There we are, all dressed up and ready to enjoy a meal created by Michelin-star chef, Jean Imbert. Imbert is new to Belmond, having joined them at the start of the 2022 season, coming from Paris’ renowned Hotel Plaza Athenee. Billed as provided by purveyors at each stop and designed to accentuate the VSOE-specific experience, the meals are elaborate.

We had a choice of blue lobster served with vegetable soup with black truffle caviar or slow roasted Charolais beef fillet and bone marrow with Bordelaise sauce. Each was accompanied by an array of zucchini, eggplants, & tomato, and a Chayote squash au gratin. Everyone was invited to partake of a selection of cheeses and dessert was a chocolate cream and vanilla bavaroise with soft coffee heart on crunchy almonds with fresh mango coulis. When all of that was finished, we were presented with mignardises. All of the food was very good, although not perfect. Perhaps they oversold it a bit?

Service was excellent and attentive, a quality of the VSOE that was true in every case. The atmosphere was truly exceptional. The fabric-covered lamps glow, the linens are crisply luxurious, the fine china, silver, crystal gleam softly.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

When we returned to our cabin we found it converted into a bedroom with an upper and lower berth, our robes and slippers laid out for us to change into. It was super cozy and lovely. The beds are not as wide or long as what most of us call “twin.” Someone more than six feet tall would not be comfortable. I’m sure two people cuddling (or canoodling) would manage just fine, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to sleep together in one berth.

It’s a bit of a magic trick — where did all of this come from? How did it get put together? Here’s a cute picture from Belmond to give you an idea of what the cabins look like, before and after.

John took the top berth and Lisa the lower. You can hear some noise of people traveling the halls, and you can hear louder noises from neighboring cabins. Overall, however, you can’t hear normal conversations as long as the cabin doors are closed.

We both agree that the beds are more comfortable than many hotel beds. The pillows were excellent, and the bedding cozy. It was a little tricky keeping the room cool, but we ended up just opening the window behind the shade and it worked out well.

Warning: the rest of the trip did not go well for Lisa, and therefore not so much for John either. Skip this italicized part if you just want to know the next nice thing that happened.

Some part of the meal did not, shall we say? *agree* with Lisa, and she lost everything from the entire day in a series of violent upheavals. Not at all fun and we’re not going to have any more details than that. She basically slept until after noon the next day, and drowsed much of the time after the cabin had been put back to its day configuration. To top it off, she went right from food ill to getting the ‘flu (running a fever and all of that).

Not Fun.

End of icky section

John spent much of the night on alert to assist his wife, and also slept in very late the next day. Basically, if there was lovely scenery in Switzerland, we completely missed it. And breakfast, which we are told is very nice.

That said, we can both speak to the excellent service our steward provided. Helene was gracious about being woken at 3am to help, and even fetched the train doctor. (He provided Immodium, which wasn’t helpful, and a thermometer, which was.) Extra water was brought without being asked for, and we were able to cancel breakfast. Amusingly, she, being young and super healthy, was especially distressed that Lisa was missing out on all the yummy food. Helene took the initiative and put together a yogurt and berry tray to accompany Lisa’s fourth pot of mint tea. It was a good example of how tasty breakfast would have been, it’s true.

Meanwhile, John made it to the second lunch seating.

*shmancy lunch

By the time tea time arrived, Lisa felt well enough to have a bit of something more substantial. We enjoyed the tea (mint) and two dainty cakes. Not very much food, and a bit of a letdown after the magnificence of the tea we’d had the day prior. But John wasn’t particularly hungry after his lunch, so it’s a wise decision on the part of train management.

We spent the several hours of the afternoon reading and occasionally looking out at the scenery. Eventually the announcement came that we were nearing Santa Lucia Station. That’s the time to pack up all your things, settle your bar tab(s), and take care of gratuities. Helene stopped by not long before we arrived to tell us how we would be met on the platform by a local representative who would make sure we got our luggage and see us to our hotel.

We disembarked, thanking Helene profusely for her care and thanking everyone we met, to find our luggage already waiting for us. The local rep (we missed her name, sorry) was sweet and asked after Lisa’s health (the news had made the rounds, it seems). Part of the included service is a water taxi to your hotel, and we expected to be put on board one, but it was even better. We joined another couple and all of us, rep included, boarded a taxi (our bags were handled by the taxi staff). With no further ado we headed out into the Grand Canal. First stop was the other couple, just across the water from the station, and so we had the taxi almost to ourselves as we cruised along.

It was magical. All of the buildings lit from within and gleaming in that special way that light on water offers. It was a wonderful way to arrive in Venice.

Imagine for a moment that you are stepping off a bus into an ordinary car park. Then, as you walk between a couple of delivery vans you see it: the Belmond Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train, with a line of staff waiting to greet you in front of the carriages in their distinctive navy blue and cream.

The train is eighteen carriages long and made up of two cars with “Grand Suites,” ten cars with sleeping carriages for guests, two for staff accommodations, three dining cars, and the “bar car.” We were in one of three “Tiger Lily” themed sleeping carriages, all built in 1929, designated Carriage D, Cabin 1.

