Blois on a foggy day in March

The Loire, the bridge, and the cathedral at Blois

Blois is the big town closest to Saint-Aignan; it's 25 mi./40 km north. Because you have to make the trip on little roads and either drive the direct route through a half-dozen villages or take a much less direct route through open countryside to get there, the going is slow. It takes a good 45 minutes to drive the 25 miles to get there. We don't go very often.

The population of Blois is only about 75,000. While that is 20 times bigger than Saint-Aignan, Blois is a small city compared to nearby Tours and Orléans. But as an old royal town, Blois has historical and cultural significance much greater than its importance as an urban center. It's also the administrative city for our département, the Loir-et-Cher. In other words, the national government has its offices and services there.

The towers and spires of the 12th-century Eglise St-Nicolas
seen from the south bank of the Loire through fog

In the Middle Ages, the Counts of Blois ruled over two large territories in France. One was the area that includes Blois, of course, but also Chartres to the north, closer to Paris and Normandy. The other territory they controlled was Champagne, where the wine of the same name is made, east of Paris.

The cathedral rises high above the streets of Blois

One of the Counts of Blois married William the Conqueror's daughter, all those centuries ago, and their son became King Steven of England in the year 1135. The most powerful of the Blois counts was Thibaud IV, who died in 1152.

Two years later, Henri II Plantagenêt, count of Anjou in France, became king of England. At the same time, the House of Blois turned its attention to its territories in Champagne, leaving the Blois area under the thumb of the Plantagenêts, who held the lands down the Loire River toward Chinon and Angers, as well as the English throne. Henri II Plantagenêt was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine (southwest France), so his French holdings were vast.

The old bridge at Blois seen from the cathedral above town

Some 250 years later, in 1392 during the 100 Years War, the last of the counts of Blois sold his territories in the Loire Valley to the Duke of Orleans, who was the brother of the French king Charles VI. The French royal court moved to Blois for a time. Charles VI, who was known as Charles le Bien-Aime — the Beloved — later became known as Charles le Fol — Mad King Charles — because he went insane.

The Eglise St-Nicolas seen from
the terrace of the château in Blois

A couple of generations later, in 1498, King Louis XII, who was born in Blois, moved the French royal residence there again. When Louis XII, known as "the father of the people," died and his successor the great king François Ier rose to the throne, he set up his residence in Blois and built a new wing onto the château. He also began construction of his masterpiece, the château/hunting lodge at Chambord, nearby. Those were the real glory days of Blois, at the beginning of the French Renaissance and before the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants ravaged the country.

Window shopping on the narrow streets in old Blois

As you can see, Blois played a main role in French history, with the actors being the descendents of William the Conqueror and the Plantagenêts, who gave England several kings, and finally several great French kings.

In more modern times, Blois has been known as the political fiefdom of the Socialist Party "heavyweight" Jack Lang — one of the éléphants of the party, as they have been called. Lang was mayor of Blois, member of parliament, and Minister of Culture under President François Mitterrand in the 1980s and '90s. He is still a major figure among French socialists.

A wing of the château in Blois: La Façade des Loges

Lang's father was an Americanophile, evidently, and that's how he came to name his son Jack instead of Jacques. As a national figure, Jack Lang was a major force in Blois, bringing big changes to the city. Many were viewed as positive by the local people — new museums, renovated gardens and monuments, pedestrian shopping streets downtown, for example — but some were not.

"Main Street" in the business district of Blois

One more controversial contribution Mayor Lang made to Blois was the construction of major housing projects for low-income residents on the west side of the city. Nowadays Blois has a greater proportion of its citizenry living in subsidized, low-rent housing than any other city in France except Marseilles, my friends from Blois tell me.

Looking across to the Blois neighborhoods
on the south bank of the Loire

Outside its historical interest, we find Blois to be much less "useful" as an urban center than Tours, which is not much farther from us and which is a much bigger city. Blois seems to have a lot of the problems of modern cities, one of the greatest of which is heavy traffic, but not many of the advantages of a major urban center. We more often go to Blois to do special shopping or to go to concerts.

The cathedral of Blois rises above the rooftops of the town

Blois is very picturesque, as you can see from these photos I took one day in March two years ago. The town sits on the banks of the Loire at a point where there are high bluffs on the north side of the river. The cathedral sits high above the town. I've published other pictures of Blois here and here. I seem to have spent a lot of time in Blois in March 2006.

