Ten months in Tours

Friday, 28 February 2014

''Azay-le-Rideau, You say le-Radeau...'' The parents come to stay, bringing British food and terrible dad jokes

The week before last my parents came to Tours for the week, including my 21st birthday on Sunday (!)

It was great being able to show them the place where I've been living for the last 5-6 months, and I think I've well and truly cemented my friendship with the staff at my favourite crêperie now!

They arrived on Saturday with the car, which meant we were able to explore the Loire Valley a bit on Sunday. We started off at Château Azay-le-Rideau, which has been on my to-see list for quite a while. It's fairly small but the architecture gives it the look you imagine castles having as a child, with pointy turrets and ornamental windows. It's set on an island off the Indre river, which was incredibly high when we were there. The flooding is nothing like it's been back home of course, but it was fairly substantial, the weather in the North of the France is unfortunately not too different to the weather in the South of England.

The eaves of the château are host to a protected species of bat, which they actively try and sustain and encourage. You wouldn't think bats were endangered if you walked along my street here in the early evening, I always see them flying over the graveyard walls.

After we'd finished looking round the château and the un-flooded parts of the grounds we decided to drive on to Chinon as it's in the same direction out of Tours and possibly one of my favourite towns to walk around. We parked on the other side of the river from the castle, which gave us a great panoramic view of the town, and then walked up past the churches and through the old town to the castle. We decided not to go in as it was closing soon but really a large part of the appeal of Chinon is just to admire it from the outside.

During the week I still had lectures, so some days I met my parents in the evening for dinner and they explored during the day, but we still managed to get in a decent amount of sight-seeing together. On the Tuesday Elvira came to see me as she was in Paris with a friend and arranged to come and see me for the day. It was so lovely and surreal to see her again, and a great opportunity to catch-up. We walked around the main-sights (Cathedral, Basilique...) and also went to the Jardin Botanique, which I've never been to before and has a strange mix of animals including a donkey, wallabies, goats, and flamingos.

On Fridays I have no classes so we had the whole day together again. We decided to go to Amboise as I'm taking a course on Leonardo Da Vinci this semester and wanted to see Château du Clos Lucé, which is now a Leonardo Da Vinci museum as he spent the last years of his life living there. Pauline had no classes either so the four of us went to Amboise together. We started off at the Château d'Amboise, then had lunch in town and walked to Clos Lucé. As well as the standard rooms, which were decorated with relevant Da Vinci quotes (including one in the kitchen reminding us only to eat when we're hungry!), there were several rooms full of miniature models recreating his inventions and ideas. It's amazing the diversity of his interests and knowledge! Luckily it was a nice day so we were able to walk around the gardens at both of the Châteaux and see the giant reconstructions in the grounds at Clos Lucé.

It was a great week, although it was strange when they left as I'd got used to their company and to eating delicious meals out every night! In a month it'll be Rebecca and Nick's turn to see the sights of Tours- can't wait!

On Sunday we had farewell drinks for Rhianna and Heather, who are both off to Germany for the second part of their years abroad. I hope they have an amazing time but also I'm going to miss them so much! Whose photos am I going to steal now :'(

Just kidding this is Rhianna's picture of Azay-le-Rideau

and so is this

and this

Clos Lucé

Amboise

Saturday, 15 February 2014

Update

Second term is passing so quickly! Last year the year abroad seemed infinite but this side of Christmas it's looking a lot more temporary. It's exactly a month since I travelled back here.

Last weekend Chloe, Eilish, and I went to Paris and stayed with Chloe's French friend, who generously let us stay at his making the weekend more affordable. It was Eilish's first trip so of course we went to see the Eiffel Tower light up, the Arc de Triomphe, Sacre-Coeur, and Champs Elysées. We also went back to the Musée D'Orsay, which I love so much, and I went to see some more of the art that I didn't get round to seeing last time. We had to shelter in the subway to the Arc de Triomphe when a thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere, but I don't expect any sympathy from anyone in England at the moment! There was also some kind of army initiation or patrol going on, I think it might have been part of a ceremony as they were all quite young and seemed quite excited as they left (in pouring rain!). On the Sunday we went to the Notre-Dame, not realising that there would still be a service at that time. But the singing added to the atmosphere even if it did mean the Cathedral was packed. We also went to Sainte-Chapelle so see the amazing stained glass.
It was a great but exhausting weekend. It still amazes me that I can just hop on a train and I'll be there, I'm definitely going to try and go again before I leave.