Our Steward, Helene, met us at the carriage entrance and explained that our luggage would be delivered momentarily. She then went over the details of our cabin, gave us a key and explained to us how to lock and unlock our cabin. By then, our luggage having arrived, she bade us a warm welcome and left to assist the next guests. Inside the cabin was a charming packet of VSOE stationary, a note of welcome from the Train Manager, a small bottle of prosecco, still and sparkling mineral water, a map of the train journey, and a charmingly illustrated booklet about the train.

The cabins are small enough that you may want to take turns dressing for dinner. (I looked it up and a standard double cabin is 1903 mm x 1478 mm which is about 6.2 ft by 4.8 ft.) Each has different upholstery, but the overall layouts are very similar: the main seating area has a comfortable banquette, small folding table, a stool with fabric cushion, and a lamp. Your storage is in a narrow rack above the window and a wide upper luggage rack along the wall across from the sofa, There are a couple of hooks above the sofa. Each cabin has a small radiator, a window which can be lowered from the top, a small fan, reading lights for each bunk, and two 220-volt European style 2-pin sockets.

In the corner is the wash basin, an ingenious closet containing a sink with hot and cold water taps, a mirror, glasses, more bottled water, several hand towels, a razor power socket, and a collection of toiletries created by Temple Spa. There were also two sets of kimono-style robes and terrycloth slippers.

Some of you may have noticed two (big) gaps in our description of the cabin, and it’s true: there are no toilets or showers in these cabins. There is a single toilet stall at the end of the carriage (opposite to ours, we had to walk the length every time we used the facilities). To be fair, it’s kept immaculately clean and was rarely occupied. Everyone has to do without a sluice until they arrive in their Venice accommodations. (There is also no air conditioning, but that is less urgent when you can roll down a window and get fresh air.) Nonetheless, the cabin was incredibly comfortable as we left Calais and began to wend our way through France towards Paris and beyond.

One of the things Helene explained to us is that we needed to choose one of two seating’s for dinner and that the Maître d’hôtel would be coming by after departure to inquire. The choices were 18:45 and 9:30 and we could specify any preferences (such as sitting with or near others, or which dining car you want). There are three restaurant cars, each with distinctive decor: The Cote d’Azur (built in 1929) has lovely Lalique glass panels showing classical figures holding grapes and upholstered in a medium blue pattern with gray curtains. The Etoile du Nord (built in 1926) features beautiful marquetry and is dark green upholstery and gray curtains. L’Orientale (built in 1927) features Chinese-style lacquer wall panels with upholstery in gold and cream curtains. We had no preference and were seated in the Cote d’Azur, which turned out to be our favorite.

Soon after departure, we made our way to the bar car, #3674. Here we enjoyed a glass of champagne, the music from the pianist, and the company of other train goers.

The dress code aboard the VSOE, as their materials state, is “There is no such thing as over-dressed!” No where is that more evident than at dinner. Formal is the way to go, with a small amount of leeway given for being aboard a train. This is not the time for the 5″ Jimmy Choo heels, nor that gown that involves hoops or crinoline. There were a lot of sequins, satin, jewels, and the length was calf or heel. Men were in dark suits or tuxedos. It was very elegant.

We shimmied into our formal wear, both in navy blue, took a few pictures, then made our stately way to our dining car.

The original subtitle for this series was “Trip Of a Lifetime” ( or “TOAL”) and, just to cut to the chase, that is an exact description of the journey from London to Venice on the Venice-Simplon Orient Express (“VSOE” after this). I’d had this trip penciled in from when our move to Europe was barely more than a whispered suggestion. I had first dreamed of riding the Orient Express as a young girl, after reading…. well, you know the book. I gave up on owning a pony or ruling absolutely over all the earth (you had your dreams, I had mine ok?) but the Orient Express has hung in there with me for all these years, and we are now at the culmination of this dream. Let’s go!

John and I were up at a relatively early hour as our train would be leaving Victoria Station at 9:30am. Of course we were packed and ready to go from the night before, leaving only our day clothes and toiletries to take care of. Moreover, it was a single line on the tube, making it utter simplicity for us.

One thing about the VSOE, you really need to be thoughtful about what you want to take on board. There isn’t a lot of room in the cabins, and management limits you each to a small bag and one case. They will happily take all the luggage you care to bring to your final destination, but it is stowed freight-style until you arrive. We opted to just bring a backpack and garment bag and were glad to have had so little to deal with.

Just to break for a moment, I’m not sure we’ve shared our appreciation for the hotel which has been our lodging in all of these journeys in and through London — Hyatt Place East.

The hotel is located outside the central core, which mostly means its not super expensive. (Although, being London, all lodging is more than a little brutal.) It is just a few short blocks to the Whitechapel and Aldgate underground stations, making it dead easy to get to anywhere in the city. While its not direct to Gatwick, our new favorite airport, a quick cab ride from London Bridge makes it nearly so.

Back to the important bits . . .

Victoria Station is great. Full of commuters, of course; it’s always been the hub for the British Pullman trains, the luxury trains which would provide the starting point for our TOAL. In an inevitable digression, it’s important that y’all know that the VSOE does not operate in Britain, but starts in Calais for those of us starting the journey in London. (In a digression within a digression: Poirot’s journey in the famous book about the murder starts in Istanbul and ends in London.) [Is this like the 4th wall of acting? If so, did we just break the 16th wall?]

