Lectures and events from Feb. 6 to Feb. 20

On Feb. 6 at 10:00 a.m. Gary will present to the Alliance Française in Doylestown, PA, a program entitled L’histoire et le patrimoine juifs à Paris (Jewish Heritage and History in Paris). This lecture will be presented in French. Contact the Alliance Française at afdoyletown@gmail.com for details.

On Feb. 7 at 7:00 p.m. Gary will discuss the American presence in France during the First World War and during the post-war reconstruction period of the 1920s as he examines sights that can be visited in the Paris region and in northeast France. This free program, entitled American First World War Memories in France, 1917-1918, will be held at the Lawrence Public Library Headquarters Branch, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648. Registration is suggested by calling 609-883-8294 or emailing lawprogs@mcl.org.

On Feb. 10 Gary will present A Jewish Tour of Paris: An Exploration of Jewish Heritage and History at 2:00 p.m. at Beth El Synagogue, 375 Stony Hill Rd. in Yardley, PA. A $5 donation is suggested for non-members. Register online or by calling the synagogue at 215-493-1707.

On Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. Gary will present The Cycling Traveler: Biking in France at Sourland Cycles in Hopewell, NJ. He will explain how to match your cycling level and travel rhythm with your desire to explore the pleasures and treasures of France. Gary will cover routes of interest to easy-going leisure bikers, to family with teens, and to experienced road cyclists seeking challenging ride, including the Paris region, the Loire Valley, Normandy, Burgundy, and Provence. See here for details.

On Feb. 19 at 7:00 p.m. Gary returns to the subject of American First World War memories in France while also speaking about the significance of American philanthropy and culture in post-war France in a presentation at the The College of New Jersey. His lecture American First World War and Post-War Memories in France, 1917-1928 will be held at the college’s library auditorium. It is free and open to the general public. The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Rd, Ewing Township, NJ 08618. (Read this article from the student paper published after this lecture.)

On Feb. 20 at 7:00 p.m. Gary presents A Toast to the History of the Wines of Burgundy and Champagne at the East Brunswick Public Library, 2 Jean Walling Civic Center in East Brunswick, NJ. Gary will introduce the audience to the astounding cast of characters, the regions, and the grapes that helped create two of the world’s most evocative names in wine and also give tips for visiting Burgundy and Champagne. See here for details.

Additionally, on the afternoons of Feb. 17, Gary will host private events in Ewing, NJ for those planning a trip to France within the next 18 months. The number of participants for each date is limited to 20. Email Gary directly at gary@francerevisited.com with your travel dates, interests and phone number, along with information about your travel party, if interested in attending.

Throughout this period, from February 6 to 20, Gary will be available for private consultations with those planning on visiting France in 2019. Email Gary to schedule a meeting.

About Gary Lee Kraut

Gary Lee Kraut has been inspiring and informing travelers to France for three decades. Originally from Mercer County, New Jersey, he is an award-winning Paris-based travel writer and the editor of the web magazine France Revisited, www.francerevisited.com, and author of the critically acclaimed guide “Paris Revisited: The Guide for the Return Traveler.” His unparalleled experience and knowledge as a France travel and tour specialist has also made him the go-to guy for individuals and travel professionals seeking highly personalized tours, advice and tailor-made events in Paris and throughout France (www.garysparistours.com).

Gary has lectured extensively in the United States and France, often using stories and insights from his travel, touring, and expatriate experiences to reveal how our most rewarding travel experiences are ones in which we find a personal connection with our route or destination. He has also lectured about travel writing, wine regions and American war sites in France. Directly and through top-flight travel agents he has assisted hundreds of travelers seeking highly personalized advice on traveling in France.

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U.S. media contact:
Beth Brody
Brody PR
beth@brodypr.com
908-295-0600

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Little to no planning is required other than knowing where to rent bicycles if you don’t have one of your own. Trains in most directions are frequent enough that you don’t even have to worry much about timing your departure (unless there’s a strike). Many trains outside of rush hour (you’ll be going in the opposite direction) accept bicycles in a special compartment.

The biking route

The heart of this daytrip is a 9-10-mile ride in each direction through the Forest of Compiegne between the palace of Compiègne and the castle of Pierrefonds. These two notable sights are connected by two major routes through the National Forest of Compiegne, with many possible detours.

The forest covers about 35,000 acres, much of it former royal hunting ground. The landscape is fairly flat with a few minimal rises. Most of the paths you’ll ride on are paved. The forest is thick with oak and beech, and perhaps you’ll glimpse a deer or a boar or a roe. Roe are small European deer, like the original Bambi (created by an Austrian), which Disney transformed into a North American mule deer.

Of the major biking routes, the southern route through the forest allows for a stop in the village of Saint Jean aux Bois, with its abbey church and picturesque houses, while the northern route goes by the village of Moulins, with its church. I recommend starting with the southern route then taking the northern route on the return since that would then allow you to make a last-minute decision to make a 3-mile detour to the Glade of the Armistice, time and biking energy permitting. The glade is a clearing on the northern edge of the forest where the armistice ending combat of the First World War was signed. Add to this a mile’s ride from the Compiègne train station to/from the edge of the forest and you get a cycling day of 20-25 miles, depending on your route. It’s therefore a moderate ride, and for those with athletic teens a family-friendly daytrip.

How much time you spend visiting the three major sights on this route, or simply admiring them from the outside, is up to you.

This biking map can be downloaded. Your point of departure, the Compiègne train station (Gare SNCF), is at the upper left of that map.

Here’s a wider view of the region:

The train from Paris

The train between Paris’s North Station (Gare du Nord) and Compiegne takes 48 to 75 minutes, with departures every hour or so. Tickets are about 31€ round-trip. They can be purchased online, at any train (not metro or RER) station or at the North Station at the last minute. I can’t guarantee that they’ll be available at the last minute, but these trains tend not to fill outside of rush hour (you’ll be going in the opposite direction) and special events in Compiegne, unless a conductors’ strike causes everyone to pile onto the one running train. The schedule for specific days can be searched on the site of the French railways company SNCF. Trains idled due to strike are generally indicated as such a day in advance.

If you’ve rented a bike in Paris or have your own, then you’ll need to know which trains have a bike compartment. In that case, look for the appropriate indication in the pull-down tab describing each departure.

