* * *

Blois (pronounced a sharp blwa, vampire-like) holds a prominent place on the map, yet its castle is often ignored in favor of more photogenic stars of the valley. Chambord, Chenonceau, Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, Usée and Saumur, for example, readily lend themselves to adjectives such as majestic, exquisite, idyllic, dramatic, elegant or storybook. (Match the adjectives with the chateaux and you get a free subscription to France Revisited for the rest of this year.)

Blois Castle, le château de Blois, stands on a rise on the right bank of the Loire but it offers no great photo op from the river. The Blois Tourist Office might well sue me for libel for showing this gray-weather shot from the bridge across the river.

And the main entrance to the castle is more promising though still not as imposing or impressive or fairy-tale as we’d like our castles to look, particularly when seen under an indeterminate sky.

But that doesn’t make Blois any less notable. This is in fact the most historically and architecturally significant of the chateaux of the Loire Valley. Admittedly, that isn’t a line you use to get your spouse to choose Blois as a vacation destination or to get your 12-year-old excited about a trip abroad (how about telling him/her that there’s a Magic Museum with dragons in the windows across the square?). Nevertheless, Blois is a key to understanding the valley’s castle-scape.

What it lacks in outward photogenia it makes up for in details, in revealing history and in convenience to daytripper and valley bikers. Blois does have character(s). You just need to get closer to see it/them.

Let’s take a look.

Amboise Castle, a left bank chateau 22 miles downstream, is more photogenic from across the river but it’s now far less notable inside. Amboise is where Charles VIII (born 1470-reigned 1493-died 1498) died from fracturing his skull on a door lintel (careful when visiting old castles, folks, they weren’t designed with Disney building standards in mind, and just you try suing someone for tripping on a cobblestone).

Charles VIII and Queen Anne of Brittany were childless, so with no direct heir his cousin Louis d’Orléans ascended to the throne as Louis XII (1462-1498-1515).

Louis XII

Louis may have had Orleans in his name but he was a native Blésois, as the inhabitants of Blois are called. A century earlier, in 1391, his grandfather Duke Louis I d’Orléans, brother to then king Charles VI, had purchased the fortress of the Counts of Blois whose power had waned. He took full control of the county six years later. While most of the counts’ fortress was razed to its foundations to make way for the new castle of the mounting Orleans clan, Louis I kept the fortress’s Great Hall (1214), one of the largest civil halls in France still existing today from that period.

Louis XII would in turn raze much of the castle of his father and grandfather, again conserving the Great Hall as he pursued a transformation of the family castle to make it worthy of a king. (We’ll return to the Great Hall later in our visit.)

Louis XII greets us above the entrance.

Below him, his symbol: the crowned porcupine. His motto: qui s’y frotte s’y pique, meaning rub against him and you’ll get pricked (literally) or cross swords with him at your peril or if you don’t watch out you’ll get burned.

The initials to either side of the porcupine: L for Louis and A for Anne, you guessed it, of Brittany, his cousin’s widow. Anne was no looker, but having the duchy of Brittany in her dowry made her quite the catch. Louis therefore obtained the annulment of his own childless first marriage to wed her. Anne’s symbol, the symbol of Brittany, was the ermine, a pattern of black stoat (weasel) coats against a white background.

Viewed from the outer square, Louis XII’s brick-and-stone wing, circa 1500, speaks of the end of an era (Gothic). Inside we follow the call of a new era (Renaissance), a pleasure palace with a vast hallway and a succession of royal apartments. The main Louis XII wing now houses the town’s Beaux-Art Museum (more on the museum later). A chapel, truncated by subsequent developments at Blois, also remains from this time.

Louis and Anne had two surviving children, daughters, Claude and Renée, however the succession laws of the French kings stated that the crown could only pass to a male heir. That meant the search for good (i.e. useful) marriages for the girls and likely inheritance of the crown by cousin François (Francis). There was therefore no better marriage for Claude (de France), the elder daughter, than to cousin Francois (d’Orléans).

Francois I

In 1515, less than a year into their marriage, Louis XII died and Claude’s husband became King Francois the First (Ier in French). (France has had plenty of Kings Louis and Charles and several Kings Henri but only two Kings Francois, the second being his grandson who reigned for only 17 months before dying from an inner ear problem at age 16.)

Claude, already duchess of Brittany by virtue of her mother Anne (she also inherited her mother’s looks), was therefore queen. Claude died at the age of 24, which gave her enough time to have seven children, including the future king Henri II—or perhaps it’s better said that having seven children by the age of 24 killed her, and getting syphilis from her husband didn’t help.

While Francois has gone down in history as a powerful builder king, Claude is remembered in the name of a sensual green or yellow-green plum, la reine claude, found ripe in markets in August. Francois I remarried after Claude’s death but had no children with his second wife, Eleanore of Austria, though plums continued to grow in the castle gardens. (Those gardens no longer exist; the city has grown into it.)

Francois grew up at the Chateau d’Amboise. It was there that he invited Leonardo da Vinci to be his neighbor. But Claude was naturally fond of her home castle at Blois and Francois I was intent on keeping it up-to-date. That meant tearing down portions of his predecessor’s château, already démodé, and creating something stylish and avant-garde.

This year France is commemorating the 500th anniversary of the coronation and reign of Francois (Francis) I. Chateaux great (e.g. Chambord) and small (e.g. Beauregard), however deeply or tangentially touched by the architectural and decorative spirit of the era of Francois I, are unfurling images of the broad-shouldered king with the long straight nose, sporting a thin moustache trickling into a full beard, wearing tights or armor, sitting in equestrian glory or standing in fur-lined grace. Blois itself is hosting a bookish exhibition called “Royal Treasures, the Library of François I,” running July 4-Oct. 18, 2015.

The equestrian statue of Louis XII may get the photo op at the entrance to Blois Castle, but it’s Francois I’s see-and-be-seen staircase that draws the lens once in the courtyard—though how to photograph it properly without looking like it’s been seen in a funhouse mirror is anyone’s guess.

Let me try again.

I give up. Photography may have become the lazy man’s travel writing but a skilled photographer still has his place.

Francois I (1494-1515-1547) would go on to launch enormous royal projects at Chambord, Fontainebleau and the Louvre, but he made his first mark on royal architecture at Blois. Palaces constructed or altered in his name were signed with his royal symbol the fire-breathing salamander and the motto nutrisco et extinguo referring to flames that nourish his people and extinguish his enemies.