The British Pullman area is against the left wall of the station, and it’s not well-signed for the sleepy. Like, there’s only so many places it could be, like most train stations there are only so many directions you can walk around, but still. You can’t see any sign, until you are almost on top of it which makes it a skootch nervous-making.

We checked our bags and were given a folder with our Pullman car and seat assignment information, as well as our sleeping cabin number. No food was offered, so one of us went hunting for a muffin and tea, easily found of course. We were almost the first to show up, so it was a lot of fun to people-watch as more passengers arrived. It was, a bit surprisingly, a varied group. There were couples like us celebrating life events, families spending Very Special Events, and a few people who’d done the trip before and were enjoying it again. Pretty much everyone took the dress code seriously; although one older guy was in chinos and a polo shirt, his (much-younger) wife was in a cocktail dress and jewels. (Clearly the trip was her idea and he was there to keep her company. He seemed like a kind of a grump every time we saw him.)

When it came close to the arrival time, many of us went out to the track area to watch the British Pullman cars pull in. It was well worth braving the chill.

This is an exquisitely beautiful train of restored 1920s/30s/50s cars. Each features plush armchairs in open-plan saloons, arranged as intimate tables for two or four on each side of the main aisle. There are enclosed 4-seat compartments at the ends (called coupés) for people interested in privacy for their party.

Can I just say that I think ergonomics have not improved on the comfort of these armchairs? Hundred year old chairs and I don’t think I’ve ever been more comfy-cozy.

After we’re all boarded, the train left the station and began it’s slow journey across the Thames past Battersea Power Station, and then headed to Folkestone. Our car was the Minerva, built in 1927 and appointed with swags, crystal, silver, plush fabric, and everywhere you look — gorgeous! Lisa basically just GLOWED the whole time we were on this train, She was so ‘high’ at how perfectly it matched her vision of what this trip would be like. And to be clear – this is the warm-up train.

Even the bathrooms are *perfect*. I mean, look at this floor.

Over the next few hours, as you meander through the British countryside full of meadows, distant castle ruins, and sheep, you are served a lovely three-course brunch with bottomless Bellinis* (like, ok, the entire trip is a level of expensive I’ve never even considered acceptable before, and we’ll talk about that later on, but once you’ve paid at least they don’t nickel and dime you after that) made of prosecco and white peach puree. The bellinis were divine, so much better than the ones we had at Harry’s Bar in Venice, and perfect way to connect to our destination. (John here for just a second: I am occasionally giddy at the fact that we get to live a life where we can make informed comparisons between the Bellinis on the VSOE and the pub in Venice where Hemingway used to drink.)

The food did not disappoint (although you have no options unless you have allergies). We began with a “Battersea Bowl” of granola and fresh berries over whipped yogurt with a tangy citrus syrup. We then enjoyed perfectly poached eggs, silky smoked salmon, and a crisp crumpet. Dessert was a cracked-top pastry which we’ve only ever seen on GBBO and the menu reminds me is called a Choux au Craquelin.

The couple across from us were very nice people, British and celebrating a major anniversary, and we enjoyed chatting with them.

Finally, we arrived at Folkestone where we disembarked and got on . . .

buses.

Honestly, this part of the journey seemed to come as a surprise to many of us. We went from the gorgeousness of the restored train to something so plebeian. They were very nice buses, with tables and couches instead of typical bus seating, but still . . . buses. The highlight for us was meeting a family who we ended up connecting with a number of times over the journey. They’ll come up again later, but the short version for now is that the mom and dad had a clutch of sons and a daughter who all seemed to have good heads on their shoulders and didn’t have a lot of pretensions, but the deal was that they basically had carte blanche to celebrate their 21st birthday. Several had huge parties, but the most recent celebrant had been a train enthusiast his whole life, so the family and loved ones were taking the fancy choo choo. Anyway – the buses took us to a terminal, where we went through British Customs. We were there for about 30 minutes and passengers were able to get off and wander around the shops and food court, get money from the ATM, or use the restrooms. Then we re-boarded and drove about 15 minutes to another terminal, where we went through French customs.

Trains cannot cross the Channel Tunnel, so the solution is to load the bus aboard a car-carrying EuroTunnel shuttle train. It is quite an interesting experience to be seated in a non-moving coach as it sits within a moving train.

Finally, Calais.

Finally, the Venice-Simplon Orient Express.

First, look at the weather, season, and climate for the non-basics items you might want to pack. We were going from beach (Nice) to mountains (Le Cagnard), to plains (Loire Valley), to oceanside (Nantes), all during a very hot, dry summer. No need for a raincoat or heavy shoes, likely no umbrella or more than a scarf for warmth. We would need swim clothes, a coverup for the beach, good walking shoes, light clothes that helped us not sweat, and hats. The few days it rained through our trip, we planned indoor activities, or our hotel lent us an umbrella one evening to walk to dinner. We felt we could always buy an umbrella if necessary, which it wasn’t. We also knew we’d have at least one “nice,” even “very nice” meal.

We both forgot our surf shoes, and regretted it in Nice’s very rocky beaches. Money solved that with a pair of cheap mesh shoes with velcro closures and hard rubber soles. Surf shoes were the only thing we regretted not bringing, and we used everything we did bring. (I always hate bringing things I don’t use.)