As you arrive at the track, you’ll see a bicycle symbol on the appropriate wagon, but don’t hesitate to ask if you don’t see it. Communication tip for those who don’t speak French: Find a train official on the track, say “Bonjour, excusez-moi,” point to your bicycle then to the train. A shrug of the shoulders and the monkey-like sound où, meaning where, ought to get you pointed to the right compartment.

Bike rental in Compiegne

It’s easy to rent bikes in Compiegne through the rental company Picardie Forêts Vertes, operated by Vincent, with whom you can write to or speak with in English. The booking process and other details are explained in English on the website. Vincent encourages people to reserve their bikes 48 hours or more in advance, but he can often accommodate requests made less than 24 hours in advance, particularly on weekdays. You’ll also make arrangements to drop off the bikes at the end of the day.

A VTC or VTT can be rented for 20€ per day, an electric bike for 25€. Tandems, baby seats and trailers for small children are also available. Helmets, locks and maps are provided. Bring an ID as a deposit. Though the typical rental season runs April through October, you may also contact Vincent in advance about rentals during the off-season.

Compiegne also has an inexpensive bike-share system called Vélotic, with a bike station at the train station. Rentals are 2€ for two days.

Lunch options

I’m not much of a planner when it comes to a short ride involving two towns, as with this ride. You can always find a bakery and cafés in Compiegne and Pierrefords, wherever hunger strikes. My own preference is to purchase a sandwich or more from a bakery in Pierrefonds or have lunch in a café there. If you’re more of a planner you can bring a picnic from Paris or purchase picnic goodies at the center of Compiegne. Or if you set out late in the morning from Paris you enjoy a café or restaurant lunch in Compiegne before setting off through the forest for the afternoon. The Palace of Compiegne also has a nice tea room. Bring along water for the ride in any case. On your return to the heart of Compiegne at the end of the day you might stop into a bakery and chocolate shop to reward yourself for a ride well done.

Sightseeing and touring

There are three notable sights to see along this route: the Palace of Compiegne, the Castle of Pierrefonds and the Glade of the Armistice. You’ll have a fine biking day without going inside any of these, but each is worthwhile and informative should you decide to enter.

The palace is closed Tuesdays and the castle is open daily. Both are closed Jan. 1, May 1 and Dec. 25. The glade is open daily but if making this your final stop note that last admission is at 5:30PM for a 6PM closing. They’re all open daily, except for some holidays. See their respective websites for more schedule details.

As a town with a major palace, Compiègne itself makes for a pleasing daytrip from Paris even if you aren’t interested in biking. So if there are any non-bikers in your travel group they can train out to Compiegne with you and pleasantly live their own touring lives as the others go out biking. The center of town is a 10-minute walk on the opposite side of the Oise River from the train station.

Crossing the bridge you might notice to the right the ruins of a tower now (sometimes) called the Joan of Arc Tour since it existed at the time of Joan’s downfall. On May 23, 1430, having come to help defend the Compiegne from attack by the Bungundians, she was captured and eventually sold to the English and taken to Rouen, where she was tried, condemned and burnt at the stakes. That history—and the late 19th-century inclination to honor it—explains the statue of Joan on the town’s central square in front of City Hall. A local Joan of Arc festival is held the second to last weekend in May.

More eye-catching than the statue is the flamboyant façade of Town Hall, built at the turn of the 16th century. It is one of France’s most remarkable town halls for the way it represents the transition between Gothic and Renaissance architecture in the kingdom. Louis XII, who reigned 1498-1515, rides at the center. (The Loire Valley cyclist might recognize him from the entrance to the Castle of Blois.) Town Hall’s Bancloque, an ancient bell first installed in 1303, still manages a dull thud and dong. The Compiegne Tourist Office is here. If you don’t yet have a map of cycling routes for this daytrip you can pick one up here, along with a town map and other information.

As far as tourism goes, though, the palace is the town’s main attraction.

The Palace of Compiegne

Successive royal castles existed here since the 5th century, beginning with the earliest dynasty of rulers, the Frankish Merovingian kings. What’s seen today is a royal and imperial palace that began with a complete redesign and rebuilding in the latter half of the 18th century by Louis XV’s chief architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel. Gabriel’s other major works include the Petit Trianon and the Opera at Versailles, Place de la Concorde and adjacent Hôtels de Crillon and de la Marine in Paris, and Place de la Bourse in Bordeaux.

The Palace of Compiegne as it stands today is a major monument to the architectural style of the latter part of Louis XV’s reign (1715-1774) and to decorative styles over the 100 years that followed.

On our last biking excursion we didn’t go inside but we did stop to watch a parade by the palace.

Here, in 1770, Louis XV’s grandson and heir to the throne, the 16-year-old future Louis XVI, was first introduced to his fiancé Marie-Antoinette of Austria. It wasn’t the kings Louis who got the most use from the palace, however (they continued to primarily hold court at Versailles), rather the emperors Napoleon. In 1810, Napoleon I met his second wife, Marie-Antoinette’s niece Marie-Louise, at Compiègne, but the first Napoleon generally preferred Fontainebleau.

Compiègne is primarily associated with lengthy stays by Napoleon III, who reigned 1852-1870, and his imperial court. When not reigning from the Tuileries Palace in Paris, this was his Versailles, where he would gather the Court for a month or more during the autumn hunting season in the forest that you’ll soon be biking through.

If the weather turns sour while in Compiegne, you can always forgo biking and spend the afternoon visiting the palace and the town.

Warning: If you do lock up your bikes outside and decide to take a quick tour of the palace, you may soon fall under its charms and find yourself drawn into spending a few hours here: visiting palace rooms that give an excellent lesson in the decorative styles associated with the eras of Louis XV and XVI and Napoleon I and III; strolling in the park; lounging in the tearoom; visiting a museum dedicated to the Second Empire (Napoleon III) and then a large collection of horse-drawn carriages and vehicles from the 17th to the 20th centuries, including early motorized vehicles and bicycles. A biking daytrip can soon turn into an excursion to the Palace of Compiegne.

Entrance to the park is free if you’d just like to lock your bikes up outside to enjoy an impressive view the palace from that side. But if the weather holds and you still think of this as a biking excursion, either limit your time in the palace or save your Compiegne-only daytrip for another day. Then cycle on past the palace, down Avenue Royale, with stately mansions to your right and a horseracing track coming up on your left.