Last snowy pictures for 2008

I suppose April snowstorms are not unheard of here in the Loire Valley. We had them — and sometimes they were major storms — in other places I've lived: North Carolina, Washington DC, Urbana IL. S'il vous plaît, Météo France, spare us that misery.

Flowers and ice

Our mindset is different, and it's all based on what happened in 2007. A year ago, the month of April turned virtually hot and was perfectly dry. The temperature might not have hit 80, but the afternoon sun felt tropical. And the afternoons seemed extraordinarily long, because the onset of l'heure d'été — Daylight Saving Time — meant the sun didn't set until about 8:00 p.m.

So you see, that's what we are expecting to happen again this April. Never mind that last April was, by any standard, completely exceptional. The human mind ignores that bit of information. Or mine does, anyway. I'm itching to get out and start digging in the dirt. Or maybe I've put the cart before the horse: I'll be itching all over from insect bites once I am able to get out and start digging and planting and weeding.

Plum blossoms and crusty snow in the garden

No question of digging right now. When it's not cold, it's wet, and vice versa. Or it's both, like yesterday. The garden plots that I was so proud to have gotten all tilled up last fall are gradually being invaded by grasses and weeds. Tilling them again will be like starting from scratch again. There's nothing I can do about it. The dirt is too heavy and wet to be worked for the time being.

Yesterday I needed to go to the grocery store. I thought I'd go to Ed, the discount grocer, because I needed milk, lardons, and fruit juice — products that Ed carries, that I like, and that are less expensive there than at other supermarkets.

Vineyard scene

When I drove up to Ed, it was closed. Easter Monday is a holiday here. There's no mail or bread delivery, for example. But I thought the markets would be open for the morning, the way they are on Sundays and most holidays. But no.

SuperU, our biggest supermarket, is just up the street from Ed, so I drove up there. It's always open. Drat. Not on Easter Monday, it wasn't. Okay, now what?

The other two supermarkets are on the other side of the river, over in Noyers-sur-Cher. I drove on over there, enjoying the sight-seeing, actually, even though with melting snow and a dim sun in a gray sky, everything looked kind of dingy. Run down. Wintry. European.

Old Monsieur Denis, who is otherwise retired from the
wine business, still takes care of pruning one plot of new vines.
He does things the old way, gathering up the clippings and
tying them into bundles using willow withies (osier).
Callie thought the yellow willow whips needed moving...

I headed for "downtown" Noyers and Champion first. If that market wasn't open, I would drive over to Intermarché, in the zone d'activités commerciales on the edge of town. I was encouraged to see that Champion's parking lot was full of cars and the place was bustling.

As I wandered the aisles looking for the things I needed, and just generally browsing and checking the prices on staple items in this store where I don't often shop, I noticed that the checkout lines were snaking up and down the aisles closest to the registers. I resigned myself to a long wait. Tant pis.

And I continued to explore, examining the coffee section (no bargains there), looking at the wine shelves (Bordeaux and Beaujolais wines for less than two euros a bottle, the same for Sauvignon Blanc from the Languedoc region and a white wine from Gascogne) and the meat counter (again, no bargains there, and we didn't need anything).

A winter scene — wind blew a big empty pot over and it broke

By the time I found everything and was good to go, all the lines at the registers had magically disappeared. No waiting. The only line left in the store was the six or eight people waiting to buy a baguette at the bakery counter in the front of the store, which operates separately from the supermarket. The bread at Champion is good. And on a Monday, especially an Easter Monday, most of the boulangeries around the area are closed.

We planned to have soup for lunch. It was a soup we made a few weeks ago and we were going to eat leftovers that I had put in the freezer. So I had the luxury of exploring greater Saint-Aignan "metropolitan area" by car and then nosing around in the one supermarket I found open — I didn't need to cook lunch. I probably put seven miles on the car. For me these days, that passes for a day out on the town.

A frosty Easter Monday

Snow was predicted and it did fall sometime during the night. It's just the slightest dusting but its significance is that it will have been our only snow of the 2007-2008 winter. I hope I am not speaking too soon. Actually, it's not even winter. Spring has sprung. You wouldn't know it...