We pack for five days at a time, plus a set of clothes for travel day. For a nearly three week trip, this means we do laundry twice — as we build that into our plans. This is our only real secret. We use laundry strips at home, and bring some in a baggie. A tiny strip an go in a tub or sink for handwashing, a quarter-sized strip goes into a regular washer.

For me, then, the planning shifts to deciding what exactly might get packed. I like to start with the tricky but unavoidable items: the “dress up” clothes. Dress or blouse & skirt? The former has more limited wearability, but takes less room and is usually seen as nicer than just a skirt and blouse; the latter has more options over more days. Knowing the answer, I then look at shoes. I knew I needed sandals, and nice shoes, as well as my usual sneakers.

What I ended up packing was:

bathing suit
caftan (beach cover up)
shorts (2 pr, 1 TD)
culottes
dress
t shirt (to sleep in)
sleep shorts
3 blouses (1 TD)
1 long sleeve shirt (I use it for light cover on cool nights, and often carry on the plane in case it gets cold)
5 pr each undies (bras, panties, and socks)
open sandals
low heel slip-ons
sneakers (TD)
not pictured: a sun hat

16 (not counting undies) items in all, all of which fit in a suitcase, or got worn on my travel day (marked as TD). You can see it all in the picture above. We share a hanging toiletry bag (like this one), which often goes in my bag as well.

My backpack carries my laptop, mouse, and power cord; camera bag, kindle, travel docs and passport folder, mp3 player (old school baby!), power cords for all the devices, phone, journal, pens, water bottle, and a bag of dried fruit and nuts.

Compression cubes make packing this much a breeze. Shoes get stuffed with socks, then go into a drawstring bag to keep everything clean (it’s the black one in the bottom right). Undies all go into a small compression bag (upper right, on top of the toiletry bag (not seen). The larger pieces are divided between two large bags (left side). Minor items (a brush, makeup bag, etc.) snuggle in the spaces between. We use the laundry bag as a handy way to track when we need to get that task done, and carry a 2 gallon ziploc bag in case we end up with wet clothes and no time to properly dry them before packing

So, there you have it. Packing for almost three weeks and three different environments.

And so it all comes down to this. More than two weeks of beaches and sun, of castles and gardens and even a splash of Leonardo da Vinci, and now we have arrived in Nantes. If I’d been asked to list the places in France I wanted to visit even a few years ago, I don’t think Nantes would have made the list. Fortunately, Lisa (as is often the case) is more on the ball than I am and had pegged the city long ago. It has a lot to offer, from a great food scene to numerous cultural sites of interest (museums, concert halls etc…) and of course a cathedral and a chateau, because that’s the part of France we’re in (i.e., France), but if we’re being completely honest (and really, nobody’s holding us hostage, we don’t have to say anything we don’t want to, right?) we’re in Nantes because of the steampunk robots. In other words, we want to see Les Machines de l’île.

Nantes had been giving me Seattle vibes from the moment we arrived; partly it was just the weather being overcast and in the low 60s, but also the general size of the place – a city, but not too big, with office buildings but not too tall. Well, Les Machines des ‘Ile (the Machines of the Island of Nantes) is absolutely the kind of thing you’d expect to see in City Center, maybe in conjunction with Bumbershoot. (In fact, we saw signs indicating that the park subsidized a workshop for Burning Man exhibitions and this did not surprise us even 1%.) This whackadoo park is completely devoted to contraptions that have the appearance of steampunk robot animals. Lest we be accused of hyperbole, let’s be clear about the tech – these are steel frameworks using hydraulics and similar tech to articulate limbs and move the machines around. Nevertheless, the craftsmanship on these things, with the stylized carved-wood plates giving each critter a distinctive look, are a hoot to see in motion. Also – these things have some very predefined movements to choose from, they are in no way free to move, hop around etc… they do specific motions that they are designed to perform. Still cool, though.

The star of the show is undoubtedly the elephant, called “Le Grand Elephant” which may seem uncreative but look at this thing:

It can take up to 50 people on a walk through the park area. And yes, “walk” is being polite, it actually is driven along by that giant tractor in the back. But still, the legs are articulated and move at a good pace, and the articulated head and trunk swing around delightfully.

We might have done more in Nantes, but really we spent a bunch of time with the steampunk robot zoo and felt sated. We had a really nice meal at Le 1, although yet another adventure in “France closes at 2 PM” almost bit us in the ass. We made it in just in time and had some really creative tapas as our reward. From there it was a quiet evening of Indian take out and packing for the trip home. That trip took all of our last day and was completely uneventful. We flew straight from Orly to Porto, which meant we were just a short (and cheap!) bus ride from being home again. Truly, we had been missing Braga for the last few days and were tickled to be back. Luggage could wait; we opened all the windows for fresh air and then dove into our comfy snuggly bed to begin catching up on real life again. Thanks for following along!

To paraphrase Vesper Lynd, “there are Gardens and there are Gardens; this is the latter.” We packed up from Les Sources and made our way west, bound for Nantes which would be our last stop for this trip. On our way, however, we were originally going to make two stops. The first would have been Le Château de Chenonceau, a truly epic castle-house that can best described as a bridge that somebody built a keep on top of. However, with the Loire being in the state its in and having already bagged one location on this trip because of the shabby situation, we didn’t even try for Chenonceau. Life is long and we hope to see it in its full splendor. And so, we had one stop before Nantes, and it was a doozy: Le Château de Villandry.