The Castle of Pierrefonds

At a leisurely pace with a village stop along the way you’ll arrive in Pierrefonds an hour or two later. Or you could get lost, as a friend and I did on a distracted trek through the woods, and nonchalantly arrive three hours later.

As with the Palace of Compiegne, you can lock up your bikes to go inside the Castle of Pierrefonds, or not. Since there’s less to see inside, the interior can be visited in less than an hour. From Jan 11-Sept. 16, 2018 there’s an exhibition of castle graffiti, particularly during the First World War, when the castle was requisitions to house French soldiers.

Here’s a drone view of the castle:

The feudal castle of the late 14th century was mostly dismantled in the 17th, leaving ruins to be admired by the likes of Victor Hugo and others who enjoyed exercising their imaginations of medieval time. Among them was the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the man behind many of the state-sponsored restorations of the reign of Napoleon III. The emperor’s affection for Compiegne and for hunts in the forest would have led him along some of the same paths that just brought you to Pierrefonds. He commissioned Viollet-le-Duc to rebuild the castle, and the architect was pleased to have such an open hand in creating an idealized fortified castle, drawbridge (currently under restoration) and all. While not authentically medieval, it is nevertheless an imposing sight standing on a hill above this quaint little town of about 1860 Pétrifontains, as its inhabitants are called.

Whether entering the castle or not, this daytrip calls for a relaxing pause in a café by the town square below it or by the lake.

The Glade of the Armistice

A stop at the Glade of the Armistice (Clairière de l’Armistice) adds just three miles to the ride back to the Compiegne train station. Be sure to have a detailed map of the forest so as to not miss the point at which you’ll break off from the main Pierrefonds-Compiegne biking route to head to the Clarière.

In addition to the three extra miles, count on 30 to 60 minutes to visit this reminder of the armistice ending combat of the First World War and of the French surrender ending the Battle of France in the initial phases of the Second World War.

A dining car put into service in 1914, shortly before the start of the war, was placed at the disposal of French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied Commander in 1918, and brought on November 8 of that year to the Rethondes railway junction in a secluded clearing on the edge of the forest. It was here that Foch and British First Lord of the Admirality Rosslyn Wemyss, together representing the victorious Allies, met with Matthias Erzberger, who led the German delegation, for the purpose of agreeing to an signing an armistice to end combat after more than four years of war. The signing took place three days after the parties first met, with the armistice set to take effect “at 11 o’clock, on the 11th day, of the 11th month.”

The original railway car was presented in the courtyard of the Invalides in Paris from 1922 to 1927 before being placed back in the glade in the forest.

It was in this same clearing in that same car that Adolf Hitler delighted in having France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940. The car was then taken to Germany to be proudly displayed in Berlin. It was moved again later in the war to protect it from aerial bombing, but nevertheless went up in flames in 1945. Whether the fire was due to a bombing raid or by intentional German destruction is debated. The museum here itself states that the fire was “accidental.” A replica of the wagon as it was on November 11, 1918, now stands in the clearing, along some original monuments from the 1920s, including a statue of Marshal Foch. A small museum recounts these events through photographs and artefacts.

The last train to Paris

The last train to Paris from Compiegne generally departs at about 8:30PM.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

For further information see the following websites:
Picardie Forêts Vertes (Compiegne bike rental company), Vélotic (Compiegne bike share), Forest of Compiegne biking map, Compiegne Tourist Office, Palace of Compiegne, Castle of Pierrefonds, Glade of the Armistice, SNCF train schedule and reservations. Compiegne and Pierrefonds are within the department (sub-region) of Oise.

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He isn’t referring to the motley group of crooked line dancers hopping to an Irish reel that’s blasting from a portable loudspeaker. He’s referring instead to the fact that they, along with the hundreds of others in this clearing in the Vincennes Woods, are buck naked.

“Last day,” I tell him, indicating the sign near the path.

We’re standing on the edge of the zone that the City of Paris has designated as a space for nudism, or naturism, from September 1 until today, October 15.

“Shameful,” he says. “But that’s Paris.”

I don’t know if that last part softens his position on the fleshy scene before us or further condemns it. Either way, the fellow stands there for another minute, and so do I. I have a vision of a cotillion of terns gathering between shelf and sea.

The zone is surrounded by woods, but since the eye is drawn to the terns before the sign explaining what they’re doing here, surprised passersby are not uncommon. If the city renews the experience next year they ought to provide more advance warning.

The fellow standing next to me appears to have come upon this zone purely by accident. Unlike me. I’ve been riding my bike through the woods for the past half-hour looking for it. Eventually the fellow pushes his bike, slowly, along the path through the nudist zone. I follow behind. But whereas he exits out the opposite side of the zone, I look for an empty spot on the grass.

I see someone walking away with a towel slung over his shoulders and grab the space he’s just left. It’s the perfect spot: a beach-towel-size plot surrounded on three sides by foot-high tufts of grass. There’s a narrow path a few yards to one side. To another side there’s enough room to lay down my bike between me and the closest nudist.

While the woods that I’ve just biked through smelled of fallen leaves and autumn damp, the grass is warm this afternoon. It’s an exceptionally balmy day for October, peaking at 77°F.

I undress.

All I really wanted was a place to go barefoot on the grass. That’s the first thing I missed from suburban New Jersey when I settled in Paris.

True, there are a smattering of grassy areas to go barefoot in in various gardens and parks in Paris, more now than when I arrived in the late 1980s. In some of those spots, however, one is expected to be accompanied by a child under eight, or a girlfriend, or to have brought along some rat repellant. The further you go from the center the more likely you’ll find entire swaths of lawn that needn’t only be admired from the edge of a gravely path, and there are plenty more lawns in the Vincennes and Boulogne Woods, Paris’s eastern and western lungs.

This, however, is where I wanted to wiggle my toes. But in this designated zone in the Vincennes Woods I can only go barefoot if I also go bare-assed. That’s Socialism for you – it gives you exactly what you need, with strings attached.

Of course you don’t have to take all your clothes off in the nudist zone. But exposing only your feet to the free air in this clearing in the woods would be like going to Paris and contenting yourself with visiting nothing but the Eiffel Tower.

I take a selfie.