The salamander sets the tone for decorative relief by the base of the showy outer staircase that defines the Francois I wing.

This is Blois’ architectural claim to fame. With loggia for nobility to look out onto the courtyard and to be seen from below, the theatrical staircase (1515-1519) and the wing of the castle that it serves set the stage for a new architectural style that would now developing throughout the valley. The Francois I wing gave royal momentum to the French Renaissance, thanks largely to Italian architects and decorators in its early phases.

This is no Eiffel Tower. Go to the top of the staircase and you’ll have little more than a view of tourist tripping over cobblestones down below (be sure to look up, though at the way in which the structure meets the ceiling). Nevertheless, this remains one of the architectural treasures of the Loire Valley. Again, not enough to plan a honeymoon around, but there you have it, 16th-century architectural sophistication—dramatic staircases were becoming all the rage.

If approaching from the train station, a 10-15 minute walk, your first view of the chateau is the back of the Francois I wing. Based on an Italian model, it looks more like an apartment building in Rome than a royal castle along the Loire.

It used to overlook the castle gardens but now faces a city road that wraps around a tremendous Atlas cedar. Beyond the cedar, one can also see from the balcony the orangery where citrus trees from the castle gardens were placed in winter. (The historical building now houses a gastronomic restaurant.)

Francois gets the architectural shout-out for this wing with the famous staircase, but the historical tale told inside speaks more about the era of his grandson Henri III.

Henri III

Francois I’s son Henri II (1519-1547-1559), who eventually died from being poked in the eye during a jousting tournament, preferred to place his architectural monograms elsewhere, including on the Louvre and at Fontainebleau. But Blois continues to speak of the presence of Henri II’s queen Catherine de Medicis and of their third son, Henri III (1551-1574-1589).

Henri III’s era of the French Court was as perverse and manipulative as our own in terms of power struggles, festivities, fashion, intrigue and assassination. We have our own politics in which a vocal, heavily armed group proclaims that the “true” religion should guide policy; we, too, go in for fear mongering, lies and rumors passed off for evidence that one man or one party will destroy life as we know it; we too hear the siren of the politics of nostalgia, etc. Admittedly, we prefer to assassinate character more than body these days and we pretend that telling an armed public that “someone ought to shoot that guy” is just an expression of disagreement, but we surround our politicians with a sizeable security detail just in case.

In 1576 and again in 1588, Henri III convoked at Blois an assembly of the Three Estates: the clergy, the nobility and the Third Estate, i.e. all others. The assembly took place in the Great Hall of 1214, originally built as a multi-purpose hall for the Counts of Blois. At its best the Estates (or States) General, as it was called, served as an advisory body offering wise counsel to the king. Otherwise it might be a way in which those with lesser or no power could let off steam or a quarrelsome nuisance that the king would ignore. The body met periodically at various venues from the early 14th century until 1614, then not at all until 1789, when discontent was so loud that Louis XVI could no longer postpone the reunion—but more than reunion, revolution was in the air.

The Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants marked the tenure of Catherine de Medicis and her three successive royal sons. It came to a head during the reign of Henri III. It was bad enough that factions of warring nobility saw no room to compromise, but the ultra-Catholics felt that disaster would befall the kingdom since Henri III was childless, making the heir to the throne his cousin Henri de Navarre, a Protestant.

The Great Hall is a magnificent space for its time and for a family photo op on the throne. Portions of the apartments of Catherine de Medicis and of Henri III are also visible. It’s less the heavily restored décor that makes them significant as the events that took place there. With the right guide (human or audio), the events that took place but gets us thinking about how similar the power struggles of the late 16th century are to the politics of our own time.

In order to calm the warrior spirit of the hawkish Catholic nobility and clergy against the Protestants (Huguenots) on the occasion of the Estates General of 1588, Henri III had the Catholic leader Duke Henri de Guise assassinated as the duke was walking through the king’s bedroom to a supposed pow-wow with the king.

“My God he’s tall,” the king is reported to have said upon seeing his slain rival. “He even looks taller dead than alive.”

The Duke de Guise’s brother, the Cardinal de Guise, also a conspirator against the king, was assassinated in Blois Castle the following day.

Twelve days later, Queen Mother Catherine de Medicis, died here of natural causes at the age of 79.

And seven months later, on August 2, 1589, Henri III was in turn assassinated, caught off guard while on the pierced chair (i.e. the can) at the royal Chateau de Saint Cloud (near Paris). His assassin was a monk named Jacques Clément who represented forces of what we would now call the religious far right.

Upon Henri III’s death the king’s chronicler Pierre de l’Estoile wrote: “This king would have been a good prince had he been born in a better century.” It’s doubtful though that such a century has ever existed.

Henri IV

Heir and party to the Wars of Religion, Henri IV was not only a distant cousin rising to the throne but was also a Protestant, two strikes against him that meant he had to conquer his kingdom. He would eventually convert to Catholicism to be in phase with the majority, but without abandoning the reformers.

Photo Henri IV. The central role that the Loire Valley had played in royal politics was coming to an end as the Bourbon kings asserted a firm hand throughout the kingdom and took up more frequent residence in Paris and then Versailles. Henri IV’s main association with the Loire is far downstream at Nantes, where he signed the edict that granted the right to Protestants to practice their religion in peace along with certain politic rights, thus closing the Wars of Religion in France.

He nevertheless showed enough interest enough in Blois to order the construction of a new building in the gardens. As a builder, his heart—before it was pierced by an assassin monk in Paris in 1612—was more focused on urban projects in the capital.

After his assassination his queen Marie de Medicis assumed the regency for underage Louis XIII. But a power struggle ensued when he son reached royal majority in his mid-teens and he exiled her to Blois to keep her from meddling in affairs of state. A painting in the Louvre, La Fuite de Blois by Rubens, shows her escaping from Blois through the construction site that had been launched by Henri IV. That building was never completed and was eventually demolished.

(To recap royal deaths from 1498-1612: Charles VIII died from banging his head on a door lintel at age 27; Louis XII died from intestinal trouble at age 52; Francois I died from septicemia related to fistula around the unmentionables and kidney failure at age 53; Henri II died from a brain infection caused by being poked in the eye at a jousting tournament at age 40; Francois II died from an ear infection at age 16; Charles IX died from pleurisy at age 23; Henri III was assassinated by a monk will sitting on the can at age 47, and Henri IV was assassinated by a monk while riding in his carriage at age 56. Not pretty, but, ah, but the castles they built!)