On Thursday we went out to celebrate my birthday, and I got an amazing '3 chocolate' birthday cake. Chloe and Eilish also got me a 'Galette des Rois', which is a seasonal pastry-type-cake with a little object hidden inside. They've been everywhere since Christmas, with paper crowns, and it was great to finally try one...it was not a let down!

I keep meaning to write a post about 'la vie quotidienne' or something cultural, but the year abroad is too exciting, there's always something else that's happened that I want to write about! In a few hours my parents are arriving for the week, I can't wait to show them around like a local.

(Here are some of Chloe's pictures from the weekend, I am very lazy)

Arc de Triomphe

Military formation at the Arc de Triomphe

Me and Chloe freezing under the Arc de Triomphe

Avenue des Champs-Elysées

Eiffel Tower!

The famous padlock bridge

Obligatory patisserie stop

The Sorbonne

View from Sacre-Coeur

View from floor 5 of the Musée d'Orsay

The Seine

Cocktails near Chatelet-les-Halles

Friday, 31 January 2014

Nantes and Rennes

I'm about half way through my year abroad now, and just getting started with classes again (no process is ever logical or admin-free in France). But before term started I took a little trip away with Rhianna and Eilish. We started in Nantes and then moved onto Rennes and back to Tours from there. It was so relaxing and a great opportunity as the trains weren't too expensive with our railcards and also because of the time of year both cities were pretty quiet and inexpensive.

We arrived in Nantes in good time and worked out a route that took us past the Castle and Cathedral, through the main squares, and to the river. The Cathedral was quite modern looking and weirdly clean as it was badly damaged in a fire in the 1970s and had to be restored. In many ways it was quite similar to Tours Cathedral, but in my (unbiased) opinion Tours is more impressive. By the river we went to see one of Nantes most distinctive features, a giant wooden elephant, which was unfortunately down for maintenance and missing it's trunk and ears. In season you can ride in the elephant and it sprays water on it's way! The same company had also made an enormous mechanical tree and a sea-themed merry-go-round (I'm not entirely sure what they officially do!). In a completely different tone there is also a slavery memorial by the river, which includes plaques for every ship that passed through Nantes. We also had a look round the shops and cut through Passage Pommeraye which is an old shopping mall, built in the 1840s.

Place Marechal Foch (glorious weather)

Château des Ducs de Bretagne

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul

The enormous mechanical elephant (under maintenance)

Passage Pommeraye

Place Royale

The Loire

Memorial of the Abolition of Slavery

Théâtre Graslin

Basilique Saint-Nicolas

Église Sainte-Croix

After dinner we watched trashy French TV in the hotel since we were leaving for Rennes pretty early the next morning.
Rennes was amazing, the town was beautiful and and it had a really nice atmosphere to it. Apparently it has a large student population and I can definitely see the appeal. I have to say I was a little jealous of people that get to study there, I'd love to live in Brittany. Apart from a couple of hours of torrential rain we were quite lucky with the weather, and we were able to see a lot. The Cathedral was enormous and on the inside it was quite different to the others we've seen, there was a lot more (dark) colour, and decoration. We also walked through Historic Rennes, went to see the Parlement and the Mairie, did some shopping in the sales, and visited église Saint-Aubin. In the evening we went out for obligatory crêpes, since we were in the land of crêpes, and then had some wine and watched the French version of The Voice. When we headed back into Rennes in the morning we came across the beginnings of a vintage car display/gathering completely by chance which was a nice unexpected addition.
Overall it was a great way to start my second semester here. I hope that we can make the most of our remaining time here and take the opportunity to explore France and the Loire Valley as much as possible :)