Practitioners of nudism in Paris

On its inauguration day, September 1, Catherine Baratti-Elbaz, the mayor of the 12th arrondissement, which covers the Vincennes Woods, said that this trial nudist zone was intended for a mixed crowd and could be enjoyed by “Parisians, tourists and textiles.” By textiles she meant those that cover more than their head with fabric. By mixed I assume that she meant men and women. If instead she was referring to a rainbow coalition that would include blacks, Arabs, Sri Lankans and Vietnamese, then this afternoon, at least, has clearly missed the mark. And whereas 50 percent of the population of Paris is under 40 years of age, I’d estimate that today less than 10 percent of this crowd is under 40. As to the male-female ratios, it appears to stand at an unbalanced 80-20, at best.

Textiles may be welcome but not one is in sight. Perhaps there would be something suspicious about stripping down to only a loincloth. Anyway, the bathingsuiters and other underpanters long ago designated an unofficial lawn space as their own just a few hundred yards away.

I’m guessing from news reports and photos over the previous six weeks that this sunny final weekend of outdoor nudism in Paris has drawn the largest crowds of the season. (Indoor possibilities remain, as noted below.) There may well have been more journalists than nudists on opening day.

The zone is relatively crowded this afternoon, with only a yard or two between strangers. It’s mostly men, alone or in pairs. Some, like me, have come by bike. Our bikes lie next to us on the grass like sleeping lovers with whom we don’t have to share the towel. There are few small groupings of friends or acquaintances. Upon entering the zone I spotted two families (not together), each with a child of five or six.

The Paris Naturist Association (Association des Naturistes de Paris) naturally has a strong contingency here since the association pushed for the designation of such a zone from the start.

The experienced and lifestyle naturists are easy enough to spot: they’re the ones standing up. They’ve brought coolers and chairs and true picnics. I have a bottle of water and an apple. The crooked line dancers I saw when I first arrived (their music thankfully shut off shortly thereafter) was part of that group. While the average age for men is probably 55ish today, the age of women skews higher, with few under 60, by my guess. The women are mostly within the large gathering of stand-up nudists who present the heart of the day’s, perhaps the season’s, community of naturists. I’m a tourist on the edge.

Tiens, Tiens

A man set up a 10-foot-wide net soon after I arrived and he then walked around inviting people to meet there for a volleyball game “in five minutes.” Two hours later no one has gathered by the net. In its trial season there may be a difference of aims between practitioners and organizers of naturism, with the former content to simply get naked in the sun and the latter more interested in forming a community of moving parts.

It’s altogether a good-natured afternoon as far as I can tell. A few duos and trios walk around. They occasionally see someone they know. “Tiens, tiens” (Well, well) appears to be a common greeting, followed by kisses all around. I don’t see anyone I know. I don’t even recognize anyone.

And then I do. He’s from my neighborhood. I’ve known him for nearly 20 years, though only by sight. You couldn’t miss him when he was in his 30s, a handsome man with muscles large enough to discourage anyone sensible from every going to a gym. Now in his 40s, he’s rounded out but still has gym membership written across his textiled torso. He has taken a towel-less seat on the grass about 10 yards away from me. He sits there without removing so much as his shoes, looking like a heavy, weary raptor on this beach of terns. Since he must still go to the gym he must not be unfamiliar with the contours of the human body. Or perhaps that’s the point: he’s interested in seeing what happens to the body after one turns 50 or 60 and now takes nudity for exercise.

Voyeurism is verboten, reads the sign at the entrance to the nudist zone, but that doesn’t mean that one has to sit blindly through this good day. I certainly can’t be the only one to notice that, this being October, tan lines, are mostly gone – though I suppose that some didn’t go in for tan lines in the first place. And presumably one can’t be arrested for noticing how out of fashion pubic hair has become. It appears that there would be no greater shame for a Parisian nudist than to have a bush down there. I stay low so as to not draw attention to myself.

All eyes turn upward when we hear a high-pitched whizz overhead. Though I can’t see the object making the noise I recognize the sound as that of a drone. Orwellian voyeurism. I wonder what the police would want with these images. And if not the police, then who? We’ve got nothing to hide here. How could we? But still. Something is amiss in this Garden of Eden.

I eat my apple.

As the shadows creep across the clearing in the late afternoon some nudists transition to textiles, some pick up their belongings and move to a sunny spot, while others get dressed and leave. I wait until the shadow reaches my feet before dressing.

There, I think as I pull on my shorts, I’ve done it. I’ve felt my bare feet in the grass, my bare everything else in the sun.

This isn’t so different from visiting the Eiffel Tower after all: I’ve joined the crowd. I’ve looked around. I’ve taken a selfie. Been there, done that. Moving on.

But I do like this city. Maybe I’ll move here some day.

Indoor venues for nudism in Paris

France is considered the world’s top destination for social nudism. In addition to its homegrown nudists, France offers a warmer climate for northern continental European naturist. Information about beaches, campgrounds, other sites, associations and more, throughout France, is available from the French Federation of Naturism (Fédération Française de Naturisme).

For Paris, the main group to consult is the Paris Naturist Association (Association des Naturistes de Paris). The association also has a Facebook page.

Naked swimming: The main venue for athletic nudism in Paris is the Roger Le Gall municipal swimming pool and gym in the 12th arrondissement, which allows nudism Monday and Wednesday evenings 9pm-11pm and Friday evening 9:30pm-11:30pm. Check the website of the Paris Naturist Association before going, however, since closing times may change during holiday periods. Members of the Paris Naturist Association also have access to the gym Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

As in all municipal pools, swim caps are required in order to keep hair from clogging the drain and so that you won’t run into each other’s floating hairballs as you swim. Let’s pause to think about that for a moment. On second thought, better not. Think chlorine.

Naked dining: The 12th arrondissement has become the leading district for Paris naturists. It’s only natural then that it is the district to welcome the nudist restaurant, O’naturel, 9 rue de Gravelle in the 12th arrondissement. Metro Daumesnil or Michel Bizot. Promising “bistronimic” cuisine, O’naturel is open evenings only, Tuesday-Saturday. Tel. 01 85 15 24 91. Clients must enter clothed.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

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Paris, 4 a.m.—A couple I met this July afternoon told me how disappointed they were with a “Paris By Night” driving tour that they’d taken the previous night.

“We saw the major monuments,” they said, “but we never saw them by night.”

Apparently, year-round, the company is offering an 8 p.m. Paris By Night Tour even though night doesn’t fully descend over Paris until after 10 p.m. from late May to late July.

