Our last blog misinformed that France has zero tolerance for blood alcohol when driving. Must be some other country we have yet to reach. That happy tidbit of fact caused us to drive to nearby Vouvray and visit a tasting room for 25 Loire Valley wineries. A beautiful, modern tasting room completely empty except for us and our hostess. All tasting was free, none of that 10 Euros for a flight of five wines hassle. Napa learned how to make an extra buck from "flights" years ago. Anyway, we tasted several sparkling white wines and pretty soon were feeling pretty relaxed, enthusing to our hostess that these Loire whites were spectacular and were surely the best whites we'd ever tasted. Oops! That was Norm's cue to limit himself to reading wine bottle labels from then on and maybe downing that remaining Snickers bar in the glove box before driving off.
A country drive of about 25 miles let us recover our senses and brought us to the second chateau we planned walking through. Chenonceau, at over 600 years old, predates the Alamo and all the Father Junipero Serra's missions combined, with the Sydney opera house thrown in. Pam and Norm kept in close contact while walking through the four floors, still fresh from the Chambord fiasco. But this chateau was a more manageable scale anyway, plus more furnishings and exhibits to see inside. The number of tourists was easily absorbed within so that Pam often had photo ops clear of pesky and often quite unphotogenic other people. There were fresh flower arrangements in each of the rooms which made Pam think of Bouquets to Art.
And the usual gift shop items - lots of jewelry:
The worst thing about the loooong walk down a broad lane just to get from the ticket area to the path leading up to the chateau itself was knowing you'd all too soon retrace every step...slog, slog, slog. But worth it, seeing how the one tenth of one percent lived back in the days before the Revolution upset the apple cart and fostered a new one tenth. The French have a saying for it, "the more things change...etc." which if course rolls off the tongue like liquid butter when said in French. The French version could have been included here, but then dear readers would suspect someone had been busy Googling.
By the way, in the old days the cheapest night's stay for the destitute - just to have a safe roof over their head - was in a large room with several thick ropes anchored to opposite walls. Guests would kneel down (to keep their faces away from the noxious floor), loop their arms around one of the ropes and hopefully fall asleep. Early the next morning, "management" would release one end of the rope, guests would tumble to the floor and be unceremoniously booted out. Pam's thoughts on such an establishment? "Nonnegotiable!!"
As Willie Nelson sang, tomorrow we'll be on the road again.
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