Un gîte à Vouvray

It was almost exactly 24 years ago that Walt and I rented a gîte rural in the wine village called Vouvray for a week-long stay in France. Little did we suspect that our Loire Valley trip would be a turning point in our lives. We were both still working in California at that point. After the week in Vouvray, a famous wine town, we spent a week in Champagne and in Normandy with French friends, and then we spent a week in Paris to wrap up the three-week vacation.

We had asked a California friend if she would like to come to France with us on that trip. She said yes, so we found this small two-bedroom house to rent. It turned out to be very comfortable and the price was right. Sue, who I had met in Paris in 1975, spent the second week of her vacation traveling down in the Pyrénées. Then she came and spent the third week of her vacation with us in Paris, where we rented an apartment in the Marais neighborhood.

The gîte in Vouvray was convenient because we could easily walk into the center of the village, where there were shops, grocery stores, cafés, and restaurants. The weather turned out to be nice. Evenings, we cooked our own meals in the kitchen at the gîte and planned what we would do the next day.

We liked this gîte so much that we decided to rent it again in June 2001, that time for two weeks. Another California friend, Cheryl, came with us. She stayed a week in Vouvray, and then I drove her to Paris, where she wanted to spend the second week of her vacation. Cheryl, who passed away a few years ago, spoke good French and had lived in Paris for a year in the 1970s. She wanted to relive her Paris experience. In Paris, I picked up Charles-Henry and he and I drove up to Normandy and then down to Vouvray, where he stayed for four or five days.