“The driver was nice enough to extend the tour for 20 minutes because we felt cheated,” they continued, “but we never made it past twilight.”

Twilight is known in French as “the time between dog and wolf” (l’heure entre chien et loup). On the right evening and with the right company or mindset, there’s breathtaking seduction in its deepening blue. But this couple had been looking forward to encountering full, howling wolf.

I sympathized with them for being the victims of misleading advertising, or at least of static advertising since 8-10pm would indeed have a night component nine months of the year.

I suggest that they join me for a bike ride that night.

“What time?” they asked.

“Round midnight,” I said. “Or one a.m. or two, if you truly want to know Paris by night.”

They laughed, thinking I was joking.

“Seriously,” I said. “We’ll use Vélib, the public bike share system.”

“That’s too late for us,” they said. “We want to be at Versailles first thing in the morning.”

Wanting the butter and the money for the butter (vouloir le beurre et l’argent du beurre) is the French expression for having one’s cake and eating it too, or in this case of experiencing Paris by night in early July without being willing to stay out past one’s usual bedtime.

Travelers touring Paris on a working-day schedule certainly get to see the museums and the monuments. They get early restaurant reservations and make all the right pastry stops. But one of the best ways to experience Paris as a living city is by assuming a wobbly schedule whereby you:

• take the streets at least once by 7am so as to appreciate the opening of cafés, markets, gardens and parks while (re)discovering the aura of old monuments before they get poked by selfie sticks,

• and stay out past midnight at least once so as to truly appreciate after-hours in the city.

I understand that taking on such a schedule is disturbing to some. (Napping helps.) Between overcoming jet lag and maintaining one’s habitual rise, dine and sleep times, an untethered program can be troubling for some, and unadvisable when traveling with children.

But for me, one of the unsung pleasures of Paris is the midnight stroll or bike ride. Make that 2 a.m. on a warm summer night. In fact, “off-the-beaten track” in such as heavily visited city as Paris isn’t a place, it’s a time — especially that time in summer when most tourists are in bed dreaming of Paris. That’s when venturesome and sleepless travelers are out living their dream.

Sometime after midnight, heading out, or home, on foot or on bike (of not too much alcohol in the bloodstream), you’ll stand or sit or walk or ride by the river.

You’ll bathe in the diffuse yellow light of the streetlamps as it plays against sidewalk, street, stone buildings and the lower leaves of chestnut, linden and turkish filbert trees. You’ll listen to or take part in street conversations.

You’ll want to feel safe, of course. In certain quarters you might have to contend with or steer clear of alcohol-fueled night-folk. But Paris is a well-lit city. It is, after all, the City of Lights.

So I went out biking that night. I meandered along the boulevards and avenues and well-lit rues, through open squares and along the banks of the river and of the canal, rediscovering the true pleasure of Paris by night as I encountered:

Brazilian salsa dancing by the Arab Institute,

a friendly game of pétanque (bocce) by the river,

the intimate end of a long picnic,

a tête-à-tête with a view,

a headless martyr,

spiders over the Seine,

a heap of garbage beside City Hall.

silent cemetery walls.

and a dance of drunken seduction after a neighborhood bar has closed.

I could go on and on.

But it’s 4am. I’m going to bed.

Text and photos © 2015, Gary Lee Kraut, except for Va-nu-pieds’ photo of Notre-Dame in the morning.

Biking Paris after midnight is one way to travel in the spirit of France Revisited.

The post Paris By Night: The Midnight Ride appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

This little Loire loop—three days, two nights, including two days of biking—is of the latter kind. Beginning and ending in Blois, itself easily reached by train from Paris in 1½-2 hours, this itinerary provides an excellent introduction to the Loire Valley, its castles, its wines and its biking routes. All that with little preparation. Your most difficult decision may well be what to pack in order to keep your biking load light.

Chaumont, Cheverny and Chambord, the three chateaux on this route, are different enough that castle-fatigue won’t set in. The distances covered, about 30 miles per day for each of the two cycling days, is moderate enough to appeal to occasional cyclists while significant enough to attract frequent cyclists who might add a few zigzagging miles to make for a more challenging ride.

While the route is flat, with only a few slight slopes, the distances are great enough that they may be a bit much for children and for those unaccustomed to athletic activity given that you’ll also be doing a lot of walking while visiting the chateaux and their parks and gardens.

This loop covers just a small part of the 500 miles of cycle trails that are covered by Loire à Vélo (Cycling Loire), the Loire Valley system trails going from the outer edge of Burgundy to the east to the outer edge of Brittany to the west, by way of chateaux, vineyards and the towns and cities of Orléans, Blois, Tours, Saumur, Angers and Nantes.

Here’s a 3-day, 15-step itinerary for little Loire Valley loop that begins with a touring day on foot in Blois, reached by train from Paris.

Day 1. Blois.

1. Pack lightly—whatever you can carry on your back and/or in a saddle pack when biking. Take the morning train to Blois from Paris.

2. The castle, tourist office and center of Blois are a 15-minute walk from the station. The Blois Tourist Office is next to the castle entrance. You can pick up a town map there along with maps and information about the chateaux in the surrounding area covered by this loop.

3. Check into hotel or B&B. (Or, since you’ll have packed lightly, carry your bag with you until you’re ready to check in in the afternoon.)

I stayed at the B&B La Maison de Thomas, a friendly little place in the very center of town. The ground floor of the B&B serves as a wine bar in the evening, one of a several places in town to get familiar with Loire Valley wines, particularly the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny vineyards you’ll be biking past. For other lodging possibilities as well as dining options see the bottom of the article Blois Castle: The Key to the Loire Valley.

4. Visit Blois Castle (read that same article for an overview of its historical and architectural significance) and, if it’s up your alley, La Maison de la Magie, The House of Magic, across the square from the castle. Don’t miss the dragons that emerge periodically from the window of the House of Magic. A bit of wandering between the castle, the river and the cathedral can complete the afternoon.

5. After tasting two or three wines at La Maison de Thomas, you might enjoy, as I did, the relaxed gastronomy at Christophe Cosme’s Le Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs. (Closed Sun. and Mon.). The Blois article mentioned above also lists other dining options.