Gaston, Duc d’Orléans

Louis XIII saw no need to keep Blois Castle in the French crown and so gave it to his younger brother Gaston in 1626. Had the power days of Blois ended? Not if Gaston could help it. Any pretext was good for Gaston (1608-1660) to conspire against or otherwise disobey his brother because as long as Louis XIII and Queen Anne didn’t have a son he remained first in line for the throne.

By the second decade of their childless marriage, Gaston could reasonably dream of occupying the throne should his older brother predecease him. Blois would then become a royal residence again.

So Gaston hired one of the top architects of the time, Francois Mansart, to build a new wing to his castle, thus bringing Blois into the modern era of the 17th century. Gaston may well have rebuilt the entire castle, razing the previous structures like an old villa on beachfront property, but the throne eluded him. In 1738, after nearly 23 years of marriage, Anne of Austria gave birth to a son (presumably fathered by Louis XIII). The existence of a healthy boy distanced Gaston one step further from the crown, and when Louis XIII died five years later, the boy became Louis XIV.

The Gaston wing resembles a stand-alone chateau and is notable for its relatively early Classicism, but viewed from the courtyard it sticks out as ambition gone wrong; the focal point of the courtyard remains the Francois I wing with its external staircase. Architect Francois Mansart would lend his name to the mansard, a high-pitched roof pierced with windows, then coming into fashion.

The grace of the Gaston/Mansart wing comes especially from the symmetry of the central structure with pavilions on either side reaching out to embrace the courtyard. Through his work here and elsewhere, Mansart nevertheless helped usher in an architectural style that would later become associated not with Gaston Ier but with Louis XIV.

Louis XIV’s prime minister Mazarin, tired of Gaston’s conspiring against the crown during the king’s youth, eventually exiled Gaston to Blois. There he lost the ambition (and perhaps the funding) to complete his dream castle.

The decorative elements of the interior were never finished. The interior monumental staircase of the Gaston wing, crowned by a copula, looks like a grand stage between plays. But Blois was now far from center stage, and the Loire Valley itself was soon but a sideshow as, about the time of Gaston’s death in 1660, Louis XIV began drawing plans for the entire theater district move to Versailles.

The Beaux Arts Museum

The main Louis XII wing houses a small collection that lends itself as much to pleasant if disinterested meandering as it does to a more studious examination of representative 16th- and 17th-century paintings, and to a lesser extent 18th- and early 19th-century works, including glossy, theatrical historical works from the early 19th century called “troubadour” paintings.

For students of 19th-century restorations of medieval and Renaissance castles, Blois Castle is a must see. But since none of those students is reading this, we might be tempted to pretend that that the original equestrian statue at the castle entrance wasn’t actually destroyed during the Revolution and that this window with the ermine of Anne of Brittany has been safely in place for 500 years.

No, let’s not pretend. Let’s be truthful here: The history of French chateaux is rarely that of a single moment in history, and all the more so at Blois. What we see is the result of evolving tastes and ambitions, good fortune and bad, and restoration. In 1788 Louis XVI, five years short of the guillotine, abandoned any royal prerogative to Blois Castle. It then served as barracks for troops and officers with no interest in protecting its historical significance. With the Revolution soon banging at the door there was no interest in protecting its royal symbols either. What was saved was saved for practical rather than historical or emotional reasons.

Then, several decades later, historical mindfulness came calling. In 1840 Blois became one of the first royal complexes in France to be designated a historical monument. Major restoration began several years later, beginning with the rehabilitation of the Francois I wing. The Beaux-Arts Museum opened in 1869.

A room inside this chateau is dedicated to the 19th-century restorers, particularly one Félix Duban, an architect who oversaw the restoration of Blois Castle until his death in 1870. In his terrific travel book “A Little Tour in France,” Henry James, writing in the 1880s, laments the heavy-handed restoration work that he encounters on his tour of the provinces. Nevertheless, it’s thanks to that post-royal history—as barracks, as possession of the city, as object of restoration—that we get to see and to appreciate the lessons in history and architecture that Blois teaches.

To Blois or not to Blois

That remains the question. Is it more rewarding to aim for the monumental unity of Chambord, the loveliness of Chenonceau, the dramatic view of Chaumont, or to get studious with Blois? You can’t go wrong as you plan or wing your way through the castle-rich area of the Loire Valley between Blois and Saumur. Still, a traveler much choose between chateaux while leaving time to enjoy the other pleasures that the region offers—vineyards, gardens, culinary explorations, a zoo, a long stroll by the river.

The architectural developments themselves may seem insignificant 500 years on. Nevertheless, Blois, considered a (perhaps the) key to the Loire Valley, deserves attention.

© 2015 Gary Lee Kraut

Useful information

Château de Blois, Blois Castle, is open daily except Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Fencing demonstrations are given July 13-Aug. 16, 2015. One reason to spend the night in or near Blois is to attend the wonderful sound-and-light show in the castle courtyard, April 4-Sept. 20, 2015.

Blois Tourist Office, is next to the castle at 23 Place du Château. Tel. 02 54 90 41 41. The office and its website also provide information about chateaux in the surrounding area.

Maison de la Magie, the magic museum and fun house across the square from the castle entrance. Watch for the dragons in the window. Open April 4-Sept. 20 and Oct. 17-Nov. 1, 2015.

Loire à Vélo is the name of the Loire Valley biking system covering a cycle trail of about 500 miles. Its official website is here.

Getting to Blois: From Paris, there are infrequent direct trains to Blois from the Austerlitz Station. They take 1 hour 25 minutes. More frequent indirect trains take 2 hours, arriving in Blois via Orleans (from Paris’s Austerlitz Station) or via Saint Pierre des Corps (from Paris’s Montparnasse Station). A daytrip from Paris is possible. One worthwhile approach to beginning your longer Loire Valley stay in Blois is to spend the first day and perhaps night in the town before renting bikes or a car for wider explorations in the valley. Bus service from Blois goes to the nearby chateaux of Beauregard, Cheverny and Chambord. Inquire at the Blois Tourist Office or see the bus schedule here.

Lodging in Blois and the surroundings area

B&Bs

La Maison de Thomas, 12 rue Beauvoir, 41000 Blois. Tel. 09 81 84 44 59 or 06 60 14 41 41. In the heart of the town, a friendly townhouse for those without wheels or for a night in Blois before or after a biking trip.