Villandry is the platonic ideal of the French gardens ensconcing a formidable house. I haven’t looked but I just assume that stock art image sites bury you in Villandry images if you search “French + gardens”, “castle + gardens” etc. That said, we had serious concerns about going there for the same reasons that we bagged Chenonceau – had the recent dry weather put the kibosh on the gardens? As we were pondering that question I coincidentally stumbled on a local magazine article that covered this very topic. The facts were these: first of all, Villandry has used catchments to collect the water they use for their grounds; they haven’t been using municipal water (or rivers/streams) even in normal times. With the reduced precipitation, they decided that rather than pare back on all of their gardens, they completely stripped out whole sections of the estate, replacing normal garden beds with gravel and/or art installations. Dry gardens, in other words, the same thing that they do in places like Las Vegas to avoid having to water lawns.

And so, while they may not have as many garden areas as they usually do, the ones that they have maintained are as amazing as ever. Pictured above is the vegetable garden, which actually does provide food to their restaurant (with extras going into the local community).

There were a half-dozen discrete sections, including the veg garden, a maze, a children’s park complete with play structures, and a swan lake complete with swans. It is, sadly for a blog like this, a thing more to be experienced than to be read about. It was truly lovely though. Bonus bit – the system of canals they have for moving water also have some tremendous fish in them. Since nobody fishes there, the wildlife has not developed any hesitance and will happily bob along the surface, all 4-feet of them(!), nipping at any disturbance in the water at all – bubbles, bread crumbs, whatever. It’s enough to make a sport-fisherperson weep, but they were neat to look at, and reminded us of a similar experience at Bodiam castle in England, where the moat was so stuffed with fish that it was actually slightly nauseating to look at the roiling mass of them; the law proscribed any fishing in the moat, dating back who knows how many centuries, but it was a population of fish that clearly butted up against whatever maximums exist because of available food and not because of predators.

The touring of Villandry complete, and the rain starting to come in, we hopped back in the car and made for Nantes. We had arranged an Airbnb situation there which was, quaintly, in the old/original model of these places; somebody clearly lived in the space when it wasn’t being rented out and it thus had a very cozy, lived in feel to it. The only downside was that it was tucked deep into a residential pocket and so we found ourselves hoofing it a fair ways before any meals. Speaking of which, we had an issue (yet again!) where the place we planned to eat was “open” but only for drinks; it would be a couple of hours before they opened their kitchen back up. Ye gods and little fishes. Instead we hoofed it further into the retail district to eat at a local favorite . It was nonetheless a tasty and refreshing end to the day; which is good because we promptly went back home and fell into bed. We were excited about the next day, which would be our final day of tourism and would involve steampunk elephants and robot hummingbirds.

Let’s just get one thing out of the way right now: nobody’s payin’ us nothin’ for nothin’. (Ok, that should have scared off the English majors, let’s the rest of us have some fun.) We’re about to spend basically the whole post talking about the hotel we stayed at, and they have no idea we’re doing it. It’s not that we want them to comp us anything, we just were genuinely taken with the place. There are several reasons, but the biggest is Gardener’s World on the BBC. (Pause for whiplash.) Like a lot of people in the lockdown, we were very attracted to soothing entertainment, and Monty Don and company talking about gardening as they follow the cycle of the year was just fabulous. We watched for a couple of years, although we’ve kind of lost the habit now that we live with *zero* garden and don’t anticipate one any time soon. While we came away with piles of practical tips for our own gardening, we were even more fascinated with the tours to majestic country gardens and explorations of specialized techniques for fancy people and fancy gardens. Then, totally by surprise, we lived in the middle of a fancy garden for several days.

Oh. We’re taking the time to share this now because we did nothing today. Zip. Diddly. A scheduled down day to relax and recharge. Worked like a charm. Anyway.

The premise is pretty simple: create a garden that requires almost no maintenance. Sure, easy, except for part 2 of the premise: it still needs to look good. Ahhhhhh here’s where the expertise comes in. If the garden isn’t going to be meticulously maintained, and you aren’t going to swap plants out every few weeks to maximize the visual impact, then the first thing that gets chucked over the side is flowers. I mean sure, there will be some, but if you aren’t there in the weeks when they bloom, tough poop, no flowers for you. Instead, visual interest has to come from texture and structure, as well as subtle differences in the palette of green that is deployed. Flowering plants that, when they lose their petals, leave behind an interesting bulb, seed head etc… are particularly valuable.

Whatever they paid the people who put this place together, it probably wasn’t enough. I mean, sure, maybe there are people in this world who move from one place to another that are all like this, but it sure seemed special to us. Everything coordinated but not in a matchy-matchy way; the walls of the buildings served as a canvas to better display the myriad light colors washing through the grounds. The plants they used created natural levels so that everything had its own stage. And since it all happened organically (I mean, we’re not idiots, we know a lot of care goes into a place like this, but it must be subtle) the place whole thing managed to maintain a completely rural and remote atmosphere while in actuality being a quite elaborate hotel, with pretty much every amenity under the sun up to and including bikes to peddle your way into Cheverny if you’d like.