6. See the sound-and-light show in the courtyard of the castle beginning at 10pm in April, May and September, 10:30pm in June, July and August. An overview of a day in Blois as outlined above appears in the photolog Great Encounters: Blois.

Day 2. Chaumont and Cheverny.

7. Rent bikes from the friendly folks at Traineurs de Loire, 12, rue Saint-Lubin. It opens at 9:30am. You’ll likely walk by the shop during your wanderings on Day 1 since it’s just below the cathedral. If you’d like to picnic you might pack it in Blois before setting off. Otherwise you would have lunch at Chaumont.

8. Ride to the castle at Chaumont-sur-Loire, 20k (12.4 miles) from Blois.

9. There are two entrances to Chaumont: one on the ride near the river, the other upon on the hill behind the castle property. If you want the challenge of a biking up a hill (and the thrill of wheeling down) then take the back entrance. (I took the challenge.)

Give yourself plenty of time to visit Chaumont: the castle (1465-1510), which Queen Catherine de Medicis purchased in 1550 to use in the famous Chambord-for-Chenonceau housing exchange with her husband’s mistress Diane de Poitiers after King Henri II was no longer alive to protect and spoil the latter; the view of the Loire from the castle terrace; the lush castle grounds; the 5-star stables (still displaying its original saddler by Hermès) created during the tenure of Marie Say, Chaumont’s extravagant owner from 1875 to 1938; the animal cemetery for her beloved dogs and monkeys. From late-April to mid-October, Chaumont hosts the International Garden Festival from late-April to mid-October, with two dozen gardens restored or created each year. For garden lovers the festival alone can seduce a visitor a few hours with a lunch and café pause, so you’ll have to remind yourself that you’ve got biking to do.

10a. If you leave Chaumont while the afternoon is still young you might ride to the Chateau de Beauregard. Beauregard is 18.2k (11.3 miles) from Chaumont. Cheverny is then 8.3k (5.1 miles) from Beauregard.

10b. I spent so much time at Chaumont that I rode on directly to Cheverny, a ride of about 22.9k (14.2 miles), give or take a vineyard. Cheverny is described in this article. In addition to the harmony and elegance of the château and its park, a major draw of Cheverny is its kennel for 100 Anglo-French hunting hounds. Since you’ll be arriving here in the mid to late afternoon, you can watch the hounds, tail in the air, devour mass quantities of raw meat during feeding time. The feeding takes place at 5pm daily (with exceptions) from April 1 to September 14. The remainder of the year the feeding takes place at 3pm on Mon., Wed., Thurs. and Fri. (except holidays). It isn’t that they don’t eat on other days but they’re probably out working during the hunting season.

11. Either before or after entering the chateau grounds, you might taste-test some Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny wines right by the entrance at the Maison des Vins de Cheverny, the official tasting table/wine shop of the association of winegrowers from the two appellations. These are the wines from the vineyards that you’ll be riding through on this 2-day loop.

Cheverny is a young, fruity wine largely using sauvignon and some chardonnay for the whites and pinot noir and gamay for the reds and roses. Cour-Cheverny, far less well known and with more cache because of its more limited production (one-tenth that of Cheverny), is made from grape varietal called Romorantin, a grape now specific to this area, cousin to chardonnay, introduced by king Francoise I, and so proprietary that it’s typically written with a capital R.

The tasting table/wine shop It isn’t a cozy setting but it’s the opportunity to learn something about these wines if you haven’t yet had the time or inclination to visit a vineyard between chateaux. The Maison des Vins de Cheverny is open daily from Easter to the beginning of November, 11am-1:15pm and 2:15-6pm. Since the tasting room may be closing before you finish visiting the chateau grounds at that time, so I suggest stopping here before going in—furthermore, that’ll give you time to digest the alcohol before getting back into the saddle. The chateau itself is open until 6:30pm April-October, until 5pm the rest of the year, though the grounds stay open later.

12. There are two good options for a fine meal and a good night’s sleep: the 3-star Auberge du Centre in Chitenay, 7.4k (4.6 miles) from Cheverny, where I enjoyed a most pleasant evening during this loop, and the 4-star Château du Breuil, on the edge of Cheverny, 4.4k (2.7 miles) from the chateau. Both have restaurants. Breuil also has a swimming pool.

Day 3. Chambord and return to Blois.

13. The ride from either of the hotels noted above to the Chateau de Chambord is just over 21k or 13 miles, making for a leisurely morning ride. Here’s an article about Chambord, the Loire Valley’s XXL castle.

14. There’s plenty to keep you busy at Chambord and extra cycling trails to be taken in the area, so in visiting the area you’ll have to make sure that you leave yourself plenty of time to get your bike back to the rental place in Blois, which closes at 6pm.

The most direct route to Blois through the countryside is 16.4k (10.2 miles), but for the more scenic route you’d head directly to the Loire at Saint-Dyé-sur-Loire then ride downstream to Blois, staying on the left (southern) bank of the river until you cross over the old bridge at Blois. That route adds a few miles, plus there are some great riverside photo ops along the way. And on my own trip I encountered such a strong headwind along the river that the last 7 miles felt like three times that, but it was well worth it for the beauty of the ride.

I therefore suggest allowing yourself a good two hours to make it back to Blois.

15. Once you’ve dropped off the bike give yourself 30 minutes to get to the train station—make that an hour so as to relax in a café near the rental shop before taking the train. Back to Paris? Or further down the river to, say, Saumur, for the start of another little loop in the Loire?

Text and photos © 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Little Loop in the Loire Valley: A 2-day Cycling Route from Blois appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The elegant Château de Cheverny is chez moi for Charles-Antoine de Vibraye and his family. His ancestors have resided on the premises for the better part of 600 years and today de Vibraye (who might also be referred to as the Marquis de Vibraye), his wife and three children occupy roughly 10% of it. Much of the rest is open to visitors. Cheverny was one of the first private French estates to open its gates to the public (1922), and de Vibraye welcomes on average 350,000 guests per year to his castle-sweet-castle.

One expects de Vibraye (seen in photo) to describe Cheverny as a museum but the word usine (factory) crops up in his conversation just as often.

”I live inside my family business,” he explains. ”Cheverny belongs to the public, and making the tourist experience serene and enjoyable requires constant attention to detail. You can’t take your eyes off it for a minute. It’s like caring for a small child.”