16 Place Saint Louis, 16 place Saint Louis, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 74 13 61. At Philippe Escoffre’s B&B a 5-minute hike uphill from center, three cozy rooms look out to the cathedral and over the river. Yes, the name is the address.

Le Plessis, 195 rue Albert 1er, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 43 80 08. On the downstream edge of the town with a chemical-free, salt-water swimming pool.

Le Clos Pasquier, 10-12, Impasse de l’Orée du Bois, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 58 84 08. Claire and Laurent Nicot’s B&B in a 15th-century manor house is another 1.5 miles further downstream.

Hotels

Côté Loire – Auberge Ligérienne 2 place de la Grève, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 78 07 86. A 2-star hotel and restaurant in Blois by the river.

L’Auberge du Centre, 34 Grande Rue, 41120 Chitenay. Tel. 02 54 70 42 11. Nine miles south of Blois. I found this 3-star village hotel with a pleasant restaurant. A choice stop during a biking trip in this portion of the valley.

La Maison d’à Côté, 26 rue de Chambord, 41350 Montlivault. Tel. 02 54 20 62 30. An 8-room inn with restaurant (1 star Michelin in 2015) 6 miles upstream from Blois toward Chambord

Le Château du Breuil, 23 route de Fougères, 41700 Cheverny. Tel. 02 54 44 20 20. Ten miles southeast of Blois, in the countryside two miles from the Chateau de Cheverny, Véronique and Bernard Gattolliat’s 39-room 4-star hotel with restaurant an swimming pool.

Domaine des Hauts de Loire, 79 rue Gilbert Navard, 41150 Onzain. Tel. 02 54 20 72 57.Ten miles downstream from Blois, across the river from Chaumont, a 4-star chateau hotel and restaurant. The 170-acre property also has a tennis court, outdoor pool, a pond where one can fish and bikes.

Restaurants in Blois

For a daytripper, one of the cafés below the chateau de Blois should suffice, or simply a sandwich and pastries from one of the bakeries in that area.

For those spending the evening: I’ve fond memories of a relaxed, gastronomic dinner at Christophe Cosme’s Le Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs, 27 rue du Foix. Tel. 02 54 74 67 48. Closed Sun. and Mon. There’s also the Auberge Ligérienne, a part of the hotel Côté Loire noted above. For a more formal meal in an airy historical setting there’s L’Orangerie du Château, 1 avenue Jean-Laigret. Tel. 02 54 78 05 36. It occupies the former citrus green house or orangery of the chateau. Also closed Sun. and Mon. For a more contemporary decor, more contemporary gastronomy, Assa, one mile downstream from center on the edge of the Loire, has 1 Michelin star (2015). 189 quai Ulysse Besnard. Tel. 02 54 78 09 01. Closed Sun. dinner, Mon. Tues.

– GLK

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It’s a beautiful spring day today. We’re told that the air is moderately polluted, nevertheless the sky is cheery enough in its gauziness and the leaves of the Turkish filberts that line the street are a flirty green. I’m pleased that the scraggly lavender on my balcony has survived the winter. I could plant flowers, herbs. I could go biking out of the city. I could call a friend to play tennis.

No, not now. Comfortably ensconced on my couch, I consider the invitations, the pdfs, the brochures I’ve printed out and the documents I’ve received by post and at press events. I think about which exhibitions I might attend, which themes I’d like to investigate further, which piece of cultural news I might write about on its own or as part of something larger.

Aquitaine, the long coastal region of southwest France with the Dordogne bulge, is making a presentation about naturism and nudist camps; Douai, in the north, has mounted an exhibition about the preservation (and destruction) of art and cultural heritage during WWI, “Monuments Men” of an earlier generation; Fontainebleau has a new exhibition about François Gérard, “painter of kings, king of painters,” whose name has largely slipped through the cracks of art history; the Fraternal Order of Tripe Producers is once again gathering in Charlesville-Mézières.

I feel like I’m traveling. This is couch surfing at its best, and in Paris no less. I make coffee, grab a couple of macaroons that a thoughtful friend brought over the other day, take a few books from the shelf, notice the “Je ne suis pas un touristes” (I’m not a tourist) button then I was once given by a Burgundy tourist official, look down from the balcony to watch a woman who has strangely stopped in the middle of the crosswalk as though she’s suddenly forgotten where she was going, and I return to the couch.

As I say, I’m staying in today, working—though maybe work isn’t the best term for examining these documents and looking up further information in books; shuffling through them brings in no income, though it may eventually lead to some reward beyond knowledge itself. There must be some recompense for knowing that a nudist B&B has opened near Saint Emillion, n’est ce pas?

Perhaps it’s more like stamp collecting, traveling through space and time, sometimes daydreaming, sometimes investigating further before deciding that this one more special than that. In the past 45 minutes I’ve learned tidbits about the history of mining in Lewarde, the new WWI presentation in Péronne, the old recipes being revisited at the Napoleon III Festival in Vichy, the museum restoration in Pont-Aven, the biking routes around Bordeaux and the restaurant in Strasbourg that gained its first Michelin star.

I go through the pile: the Army Museum (Les Invalides) in Paris is examining the reality and the legend of d’Artagnan and the Musketeers; the Pinacothèque in Paris is doing the same with Cleopatra; Versailles has sent out their schedule of operas and concerts; Alsace, Poitou-Charentes, Limousin, Burgundy, Bordeaux, etc. Culture, history, folklore and gastronomy are in constant bloom throughout France.

One day, I think, I’ll get a call for personalized advice from VIP travelers with an interest in WWI, Napoleon III, d’Artagnan, Alsatian gastronomy, Burgundy wine, norther tripes and southern nudist B&Bs and I’ll know exactly where to steer them for an extraordinary stay in France.

But what’s this doing in the pile? A notice from the French tax authorities! And this? Something about new health coverage premiums. The Burgundy tourist official was right: je ne suis pas un touriste. But it’s such a beautiful spring day—I think I’ll go biking.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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Getting There

Avignon is 2:40 by direct train from Paris (Gare de Lyon) and is served by two train stations:

1. Avignon TGV. Most high-speed trains arrive here, four miles from the center of town. From the station there’s a light rail line that connects with Avignon Centre station in 6 minutes, making 35 round-trips per day. There’s also regular bus to/from the city walls. Take it to the final stop, “Avignon Poste,” about a 12-minute ride. Avignon Poste is actually just a hundred yards from the Avignon Centre station. The Popes’ Palace and the intra-muros hotels are within a 10-minute walk from there. Taxi service is also available from the station.