Sunrise from the kitchen window at La Renaudière

Easter Monday — 24 March 2008

Now I have to go take Callie for her morning walk — in the cold. She already went out and sniffed — no, stiffed AND tasted — the little bit of snow dust she could lick up. It didn't seem to phase her. She walked around in it, did her business, chased a low-flying bird, and then came back in the house to start begging for her walk. Guess I'd better go.

A dusting of snow on the back yard

Weather reports say we might have showers of rain and even grésil — ice pellets, a kind of fine hail that is common here and was in San Francisco in winter too — through the day today.

Here's one more photo of the yard, just for the record books

According to the TV news, it's snowing in eastern France this morning, mostly in the mountains but also at lower elevations around Lyon. I haven't heard if Paris got any snow overnight, but it was supposed to. Some people we know, who live in Sacramento, California, are spending most of March in Paris, and they say they never imagined that the weather could be so changeable. The only thing it hasn't been since their arrival is warm.

Trôo, c'est trop !

That means: "Trôo is just too much!" And what or where is Trôo? It's a village on and around a big hill overlooking the Loir River and its valley.

The Loir River Valley seen from the top of the bluff at TrôoJune 2001

The Loir River? Didn't you spell that wrong? It's the Loire river, with an E. Well, no, not this time. The Loire River is the big water feature in the region, of course, of Loire Valley fame. But the Loir is a smaller river a little ways north, and a tributary of the larger Loire.

The Eglise Saint-Martin at Trôo was built in the 10th century
at the top of the hill overlooking the river valley

The Loir is a miniature Loire, in some ways. It has vineyards all along its banks, and it has some nice châteaux. The Loir flows through the northern part of our département (county), which is called the Loir-et-Cher. The Cher is the river we live near, and it's sort of the southern reflection of the Loir. Both are tributaries of the Loire, and the département is named for them. (In reality, the Loir flows into the Sarthe, which flows into the Maine, which flows into the Sèvre Nantaise, which flows into the Loire... so it finally gets there.)

Trôo, like all French villages, lost many soldiers
in World War I and has a monument to honor their memory

The big town along the Loir River, north of Blois, is Vendôme, with the ruins of a medieval château and a huge church. I have some pictures of Vendôme that I will post here soon.

The Eglise St-Jacques-des-Guérets is in the valley below Trôo25 January 2004

Then there's Montoire-sur-le-Loire, a town of 10,000 so that is famous (or infamous) as the place where Adolph Hitler and the president of France signed a treaty sealing France's surrender and occupation at the beginning of World War II. They met in the town's little train station, which is still there but has only a very small sign to indicate its historical significance.

Restaurant at the top of the hill in Trôo

The village of Lavardin is just outside Montoire. It has a ruined château too, high on a hill overlooking village and river. Lavardin is one of the famous « plus beaux villages de France » — one of France's most beautiful villages. I have some pictures from Lavardin too.

Champignons — mushrooms — are grown in the caves at Trôo

The pictures in this post show the village called Trôo, pronounced [TROH], not [TROO]. As I said, it is on a hill, and it is trogodytic. In other words, there are caves carved out of the side of the hill in places, and those caves are used as dwellings or out-buildings (wine storage and aging, mushroom growing, and so on).

The newer village at the base of the hill in Trôo25 January 2004

The church at the top of the hill in Trôo is pretty, and the view out over the valley is very nice. It's one of those places in France where you feel like you might be the first tourist of visit in years, or decades, or ever. One book I have, the Signpost Guide to the Loire Valley, calls Trôo a "strange little village." It's not even listed in the Cadogan guide.

Also at the top of the hill is this house called Le Louvre

The Signpost Guide says that Trôo not only has cave dwellings, but it also has underground passageways and stairs that serve as streets and alleys linking the troglodyte homes to each other. I didn't see those.

Another view of the St-Martin church in Trôo

I did see the church at the top of the hill and other sights, which are pictured here. I've seen the name of the village spelled Trôo, with the accent (as on the WWI monument pictured above), or Troo, without (as in the Micheline guide). Either way, c'est trop. The people there are called Troiens — all 350 of them.

Trôo and the other towns and villages along the Loir River are a good hour's drive north of Saint-Aignan and about 30 minutes north of Blois or Amboise.