Much like the day itself, there’s no clever button on the end of the post. We spent the day being cozy, and wandered the property a bit, and now you have, too.

This trip to France has been the opposite of our most recent jaunt to Ireland. The pace has been what may best be described as “elegiac”. Breakfast whenever we’re ready for it, a beautiful attraction or two, dinner, and settle in. It’s actually kind of great and is definitely getting us away from the hectic pace we used to set for ourselves on our US-based vacations. This day, however, was going to be a throwback. We had to set an alarm; what the hell, I thought we were done with those! Still, with a little luck it would be worth it. We’re going to one of the truly iconic chateaus (I’m done copy-pasting the word “château” and I can’t get the ascii code to work; it’s going to come up about a thousand more times in this series soooooo yeah) in the entire Loire, and then heading to Orleans, about which I knew almost nothing except for a couple of hot spots to check out. We’re exploring parts of France never before seen (by the two of us) – allons-y!

Breakfast at Les Sources, as may have been mentioned, is surprisingly good. That said, this is day 14 of our trip and there’s no such thing as a truly appealing hotel petit dejuner (honh honh). Nevertheless, we break our fast happily enough and then hit the road. The itinerary for the day is a big loop (“circle” would be generous) with about three and a half hours of driving total but scattered between various sites. Our first stop is east, to Chateau de Sully-sur-Loire. The key word there is “sur”, which means “on”, and it is indeed on the river. Technically we think there are canals involved (the signs were in French, sue me) but the effect is still stunning, as you can see in the photo at the top.

Alas, the photo at the top is a stock image (dang those these can be spendy), because the drought of 2022 has played merry Hell with the Loire, and anything having to do with a spectacular water feature has been de-spec-tac…. spectacle… screwed. It’s been screwed. It was such a letdown that try as she might Lisa couldn’t take a photo worth showing to anyone; not because she didn’t try, i2I think I’ve said before Lisa is gracious about the little setbacks and is having a good time, but I’ve got nervous parent syndrome at this point and, to stretch a metaphor, my kid just peed his pants during his piano recital. We move on.

Our other stop for the day is in the city of Orleans. I thought I knew what to expect, but there have been several places so far on this trip that I had outsized expectations of based on hearing about the places for so long. Tours, for example, was about 1/5th the size of what I had been led to believe. So it was with some sense of relief that we approached the city and saw that it was, in fact… well, a city. There were two main objectives in the city: lunch, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts. After finding street parking, we tackled lunch first. We were walking towards one of two restaurants I had targeted, but as we approached it we found a massive swarm of construction that we’d have to squeeze through to reach it. Casting my eyes about I saw that my second target was actually only 100m away and on a clear path; and thus it was that we had lunch at BAROK bar brasserie. It was a fine meal from a pretty typical brasserie menu, but the people-watching was excellent. BAROK is on a large pedestrian plaza that features markets, plenty of open space, and a classic old two-story carousel. All in all, a pleasant way to refuel for the afternoon.

It was a short walk from there to the Musée des Beaux-Arts. It’s a tricky museum to describe blow-by-blow; there are several partial floors between “full” ones, but floor 1.5 (for example) was just as robust as 1 or 2. I dunno, it was odd. That said, we came away agreeing that we’d spent more tickets for much less interesting museums. For one thing, we could appreciate the curation. I promise, we don’t usually walk through museums pondering how it is curated, but that’s the point; we could see what they were trying to show us clearly. For example, there was a sequence of Madonna with Child images that clearly demonstrated the evolution of depicting the duo over the centuries. We could even, thanks to our day trip to the Donatello exhibition in Florence a few months ago, pinpoint the moment when the figures stopped acknowledging that they were being observed. There were numerous times in this museum where we’d stop and reflect on a particular exhibition. It’s absolutely worth a trip if you’re anywhere nearby.

The afternoon pleasantly passed, we finished our loop and returned to our hotel. There had been another possible stop I had sorted, to Fréjus, but it had been a back-up sort of thing and the day had gone by without it, so home we went. Dinner that night was as close to mediocre as we got on this trip; not bad, but not really worth a description or a recommendation. I only mention it because you may be used to hearing about the meals, and you aren’t. We popped back to Les Sources where we enjoyed the peace and quiet of the property for a long while before tucking in for the night.

We begin our day at our new hotel with breakfast. No crap, really? But this is actually reporting because the breakfast was pretty good. Yes, that’s a low bar, but breakfast buffets in hotels are the definition of “low bar”. Here, there was a wide choice of freshly cut up fruit for a salad (strawberry, kiwi, multiple melons, pineapple, cantaloupe), almost as many dried fruit options, cheese and meat options that were identical to what you would get on a charcuterie board later in the day… artisanal yogurts, house-made vanilla and chocolate cremes (which I don’t know what those are doing at breakfast, but yay!), along with a lot of the expected things. Also, you might be surprised how average the pastry can be at a French hotel’s buffet, but these folks actually get the good stuff, and man oh man “the good stuff” coming out of a French patisserie is *chef’s kiss*. What a lovely way to start the day. Bellies sated, we hit the road.

