Yes that’s right, we toured Tours this morning. And no, it’s not a mall full of kiosks selling package tours to seniors and hapless travelers :). Our first stop was the cathedral (I hope that by now you’ve figured out every town has one and they’re all massive! Imagine what the church could have done for the poor with all the money they spent building these things!!). We found a convenient parking space, then we entered the adjacent park & garden and came upon one of the biggest trees we’ve ever seen.
We did meet Frenchie the dog who desperately wanted his master to just throw the ball 🎾 damnit!!
The Cathedrale Saint Gatien de Tours was around the corner. The construction began in 1170 and ended 1547. It has been a classified monument historique since 1862. Since 1905 it has been owned by the French State, with the Catholic Church having the exclusive rights of use.
In the 13th century, the artists working on Tours Cathedral launched a small revolution in the design of stained glass windows. Instead of having the entire window filled a multitude of small scenes made of tiny pieces of deeply-coloured glass, the Tours artists began making windows with a mixture of types of glass; the traditional iconographic scenes with Biblical figures were surrounded by panes of clear or lightly coloured glass decorated with ornamental and vegetal themes. This served the purpose of bringing a much greater quantity of light into the interior, and also highlighted the chosen subjects, which otherwise were lost among hundreds of other images. It’s hard to describe the abundance of stained glass windows in this cathedral. We’ll try to share the highlights.
Stunning artwork in every window.
We walked around town and always love a European train station.
And always a good place to spend a euro and skip to the loo.
Anywho, we wanted to see the old streets of Tours with those crazy uneven wooden buildings. We met a nice young frenchman that helped us find our way.
And a Cafe Jeffe
These structures look like they’re falling forward or sideways but have survived hundreds of years
Who needs an extra fridge when you can have your very own baguette vending machine
Goodbye to Tours and on to the Villandry Château and Gardens with a thousand years of history. The fortress was built in the 12th Century. Villandry was known as “Colombia’s” until the 17th Century. In 1754 de Castelle the Ambassador of Louis XV redesigned the interior and add the outbuildings. In the 19th century it passed to many owners, including Napoleon the First’s younger brother. The gardens were transformed into an English style park. In 1906 Joachim Carvallo & his wife Ann Coleman, two scientists from Spain & America, became the owners, restored the chateau and redesigned the gardens. Their great grandson is the custodian in charge of the estate.
It lies on 15 hectares (37 acres), 7 (17.3 acres) of which are gardens. Acres to hectares conversion is hectacres times 2.47. Understand we’re in kilometers, Celsius, euros and a 24 hour clock and getting good at it too.
In this case the photos paint a thousand words at Villandry
Inside was decorated to show you how they lived centuries ago
Three floors up to the top terrace, the views were breathtaking. Every turn you could see the love and passion put into these gardens. There are 10 gardeners, 1,015 lime trees, and 115,000 flowering and vegetable plants. The garden uses no chemicals, it’s 100% natural and now home to over 100 species of birds. Magical in every way.
We brought a little picnic and took a stroll through the mazes at ground level for up an up close experience.
Such an impressive chateaux with MAGNIFICENT gardens. Merci for the stunning gift of beauty today.
The Loire Valley is known for its Renaissance Marvels. Marking the path to the next one.
The Château D’Azay-Le-Rideau built at the beginning of the 16th Century by Gilles Berthelot and Philippe Lesbahy combines French, Italian and Flemish influences.
We were treated to some Renaissance dances and music.
Inside, the main attraction was an art display called Hidden Portraits by Volker Hermes. Ten years in the making, Hidden Portraits reinterprets historical paintings through a modern lens.
Using only elements from the original work, Hermes visually manipulates famous Old Masters portraits, exploring expression when the face is obscured.
I’ll let the portraits speak for themselves.
It wasn’t all just the portraits though.
But, yes, there were a lot of portraits 🙂
And, of course, these little guys were scurrying all throughout the place.
By now, we’d racked up 16,000 steps and were out of gas, so we headed back to the house for a nice relaxing soak in the hot tub! Tomorrow is looking like more of the same, with 2, maybe 3, more chateaus on the agenda. The Loiré valley has more than 300, so we’re only just scratching the surface.