2.  Avignon Centre, across the street from the city walls. From here it’s easy enough to walk to any of the hotels intra-muros, though taxis are also available.

In summer, there’s a direct Eurostar to Avignon from St. Pancras as well as direct flights from Birmingham, London and Southhampton.

Having your own wheels—bike, car, a chauffeur—is naturally the best way to explore Provence, but on a brief visit with a limited radius one can do surprisingly well with public transportation.

Tourist Information

The official site of the Avignon Tourist Office is www.avignon-tourisme.com.

Avignon is capital of the department of Vaucluse, which lies east of the Rhone River and includes Orange, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Carpentras, Cavaillon, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Gordes, the Abbey of Senanque, many vineyards and lavender fields and much of the Luberon Natural Regional Park. The official site of the Vaucluse Tourist Office is provenceguide.com.

To the west of the Rhone River and easily accessible from Avignon are Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (just across the river) and the Pont du Gard, which are located in the department of Gard whose official tourist information site is tourismegard.com.

Avignon Theater Festival
During three weeks in July Avignon holds a major international theater festival, le Festival d’Avignon, with venues throughout the town, most prestigiously in the Court of Honor of the Popes’ Palace. Playing at Avignon during the festival signifies a major stamp of approval for a production, a director or a troupe, even if the best of the new productions presented here aren’t necessarily French. For more information see the official festival site.

Video intermission (33 seconds): A view from the edge of the Rock of Avignon overlooking the Rhone River and accompanied by the sound of cicadas.

Choice Accommodations in Avignon

La Mirande
4 place de l’Amirande. Tel. 04 90 14 20 20.

Situated in the shadow of the fortress wall of the Popes’ Palace, this former cardinal’s palace, transformed into a hotel by the Stern family in the early 1990s, provides Avignon’s most luxurious accommodations. The view from most of the rooms may be stopped short by that imposing wall but it is a view that’s long on history. The 26 rooms (sizes vary) of this 5-star boutique include 20 rooms in the older palace building decorated in 18th-century styles and 6 rooms that opened in 2012 in an adjacent building decorated with Empire-style furnishings. Handsome Zuber wallpaper provides an elegant touch throughout. Contributing to the hotel’s feeling of intimacy, an array of charming settings—in the garden, in the inner patio, in the “Red Room,” in the “Chinese Cabinet”—are available for tea, cocktails or an after-dinner drink.

The hotel’s restaurant (not tested for this article) has reportedly had its ups and downs in recent years, but the great dining pleasure of La Mirande is Jean-Claude Altmayer’s guest table in the basement (see #5 in this other article about Avignon). The hotel also offers cooking classes conducted by various chefs of the region.

Hotel d’Europe
12 place Crillon. Tel. 04 90 14 76 76

From its entrance off the square just within the old city ramparts, through the shade of the plane tree in the entry courtyard, into the aura of the ancient walls, past a peek into the large, expectant dining room, up the promise of the grand staircase and into the spaciousness of some of the rooms, the home that the Marquis of Graveson had built in 1580 certainly has the potential for a great hotel. In fact it became one when it opened to the public as the Hotel d’Europe in 1799. So the hotel can boast a fine guest list of celebrated men and women and statesmen that sojourned here over the next two centuries. But during a visit in December 2012 I found the hotel uneven in its physical offerings, green in its staff (admittedly, my site visit lasted less than 30 minutes) and the atmosphere generally lacking in spirit and fantasy. Its 39 double rooms and 5 suites alternate between worn traditional and overly classic renovated, an indication that, like the continent itself, the Europe in search of its soul. These are nevertheless spacious rooms from the “superior” category on up to the presidential suite. This is not to write off the Europe; the hotel’s current owners are apparently striving for more consistent elegance, and this is, after all, a 5-star hotel. The classic grand hotel dining room has a Michelin star in 2013 (not tested for this article).

Hotel de l’Horloge
1 rue Félicien David (corner with Place de l’Horloge). Tel. 04 90 16 42 00.

L’Horloge is a pleasing 4-star ideally set beside Place de l’Horloge, the town’s main square, just a few hundred yards from the Popes’ Palace. Its modest lobby signals a hotel with great pretensions as far service goes but in two stays here I’ve found the reception and cleaning staff friendly and willing to accommodate. The 66 rooms, mostly with bath, some only shower, offer square comfort with an easy décor in tones of brown and off-white. Various categories ensure that the hotel can satisfy a range of budgets and family-friendly accommodates, with attractive off-season prices available online.

Marie Touzet’s Villa de Margot
24 rue des Trois Colombes. Tel. 04 90 82 62 34.

Marie Touzet operates an attractive B&B with three rooms and two suites in an 1820 mansion within easy walking distance of the center of Avignon. The well-maintained rooms and suites of various comfortable sizes are decorated with a nod to various 19th- and early-20th-century styles and run 120-200€, including breakfast. The Suite Royale is a large family suite with a double bed and two single beds for children (supplement) and a terrace with a view at one edge of the Popes’ Palace. Private parking (10€/night) Dog alert: There’s a friendly little mutt named Easy roaming about. Open year-round.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more on Avignon read Profiles in Provence: Passionate Purveyors of Fine Food and Drink.

For a glimpse of nearby Orange see Black Diva and the Roman Theater of Orange.

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I’d arrived on the early morning 90-minute train to Blois and would leave the following morning for two days of biking to nearby chateaux.

Arriving at Blois Castle, I immediately encountered King Louis XII (born 1462, reigned 1498-1515) on horseback above the entrance of a wing that he had built when he assumed the throne upon the death of his childless cousin Charles VIII and began transforming his ducal castle into a royal palace.

He showed me some of his signature porcupines.

Scott Corregan was my personable and ever-so knowledgeable guide. I soon thought of him as the Malcolm Miller (of Chartres fame) of Blois Castle. Scott re-introduced me to Louis XII and then presented me to Francois/Francis I, whose protuberant profile I recognized even before he turned to greet me.

Francois (born 1547, reigned 1515-1547) inherited the throne when his cousin Louis XII died without a son, though he did have a daughter, Claude, who had grown up at Blois and who Francois married. Not to be undone by the porcupines, Francois displayed a great many fire-breathing salamanders on the wing that he built, including this one that I encountered on the novel outdoor staircase.