Our target for today is le Château de Chambord, which is the preeminent château in the Loire. It is basically the transitional fossil between the “château” which is often castle-like, and the out-and-out “castle”. On the fancy-large-house continuum the only thing more to the right than Chambord would be Versailles, followed by the Louvre. It big. It very big. As the story goes, Francis I was hunting in this marshy portion of the Loire valley and decided it would be an ideal location for the ultimate expression of royal puissance. Yes, in a marsh. If scenes from Monty Python are occurring to you, you are not the first I promise you. As far as we could tell from the various stories and instructional films, if the place was left alone for more than a fortnight it would begin to crumble.

Chambord is what happens if France-Land from Epcot Center was to secede and form its own theme park. First you enter the domain of Chambord, whence you will see signposts warning you that Pumbaa and Bambi have free run of the place. (Seriously, the signs say that deer and boar roam freely, and you have to avoid hitting them.) Then you are directed to one of several pay parking lots. As you begin your trek towards the ticket office, you can’t really see what’s going on inside yet, but you can get a peek of the majestic towers of the actual castle. Paying for your tickets in the a gift shop (natch) you are finally able to enter… the food court. I mean really, these people are on their game. This being France-Land of course, the food court is a bistro and a brasserie and a cafe gastronomique, so you have options, all of which are real food. This is also where you can rent a golf cart for you and your companions, since there is quite a lot of territory to cover. Feeling the pinch a little? Well, there’s a budget option for bicycles (but also a deluxe, e-bike package) that will get you around almost as well.

Now, the transport options might be giving you pause. Yes, the Chambord grounds are huge. The enclosing wall is 34 kilometers long. (As per usual, when a king wants to hunt somewhere that territory immediately becomes verboten to the local populace.) There’s a water feature – which we did not photograph because in the middle of this drought it’s more of a water disappointment – multiple gardens, and a field they’ve set aside for the jousting and bird of prey show. Yes, that’s right; this is apparently where Ren Faire people go in the off-season. The main attraction is, naturally, the castle itself. Like so many of these places it was built in many sections over time. This happens for a variety of reasons, but my favorite version of this story is that the original castle was conceived with no special apartment for the king – he and all of his other visiting nobles would be equal spaces. This is because, at the time of the design – stories of the Knights of the Round Table and their egalitarian nature (I mean, egalitarian as long as you were one of the knights, let’s not go crazy) held tremendous sway in the minds of the nobility. No sooner was the place built, however, then the king took one look at the equal apartments and said “bugger that” and had a whole new wing built for his personal chambers. In fact, the place wasn’t even finished, and the lovely symmetry that was a key feature of the place was knocked out of whack to account for a passage to the new wing. But hey, kings gonna king.

Within the castle itself, the most famous feature is the spiral staircase in the middle of it. More to the point, the double spiral staircase in the middle. There are two entrances to the stairs on every level, and the width and depth of the stairways is such that while it looks from the outside like it’s a single staircase, there are in fact two intertwined paths spiraling around a central core. There are multiple stories about why this was built. The first is that it allowed for a dignified path that allowed for various of the ennobled to encounter one another without actually getting in each other’s way. Another is that it allowed for the discreet movement of illicit lovers throughout the castle. (A lot of people love this story, but really now – you’re flipping a coin that you’ve chosen the path that will bypass whoever it is you’re hiding from. That’s not good odds on such a treacherous endeavor. But what do I know, being all non-ennobled and all…?) The theory I like goes to the architect of the central building. None is listed. Like, anywhere. There’s no official record of who designed the place. However, as you may recall from our post on Clos Luce, Leonard de Vinci (that’s the French version of his name, in case it’s causing you to tweak) had been invited into the service of Francis I. The completely symmetrical design of the place echoes many of the principles that Leonard’s work had displayed in his final days, and such a staircase would probably tickle him as well. Lacking firm evidence, we can only speculate. (Actually, everyone speculates.) It is a neat staircase, anyway.

Aside from the architectural curiosities, what the castle is, is a museum mostly of clothing, furniture and household goods. To their best ability they have tried to furnish the place in period pieces and have rolled back some of the more questionable remodeling decisions that have been visited upon the place over the years. As I said earlier, if the place was out of sight for more than a week or two it started to fall apart, and there were much longer periods where it was out of fashion. (Reason 1: constant mosquitos in summer. Reason 2: hard to heat in winter. Reason 3: Versailles) As a result, it went through numerous restorations. Hell, it’s going through one right now, that’s why the spires are all shrouded in scaffolding in our pictures. I give them credit for taking the time to get it right, but we both start to cringe at the sight of scaffolding. Alas, a reason to visit again when it’s finished.

We had a meal at… one of the places on site, I honestly forget what it was called. It was the one on the left? Good meal though, Lisa feels pretty sure that they are actual independent concerns that are simply renting space in the park, as opposed to wholly-owned feed troughs, which would explain why they still seemed to care about what they fed us. (I have thoughts.) Following a meal we made our way back to the hotel for a quiet evening of light fare from the hotel and an early night to bed. The next day would be the closest thing we’d have to a big day on this trip, with several hours on the road and multiple stops. You know what just happened.

Trivia time! Where did Leonardo da Vinci die? Was it a) a midair helicopter collision, b) in a hayfield, sliced in half by his own invention the horse-propelled scythe scissors, or c) in bed at le Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France? Take your time, I can be subtle and devious with my misdirecti- C, you say? That was fast. Well yes, party pooper, he died in 1519 in Amboise, having been the revered guest of King Francis I for several years prior to that. Despite being at the end of his life, his output in Lucé was prodigious even if much of it remained conceptual. We had a chance to learn all about this, and see some fascinating exhibitions, during our visit to Clos Luce on our way out of town.

