously (I’ve got the voice down to a pat) when we’re going in the opposite direction. “Vous êtes arrivé” (with the liaison and all) when we reach our destination. “Tournez immédiatement à gauche. Tournez à gauche. Tournez à gauche!” in desperation when you’re about to miss the turn. The trouble is I miss it anyway. The voice sounds so real that we start explaining what we’re doing! “Hang on. We need to get petrol.” or “We’re going to the supermarket first” (me) or “That couldn’t possibly be right” or “No way. I’m not taking that direction” (Relationnel).
We tried using a man’s voice but neither of us liked it. I’ll let you look for the psychology behind that.
I could try putting it in English I suppose. Maybe I would understand better. Do you have problems with your Tom Tom?
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Until I started blogging last October, I didn’t even know what Twitter was. Not that I’d taken much interest. But my “how to become an expert blogger” course said it was important to sign up to as many social media as possible. So I asked Black Cat about it (she’s a communications manager after all so she should know) and started checking it out. Basically the purpose of Twitter is to write short updates on your life/job in 140 characters or less including spaces. To do so, you have to have a Twitter account and a Twitter handle. My is AussieFrance, for example.
Who reads the tweets, as they are called? Your “followers” do. Whose tweets do you read? Those that you are “following”. How do you follow people and how do they follow you? Well, after you’ve created your Twitter account, by going on www.twitter.com, you fill in your profile. The idea is to introduce yourself in a few snappy words. My profile is “Insights into the French way of life by Fraussie, an Australian living in France. Love reading, writing, travelling, wine, cycling & mushrooms.” followed by Paris, and my blog address.
I don’t know how “snappy” it is but I figure it contains most of the information people need to know about me. Now, if you go onto # Discover, you’ll get a few prompts such as “Who to follow” and “Find friends”. The “Who to follow” is based on people with similar profiles. You can click on one of the little icons and see their profile. If you think you’d like to hear what they have to say, you click “Follow”. They will be notified by email and can either follow you in turn or not. They can be individuals such as me or organisations such as the NY Times or the Guardian, in which case, you’ll see Tweets about the latest news, etc.
If they are bloggers, they will probably be tweeting about their latest posts or something they sell. Once you are following someone, you can tweet them by name, using @. For example, if I want to check whether varieties of wine take a capital letter in English e.g. merlot or Merlot, I can check with Guardian style guide by selecting them and asking the question. They’re pretty good at answering even though they have 19,000 followers! One can only assume there’s more than one person … To reply, you simply click on reply!
There are other ways of finding followers but once you get the hang of it, it’s fairly simple. Once you’re following someone, you can check out who they’re following and follow suit. Another thing you can do is “Retweet” which is similar to the Facebook “Like”. You like someone else’s tweet so you retweet it to all your followers. Using a smart phone is the most useful way of reading and sending tweets. There are lots of applications. I use the official Twitter one. I downloaded TweetDeck as well but haven’t really taken the time to see how it works. Twitter seems more intuitive.
Then there are hashtags as in #. They’re used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet so users can categorise messages e.g. if I’m tweeting about a restaurant in Paris, I can put a hash next to and other users can then click on it to find another tweets on the same restaurant. I don’t use hashtags much for the moment, but it’s my next move!
All that to explain that the new heading on the right of the blog “What I’m Doing” actually corresponds to my Tweets. The funny website addresses are a shortened form that happens automatically when you type in an URL. You can also use Bitly, for example, to do it for you. It saves a lot of space when you have very long addresses such as http://www.aussieinfrance.com/2012/01/washing-machines-i-have-known/ shortened to http://t.co/5g1LLC53!
My latest Twitter experience is a Tweet-up organised in Paris among English speakers. It was held at O-Chateau, a wine bar in rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, just down the road from me. It was great meeting up with people whom I’d already seen on Twitter, including two Australians – Andrea from www.destinationeurope.net and Carina from http://www.carams.fr/blog/. Don’t forget to check out the other blogs and sites in the column on the right from time to time.
And I’d love you to follow me on Twitter by clicking on the Follow AussieFrance button on the top right of the page.