I had an audience with Henri III (born 1551, reigned 1574-1589), whose reign was full of festivities, intrigue, civil war and assassination, and caught sight of his sworn enemies of the Guise clan lurking in the corner.

I had a brief chat with Gaston d’Orléans (1608-1660, brother of Louis XII) when he was young and still full of hope of one day becoming king. But his plans of making Blois once again a royal abode began to unravel with the birth of his nephew the soon-to-be King Louis XIV, and Gaston lost the motivation to rebuilt his palace after reconstructing only one wing.

I went across the long square from the castle to the Magic Museum where I was introduced to native son Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, a 19th-century clockmaker, conjuror and magician, a man so accomplished that Harry Houdini borrowed his name.

Magician Arnaud Dalaine, gave me a wonderful tour of this entertaining and informative kid-of-all-ages-friendly museum and treated me to some card tricks with a sleight of hand that I couldn’t in the least decipher from under two feet away.

I saw dragons in the windows of the museum, one of whom broke through the railing to roar hello. Or was it good-bye?

I took a drizzly walk in the park by the Bishop’s Palace where, to my surprise, I came upon Joan of Arc (1412-1431) riding along the edge of the hill overlooking the River Loire. She raised her sword to acknowledge my presence but scarcely turned from her mission.

I was lodging at the excellent B&B La Maison de Thomas. The Thomas in question is Guillaume Thomas, however the Thomas I met was his father Bernard, who had led him into the B&B business…

… and had kept a key to the wine cellar. Before I went out to dinner, Bernard Thomas gave me a tour of that cellar from which he selected several bottles to try. I called the restaurant to postpone my reservation, giving me time to encounter winemaker Xavier Frissant though a wine from his fié gris vineyard downstream the Loire in Mosnes, near Ambroise, and winemaker Benoit Daridan through a wine from his romarantin vineyard across the river from Blois in Cour-Cheverny territory. Fié gris and romarantin are two old Loire Valley grapes; romarantin is only grown here. (I also met an unmentionable sauvignon blanc from a third Touraine winery.)

After a prolonged aperitif I had a terrific dinner at Au Rendez-Vous des Pecheurs, a friendly little gastronomic place where fisherman once gathered for a drink and their wives once picked up groceries. Unable to decide between fish dishes, I selected the full force of the tasting menu of owner-chef Chistophe Cosme, whom I first spotted through the service window into the kitchen.

From a thick slice of salmon to an asparagus and mi-cuit fois gras combination to a lobster, ox cheek and ham combination to a pike dish to a raspberry mille-feuille, Christophe Cosme revealed his talent for serious, natural, even-handed, low-heat, product-friendly preparations. I hated to say good-bye so quickly…

… but it was nearly 10:30 and I wanted to catch the sound-and-light show on the inner facades of the castle. It was pouring and I was without an umbrella, but after a meal like that who cares.

While those with umbrellas ventured into the castle courtyard…

… I stood beneath the arcades of one of the Louis XII wings and watched as the walls on the three other wings came delightfully to life as a recording (in English on Wednesday only) reintroduced me to the characters I’d met earlier in the day, including France’s most memorable Queen Mother Catherine de Medicis.

Before leaving Blois by bike the following morning I returned to the castle for a dryer look. The rain gods had threatened to spit along my biking route for the next two days,…

but it turned out that the clouds, like those grotesques at the castle, were only decorative.

It also turned out that even without much historical bla-bla Blois is a town of fascinating, magical, entertaining, friendly and tasty encounters.

Photos and text © 2012, Gary Lee Kraut.

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* * *

While working on my first guidebook to France in the early 1990s I met Gerard Charpin, the foreign press attaché of Chambéry, capital of Savoy (flag in photo) in the Rhone-Alpes region. By the time I arrived in Chambéry, in the valley of the foothills of the Alps, I’d been on the road in the region for about a week. Hearing that during that time I’d had an intensive schedule of visiting castles, churches, museums and old towns, Gerard was horrified that I hadn’t taken a break from visiting les vieilles pierres, old stones.

We were both in our early 30s, too young, he felt, to truly want to spend a full week of it. So after showing me the vieilles pierres of the historical center of Chambéry—the former castle of the Dukes of Savoy, their chapel that once housed the Shroud of Turin, the cathedral, the alleyways of the old town, the Fountain of Elephants—Gerard took me to an indoor aquatic park that had recently opened by a mall on the edge of town. He brought an extra bathing suit for me—we were about the same size then.

Conscientiously trying to describe a town that few readers of that ‘90s guidebook (and possibly of this article) ever heard of, I figured that the water slides at the mall were less significant than Chambery’s role as the historical seat of power of the House of Savoy until they moved across the Alps to Turin in 1563, “leaving behind their ducal castle to dominate the town.”

That guidebook-like quote is from my own long-out-of-print guidebook. I continue: “Below is not an old town of princely buildings but one of solid, practical construction. Yet a false order reigns on the main streets, for behind the somewhat austere facades of the old town are narrow, hidden alleyways that twist past elegant little courtyards, painted archways, and open staircases, before emerging on an unexpected side street.”

Apparently Gerard did a good job of showing me those old stones. But it’s the water park that I now remember most from that visit: leaving the old town to drive to the mall, the buzz in the changing room, choosing between the green and the black skimpy bathing suits that Gerard had brought, wading in a pool surrounded by joyful strangers, the slides, and Gerard repeating for the third time that he couldn’t believe that I’d spent the entire week visiting vieilles pierres while I thought it odd to be swimming by the mall in Chambery.

Though I didn’t return to Chambery for a number of years after that, I came across Gerard again and again at travel fairs and press events in Paris. Occasionally we would have a drink or dinner together. We became friends. He invited me to visit him in Chambery but I kept sidestepping his town when traveling south from Paris or into the Alps.

Logistically, Chambery is an easy town to sidestep, which isn’t to say that it should be avoided but rather that trade, train and tourist routes don’t naturally pass this way unless heading through the Alps to Turin, Italy. It’s a low-key town, a find of sorts, known more as a place where people live than visit, and Gerard has an attractively low-key way of talking about it, whether to encourage people to visit or simply to speak about where he lives. He rarely relies on superlatives to do the work for him. But he claimed to have a magnificent view of the mountains from the terrace of his apartment and invited me to see.