The result of such devotion is a well-oiled machine. For numerous crowd-pleasing reasons, Cheverny is one of the more theme-parkish of the Loire châteaux. ”But it’s also one of the most authentic,” adds de Vibraye. ”Hardly any other chateau has been continuously occupied. At Cheverny, things may have been added but nothing’s ever been taken away.”

One thing that’s been added is Cheverny’s association with the Francophone comic book hero Tintin. This is the only Loire castle that comic book fans will recognize faster than many art historians. That’s because Belgian cartoonist Hergé based Marlinspike Hall (Château de Moulinsart), the property of Tintin’s buddy Captain Haddock, on Cheverny’s symmetrical silhouette. (Hergé shortened its wings lest Captain Haddock appear to rich.) One of the outbuildings at Cheverny houses a free-standing museum dedicated to Tintin, his dog Milou and other characters, with videos and special effects.

But the main event is the chateau itself. The place-name Cheverny debuted in 1315 on a deed registered to the newly-enobled Hurault family. The seigniorial domain has belonged on and off to the Herault family—of which the de Vibraye family is a branch—ever since. A peaceable existence allowed the domain to sit out the royal and lordly turmoil and high politics of Blois. It did, however, appear on BuzzFeed in 1551 when former royal mistress Diane de Poitiers took a 10-year lease after being evicted from Chenonceau, but almost all of the day-to-day archives have gone missing.

Construction of the current chateau began in 1625 with a design that signaled a strong tilt toward what would become known as Classical architecture. Those also visiting visited Blois Castle on their Loire Valley wanderings will find that Blois’s Gaston d’Orleans wing, begun in 1635, was designed in the same movement of harmony and symmetry.

Two-thirds of the Château de Cheverny is open to the public, without any of the yawn-inducing, near-empty rooms that one often finds in public castles. Visitors can marvel at a royal bedroom that rivals Fort Knox; a luxuriant dining room; suits of armor; playrooms stuffed with vintage toys; fireplaces adorned with gilded dancing girls; a flower-bedecked chapel; and even the current Marquise’s Cinderella-style wedding dress.

Visiting the interior of the chateau gave rise to one burning question for its owner. When you live in a historic château like Cheverny, aren’t you tempted to roll back the brocade bedspreads and sleep in the Royal Bedroom after closing hours?

”Never,” de Vibraye replied firmly. ”Those rooms belong to the public and that’s final. There was a TV crew here recently, filming lots of furniture in close-up, and I must admit I heaved a huge sigh of relief when they left and I got the velvet ropes back in place.”

The chateau interior is compact enough that it can well visited in about 30 minutes, leaving plenty of time to wander through the expansive park and the flower and kitchen gardens, visit the Tintin Museum (additional fee), enjoy the pretty setting at orangerie for a beverage or a bite to eat (inside or out; open April 1 to Nov. 11), perhaps even take boat-ride on property’s waterways.

At the Café de l’Orangerie you can try some locally made beer, but having passed through the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny vineyards along your way to Cheverny it’s likely that those appellation wines will be the fermented beverage of choice. For a tasting, the official Cheverny Wine Club is housed just outside the castle gate to Cheverny (see below article).

The Hounds
One of the major draws of Cheverny is its kennel for 100 Anglo-French hunting hounds. Cheverny has maintained its hunting heritage and the estate census also includes 11 horses, 70 stags and 200 wild boar.

This is no petting zoo. Those hounds are trained to be in prime hunting shape, and the deer are well advised to be too. The hunt takes place in the surrounding forest and other hunt-friendly woods, twice per week from October through March. About 25 deer are killed each year in keeping with local (departmental) hunting regulations.

Come feeding time you can watch the hounds, tail in the air, devour mass quantities of raw meat in a matter of minutes. The feeding takes place at 5pm daily (with exceptions) from April 1 to September 14. The remainder of the year the feeding takes place at 3pm on Mon., Wed., Thurs. and Fri. (except holidays). It isn’t that they don’t eat on other days but they’re probably out working.

If your kids love dogs, get them to the kennels about 15-30 minutes before feeding time for a ringside view of the buffet. Arrive after the crowd has formed and the kids who are too big to sit on shoulders may miss the show. It’s perfectly safe as the dogs are enclosed in a barred courtyard, although one 4-year-old near us was a bit frightened.

The chateau and grounds are open every day of the year, including holidays.

© 2015, Corinne LaBalme.

Château de Cheverny, 41700 Cheverny. Tel. 02 54 79 96 29.

Getting There: Cheverny is 10 miles southeast of Blois, passing near Château de Beauregard along the way. By car Cheverny is about a 30-minute drive from Blois and Chaumont, in separate directions.

From Paris, there are infrequent direct trains to Blois from the Austerlitz Station. They take 1:25. 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).

While it’s preferable to have your own wheels (car, van, motorcycle or bicycle) for leisurely explorations of chateaux and vineyards in the area, there’s bus service from April to August between the chateaux of Blois, Chambord, Cheverny and Beauregard. Bus information can be found here.
CHEVERNY and COUR-CHEVERNY WINES

Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny are appellations for wines grown between on the south side (left bank) of the Loire roughly between Blois, Chambord, Cheverny and Chaumont. Those are the vineyards you see when driving or biking in this area.

Cheverny is a young, fruity wine largely using sauvignon and some chardonnay for the whites and pinot noir and gamay for the reds and roses.

Cour-Cheverny, far less well known and with more cache because of its more limited production (one-tenth that of Cheverny), is made from grape varietal called Romorantin, a grape specific to this area, introduced by king Francoise I, and so proprietary that it has a capital R.

As with most Loire Valley wines, these all relatively inexpensive, typically 6€ to 12€ per bottle, some a bit more.

Maison des Vins de Cheverny, the official Cheverny Wines Club of the association of winegrowers from the two appellations, is located by the entrance to the chateau, making for an easy tasting stop to get familiar with these wines, at least for those not driving.

Maison des Vins de Cheverny. Open daily from Easter to the beginning of November, 11am-1:15pm and 2:15-6pm. Tel. 02 54 79 25 16

– GLK

Also see our articles about the nearby chateaux of Chambord, Beauregard and Blois.

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1. I don’t immediately type up my notes. They languish in notebooks that can contain observations, ideas and details on countless subjects for weeks, months, even longer, until I’m ready to use some, trash others and leave others to languish further.