Allons-y!

Le Château du Clos Lucé is mere minutes away from the center of town and royal Chateau of Amboise; this is not an accident. When Charles I “invited” Leonard to ply his trade in France, he made a gift of the nearby manor house for a residence and workshop. It was here that Lenny spent the final years of his life, continuing his work on water (for a treatise that never came together in time for publication before his death) and laboring on assigned tasks such as the never-built palace “Romorantin”, a sort of uber-planned community that was very sketchily begun before Charles set it aside in favor of a more cost-effective project in Chambord. If you know what Chambord is you are probably chuckling in bemused startlement that it could be considered cost-effective. If you don’t know, well, we’ve got you covered in our next post. (Woo! Teasers coming before the end of the post now!)

Whatever le Château du Clos Lucé was, what it is now is a strange, quasi-theme park on the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. As weird as this sounds, it was surprisingly effective. Put it this way: we’ve been to a lot of exhibitions that did much worse jobs of trying to illustrate and give context to an artist’s output. (The new Picasso Museum in Paris comes to mind.) First of all, in the chateau itself are exhibits of the rooms he made use of – fine, ok. The furnishings may or may not be authentically his but are at least period-correct. Samples of his writing and work are somewhat amusing copies; having replicas of his notes in the study is one thing, having the Mona Lisa in the dining room is quite another. On the other hand, there was a small space with period furnishings, set behind a glass wall, that projected an astonishingly-good 3D scene of two actors portraying Leonard and his servant in conversation. Like, cutting edge stuff. Don’t be surprised if da Vinci headlines next year’s Coachella.

The basement of the chateau is given over to some really fantastic exhibits on some of his more famous designs, such as the “tank” which truly is a genius-level piece of evil engineering, topped only by the scissoring-scythes that were powered, and pushed forward, by a team of horses hitched to a framework behind (natch) the blades. Picture it – a pair of stallions racing forward with a rider atop one of them, only instead of it being a cart before these horses it’s a pair of giant scythes, oriented horizontally, and scissoring back and forth as they are shoved toward you at great speed. Ye gods and little fishes. One of the reasons we are so high on these exhibits is because they’ve done some very clever animations that show exploded diagrams of each device, then piece the design together in a way that demonstrates how it all goes together, and then shows it in action. The polish on these things isn’t Industrial Light & Magic or anything, but it’s competent work and well thought out.

On the spacious 35 acre grounds of the chateau, they have built models of his designs, and even practical examples of some of the more-thought-out concepts like his bridges. (His self-powered glider plane looks like something out of a South Park episode involving self-propelled unicycle cars. IYKYK.) Then there are (at least) two different exhibition spaces. One of them is the museum, featuring more models of his architectural work and copies of his notes on same; additionally, they have a space to show Leonard’s visual arts work, e.g., paintings and sketches. The trick is, they don’t own any of these things. So, instead, they’ve designed a variant of those artist immersive experiences that had been all the rage a little while ago. I must admit that we got irritated at what we got for our thirty bucks (or whatever it was) when we went to see one of them, but as a throw-in on our admission fee at Lucé it was a lovely diversion and exploration of his work. It was particularly effective how images of some of his sketches would appear, and then overlain with one of his finished works to show how they were instrumental in working out how to create the final piece. Once again, the curation of Clos Luce is really top notch.

So, as I said, they don’t actually own any of da Vinci’s work. However, they apparently have developed good enough relationships to borrow things occasionally, and while we were there they had the Vatican-held, and unfinished, “Saint Jerome”, which they displayed with a sampling of other works to put his in context, and then the piece itself, all by itself, in a large otherwise-empty space. It was nice to be able to spend quality time with the work in relative quiet – three cheers for the shoulder season!

With the exhibitions examined and the gardens explored, it was time for us to move on. We were already checked out of our accommodation in Amboise and so we hit the road directly, heading for Cheverny. There, we made camp at a simply amazing place called Les Sources de Cheverny. It is worthy of more description than ought to be here at the end of a long-ish post, and so we’ll pick up with that next time. DOUBLE TEASER. But, descriptions of hotels aside, we did still have a lovely dinner that night at a spot called Le Rendez-vous des Gourmets, a deceptively simple looking spot just a few minutes down the road. We were having second thoughts when we walked in, compounded by the fact that you can see into the kitchen from the entryway and the chef at work looks like your uncle. My uncle. Everybody’s uncle. Polo shirt, jeans, glasses, salt-and-pepper hair. He gave us a smile and a wave as we walked in. Hrm.

Turns out, Uncle Billy can cook. Lisa chowed down on pike fish … cake-salad thing, followed by chicken paired with sweetbreads (don’t look at me, she’s the zombie), while I had a pea velouté (soup) with salmon tartare, followed by a hard-to-describe concoction of, basically, thinly sliced and perfectly prepared beef. All of it delivered with exquisite presentation. I’ll never doubt the cooking of my parents’ brothers ever again. Happily sated, we made for our new digs and burrowed into the blankets, thus to prepare for another day out.