I finally returned to Chambery one long weekend about seven years ago to visit Gerard. Gerard is a kind and diligent host, but the magnificent view that he promised failed to appear. For three days the city sat in a foggy gray. We were now in our 40s, so it didn’t matter that the aquatic park had long closed.

On Sunday afternoon, after satisfactorily accomplishing the French ritual of market (there’s a great one at Chambery) and lunch, we drove to Grenoble, about 45 minutes away, with the intent of visiting the Beaux Arts Museum there, though we managed to enjoy the town without it.

On the way back to Chambery, a shift in the clouds told Gerard that once home we would find blue skies and snowcapped mountains. But when, back on his terrace, Gerard pointed in the direction of the winter ski slopes and the summer hiking grounds where he now owned a chalet without electricity, I couldn’t even distinguish Gerard from the potted plants for the mist.

That evening we went out for raclette, an Alpine meal melted cheese and warmed cold cuts, as a reminder that the mountains were out there somewhere.

I’ve returned to Chambery again more recently, in research mode this time. Gerard is still responsible for promoting his town. I, after a break of several years to focus on Paris projects, still write about France.

On a guided tour of the historical center of Chambery, Florence, my guide, showed me the chest-high plaque indicating the height of the flood of January 18, 1875. We were both surprised to realize that today’s date was January 18.

Florence told me another date, May 26, 1944, when Americans planes bombed Chambery to stop Germans from going to/from Italy during the final days of the Allied preparations for the Invasion of Normandy. The railway station and about a third of the town were destroyed.

On my own I walked away from the center of town for about 20 minutes to reach Les Charmettes, where the writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) spent time while in his 20s in the home of his protector and mistress. Walking by a stream on my way back to the center of town I decided to reread Rousseau when I got home.

It was January, as I’ve said. The weather was spring-like in the valley, winter bright in the mountains. My visit corresponded with a visit of the area organized for s small group of Italian tour operators, whom I joined for a tour of Aix-les-Bains, 11 miles north of Chambery. Aix is a fin-de-siecle town formerly turned inward to his hot springs. While the springs are still used for medical purposes and the old stones are a pleasure to see, contemporary travelers mostly look outward to Lake Bourget, France’s largest natural lake, and upward into the pre-Alpine hills and mountains.

Hundreds of black-feathered white-beaked ducks (fulica atra) saw us off as we embarked for a beautiful morning cruise to the Abbey of Hautecombe, necropolis of the House of Savoy (counts, dukes and finally, briefly, kings of Italy), where we were greeted by cormorants. Bourget is a long, narrow lake. I wondered aloud whether it was possible to rent bikes at Aix-les-Bains to cycle all the way around and was told yes, 74 kilometers (46 miles), which immediately inspired me more than the thought of rereading Rousseau.

As with Chambery, the mountains begin on the edge of Aix-les-Bains. I took the photo above when we went up to the Grand Revard, the closest mountain from town, just a 30-minute drive from Aix-les-Bains (equally accessible from Chambery). Gerard lent me a pair of ski pants as he had a bathing suit 20 years early. We skied for a couple of hours on the gentle pre-Alpine slopes (1550 meter/5000 feet).

I returned the ski pants to Gerard back in Chambery when I went over to his apartment to finally see the promised view from his terrace. There, lo and behold, was the Massif des Bauges and the Cross of the Nivolet facing the town. The white-crossed red Savoy flag fluttering atop the old stones of the ducal castle.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Chambery Tourist Office, 5 bis place du Palais de Justice. Tel. 04 79 33 42 47. Closed Sundays except in July and August.

Aix-les-Bains Tourist Office, Place Maurice Mollard. Tel. 04 79 88 68 00.

Chambery is one of the points of entry to the French Alps of the Savoie/Savoy region. The official Savoie Mont Blanc website provides information about skiing, hiking and other activities in this portion of the Alps.

Chambery Hotels

Château de Candie, rue du Bois de Candie. tel. 04 79 96 63 00. Member of the hotel associations Château et Hôtels Collection and the Esprit de France. Four miles north of the center of town, in the direction of Aix-les-Bains, a 25-room luxury hotel (4-star) partially within the walls of a 14th-century fortified manor. On a 15-acre estate with views of the surrounding mountains. Gastronomic restaurant. Pool in summer. A fine place from which to explore Chambery, Aix-les-Bains and the lakes and hills.

Inter Hôtel des Princes, 4 rue de Boigne,  tel 04 79 33 45 36. A friendly 45-room 3-star hotel for a pleasant stay in the very center of Chambery between the Fountain of Elephants and the castle.

Chambery B&Bs (Chambres d’hotes)

Petit Hôtel Confidentiel, 15 rue de Boigne and 10 rue de la Trésorerie. Tél. 06 22 76 08 85. A luxury (4 corn ears, which are similar to stars but attributed to B&Bs) hotel-like B&B with suites of sleek modern design at two locations in the center of town.

Les Suites de l’Hôtel de Sautet, 6 rue Métropole. Tél 06 16 83 16 64.  Excellent comfort in the 4-corn-ear B&B located in an 18th century mansion on a pedestrian street in the center of town.

La Vie de Bohème, 14 passage Henri Murger. Tél 04 79 70 06 42 or 06 84 35 20 74. Spacious accommodations for a central stay beyond a couple of days or for a traveling family.

Chambery Restaurants

Côté Marché, 60 rue Vieille Monnaie. Tel. 04 79 85 04 35.  Restaurant and gastronomic food shop. Closed Sunday and Monday.

L’Atelier, 59 rue de la République. Tel 04 79 70 62 39 ou 06 11 25 41 45. A restaurant and wine bar. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Le Bistrot, 6 rue du Théâtre, Tel. 04 79 75 10 78. An ambitious young chef in a handsome bistro décor. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Le Saint Réal,  86 rue St Réal, Tel. 04 79 70 09 33. Polished and traditional, a scent of old France. Closed Sunday.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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By Sue Birch, contributing to France Revisited

I wasn’t sure we would last the year when we moved from our humble little home in Leicestershire to Ygos, near Mont-de-Marsan in sunny southwest France between Bordeaux and Biarritz.

The plan had been to buy something manageable that we could run together as a family, a small guest house, for example, or gites for holiday rental. Maybe even a restaurant with rooms. What we ended up with was a large rambling old house whose plumbing had more holes than Gruyère cheese, with no kitchen or bathrooms, and a 42- acre jungle. What chance did a short, fat, dumpy, little old lady, her musically gifted but manually challenged husband, and their three boys have to cope with that?