2. I lose my notebooks. I left one on a plane in February when I arrived in New Jersey where I was to begin a lecture tour. The notebook contained notes for lectures, from an interview I’d conducted in Paris two days earlier and who know what else.

I started another notebook when I returned to Paris a month ago, and yesterday I lost that.

I was taking it with me when going to attend a lecture at the Museum of Jewish Art and History about the construction of 19th-century synagogues in the Marais. I placed the notebook—a green hard-covered notebook with a pen stuck into the spine—in the basket of a public bike, a Velib, and I specifically told myself to remember to take it with me when I parked.

I dropped the bike off at a station several blocks from the museum, then walked. As I approached the museum I began pulling things out of my pockets for their security purposes so as to place on the machine along with my notebook…

Damn! I’d left the notebook in the Velib basket. I ran back to where I’d left off the bike. No more than ten minutes had transpired since I’d parked, so I figured that if that bike was still there then the notebook would be too. Rounding the corner I was relieved to see that there was a bike where I’d left mine and that there was something in its basket. But as I closed in I saw that instead of it being my notebook with the green cover and the pen sticking in the spine there was a pile of pages torn from a notebook. On closer inspection I saw that the pages were filled front and back with my handwriting.

Across the street there was a man sitting in a van, looking at me as I looked at him. He had the expectant yet troubled expression of someone who’s trying to decide whether or not to make a confession.

Beside the van was a garbage can. I crossed the street and looked into the can. Not that I thought the notebook might be in there but I wanted to be close enough to simply turn to the man in the van—his window was partly open—and ask: “Did you see someone take a notebook from that bicycle basket?”

From his troubled expression I actually expected him to pick my notebook up from the passenger seat and hand it to me.

But what troubled him wasn’t my notebook by rather his French—it was sparse. He said: “He” (meaning someone) “take notebook go in street there, there” (indicating left and right).

“A thief,” I said, half-heartedly.

The man in the van shrugged. He’d seen worse.

I had too, but still! I’d been gone barely 10 minutes. Who would take a notebook from a bicycle basket and leave behind the used pages?

I was upset that someone had taken my notebook, upset at myself for leaving it in the basket, upset that I was going to miss the lecture since I now didn’t feel like running to the museum without a notebook and pen.

But I did have my notes. And I had a dozen empty notebooks at home, gifts from tourist officials, the covers marked with logos for Burgundy, Poitou-Charentes, Champagne La Marne, etc. And the thief wouldn’t have known that I’d only been gone a few minutes. He would have been walking down the street, seen a nice-looking notebook in a public bicycle basket, looked around for its owner and seen no one but a fellow in a van who would have shrugged helplessly.

The thief would have given a brief flip through the notebook to see if there was any indication who it belonged to, and finding none he would have thought it a shame to let a forgotten notebook go to waste. Skies were grey, it might rain, he would have thought, and then the notebook would be ruined for both finder and owner. And if it didn’t rain, and in the unlikely situation that the owner did return, then the owner would still have his foreign scribbles. So he tore them out, left them in the basket, and sauntered off down the street before turning left or right.

In that case, this was a respectable thief.

Come to think of it, he wasn’t a thief at all. He was a writer.

I went home and wrote the above. And while I had the momentum I decided to write up some of the notes on the loose papers I now had, beginning with the page entitled:

Notes for “April in Paris” France Revisited Newsletter announcing seven recent posts.

1. The Rooftops of Paris
In recent months the most attractive view over Paris has been from District Hall of the 9th arrondissement, where District Mayor Delphine Bürkli is spearheading the committee to present the rooftops of the capital as a candidate for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Read about that here.

2. The Giant Colon
One thing that France will definitely not get World Heritage Listing for is its pink blow-up colon, which you might have missed last week in Paris on Place de la Republique. If you feel that you missed something, you can see it here.

3. The Rising Edge of Paris
Meanwhile, journalist Corinne LaBalme, who lives in the Batignolles Quarter of Paris’s 17th arrondissement, puzzles over the construction of a 525-foot glass tower that will become the centerpiece of a 123-acre development on the northeastern edge of the city. Read more here.

4. French personal hygiene
In art news, Corinne also tells about a delightfully exhibitionistic exhibition running through July 5 in Paris’s Marmottan-Monet Museum that examines French personal hygiene (and lack of) through the ages. (Spoiler alert: Lots of dirty pictures!) Read more here.

5. Movie Review: Suite Française
Suite Française by Irene Némirovsky took the literary world by storm when it was first published in France in 2004, followed up with an English translation in 2006. Now comes the movie, which I review here.

6. International Jazz Day
In other UNESCO news, Paris has been selected to serve as the 2015 Global Host City for the fourth annual International Jazz Day, celebrated around the world on April 30. See how Paris takes center stage on Jazz Day here.

7. April in Paris
I know, I know, you’re as unlikely to attend that jazz concert as you are to have seen the Giant Colon. But from where you sit you can now listen to rendition of “April in Paris”—actually, nine renditions. Have a listen here.

And as you listen remember to hold your loved ones close… and your notebooks closer.

Happy travels always,

Gary

April 3, 2015

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There’s a certain kind of cyclist who thinks of himself as such an independent urbanite that he doesn’t have to pay attention to traffic regulations. He breezes through red lights with a ting-ting of his bell to let pedestrians know that he’s too free, too green and too self-sufficient to have to have to stop for them.

And the haphazard way in which he locks up his two-wheels to posts and fences is reminiscent of how car owners parked on the sidewalk before the crackdown (and posts) circa 1990. Except that the car owners would eventually move their rusting vehicles, whereas cyclists will leave their bikes agonizing on the street for all to see. Admittedly, some of those bikes have been vandalized—their seat or a wheel stolen, their wheel run over by a car or twisted by intentional fate, etc.—and are then abandoned by their owners.

Still, fed up with the sight of bicycles that no longer roam, that agonize before our eyes, that clutter the sidewalks, Va-nu-pieds says: “Ras le bol de ces vélos qui ne roulent pas, qui expirent sous nos yeux, qui encombrent tout….” as he lifts his camera and his foot to rant.

All photos © 2013, Va-nu-pieds

Also see The Cranky Parent, The Cranky Host, The Cranky Urbanist and The Cranky Foreign Resident.

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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

The post Chambery Revisited: Reflections on a Pre-Alpine Valley Town appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.