Okay, so there were a couple of buildings which would be perfect for gites and there were lots of stables and outbuildings which were in good condition. But they needed to contain at least a dozen goats to tackle the shrub. Or, better still, some mechanical tools. Instead, all we had was an electric mower. And it takes an awfully long cable to mow 42 acres!

But it wasn’t going to be all hard work. We were in Les Landes, where the sun always shines, where lunch takes two hours, and where traffic jams are unheard of. We could be surfing in the Atlantic in less than an hour or boating, horse riding, swimming or bird watching at the Arjuzanx nature reserve within ten minutes.

Besides which our new home was a prestigious property which had once sheltered the Prince of Cambodia and, as our friendly farming neighbours constantly reminded us, once belonged to Patrick Sebastien, a French TV star. This place had apparently seen a lot of fun—surely we would have some too, right?

Unfortunately the enormous swimming pool, where famous people had once frolicked, now held an inky black swamp. And the water in our lake, where the celebrities had cast fishing lines, was gushing away down a drain, taking all the trout, carp and perch with it.

On top of this every room in the house needed decorating, the gites needed furnishing, the grounds needed tending, the business needed marketing, and we wanted to be up and running within twelve months.

My husband took one look at everything we had to do and, very sensibly, decided to continue working in the UK. His pianist fingers could be put to better use financially supporting us. Furthermore, with the Biarritz, Bordeaux and Pau airports just 90 minutes away, he could easily find cheap flights and spend every Christmas, Easter, summer and half-term break with us.

So the three boys and I were in charge of transforming a ramshackle ruin into the country estate it was longing to be and getting the holiday letting up and running. The gites weren’t a problem. While most agencies refused to consider us until the building work was finished, Just France agreed to put us in their brochure for the following year on the strict understanding we would be ready for inspection by the next spring.

We’d be fine. We had everything we needed to do the job. Along with the trusty lawn mower, we had a chargeable electric screwdriver, the Collins Guide to DIY, and a copy of the Pages Jaunes (Yellow Pages) to search for local builders.

The builders all said roughly the same thing, “March? I can’t do March. September maybe. No, not this September. Next year. Perhaps.”

We were on our own. Good job I had that DIY manual!

And my boys.

Son Number Three had just finished school and wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next. After hacking away at the jungle, painting everything that didn’t move, and working his fingers to the bone he decided he didn’t want to renovate property. He was the voice of reason in our eccentric family. Early on in our adventure he said, “It’s very nice Mum, but it’s not normal, is it?” He’s now a trained nurse and has just started a university degree course doing psychology. I suspect when he’s a fully qualified psychologist he’ll take me aside and say, “It’s very nice Mum, but now it’s officially not normal!”

Son Number Two‘s a classically trained chef who was used to power tools—so long as they were made of stainless steel and lived in a kitchen. A young man who could cook a perfect soufflé but had never changed a plug in his life.

Son Number One is autistic. He likes his life to be ordered, with routines. Before we moved to France he was overweight, spending most of his time watching films. He’d watch the same one over and over again until he could repeat the dialogue perfectly. When we discovered our old British television didn’t work in France we thought he’d be distraught. There was no money to buy a new tele, any spare cash went on tools. To entertain ourselves, after working all day, the boys and I would play charades in front of the fire. Son Number One would act out entire film sequences for us to guess. Now this lovely, kind, handsome young man takes our Pyrenees Mountain dog for a walk every morning to collect the post. He goes swimming regularly and has a strict exercise regime which includes stacking logs for the fire. He still enjoys films but tends to save them for Tuesday afternoons, when a befriender comes to watch them with him while I go shopping.

Did we last the year? Did the work get done?

Well, we’re into our ninth year now. We passed our inspection with Just France and our first customers arrived June 2004. Since then we’ve had guests every summer, not just from the UK but from all over Europe. We’ve even had Russian visitors. The house had been scrubbed up into a beautiful six bedroom Landaise style country farmhouse. Although it would make a great B&B, we greedily keep it for ourselves.

We did find help in the end. Relatives flew in from the States to give us a crash course on general repairs, and after much pleading local artisans managed to fit us in to their busy schedules to do the major work.

But it was Son Number Two who really brought the place to life and in the process learnt to turn his hand to just about any job. Now, he not only whisks eggs but mixes concrete, he ices cakes and plasters walls, he joints chickens and chainsaws logs—not not all at the same time, obviously! He has a kitchen full of cooking equipment and a barn full of power tools. He managed to plug the drain and restocked the lake with fish. The pool is so clean it sparkles in the sunlight like a giant sapphire. We replaced the electric mower with a ride-on one, so the jungle has been tamed back into a landscaped park with a paddock and woods. Always planning meals in advance, my little chef planted an orchard and created a vegetable garden which means we always have fresh produce. He bought chickens, ducks, geese and guinea fowl from the local market and scoured the second-hand shops so we could furnish the house and both gites.

Today the work is long finished and our lives are comfortably routine. But has it been worth it? Well, I’ve had the best nine years of my life. I wouldn’t have missed one minute. It’s been a crazy, rollercoaster of a ride, but the best ride ever.

Yet, despite all that, the property is back on the market.

Was it too much for this short, fat, dumpy little old lady to cope with after all?

Not on your life.

Our plan had been to run a family business together. Although we’ve achieved that, this business is only big enough for one little family, my little family. Which means that our plan is to move on to our next adventure. We’re looking for a business which is big enough for Son Number Two to run, which will support not just us, but his family too.

So, does anyone know of a dilapidated chateau for sale with lots of bedrooms big enough to do bed and breakfast and still have a home large enough for two families? We don’t mind a jungle but it needs to have gites and a professional kitchen because, this time round, my little chef wants his own restaurant.

Normal? Sorry, we don’t know the meaning of the word.

Asked to supply a short bio to accompany this piece, Sue Birch wrote: I usually just say I’m a short, fat, dumpy little old lady who lives in France. If that’s not enough I suppose you could add I was a teacher and ran a befriending scheme for the National Autistic Society in the UK for several years before moving to France in 2003. I’ve also written a children’s adventure story called “Dead Puzzling” about three kids, including an autistic boy, who try to solve a murder. (Admittedly it’s not the best children’s fiction out there but it kept me out of mischief for a while!)

© 2011

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