Le Cheval Blanc by Chloe

This is a guest blog by Chloe. I will start with an abbreviated version of the drive from Collonges-La-Rouge to the town of Blere. While a GPS is a fine and useful technological advance, it is fraught with peril, particularly on the French backroads. Simply putting in the next stop in our itinerary, Le Cheval Blanc, in the town of Blere, gave a set of directions at first glance completely reasonable. However, the GPS seeks to find only the shortest distance between points and does not distinguish between a departmental or a national road. National roads in France are generally good, sometimes even multi lanes, and always paved. Departmental roads, however, suffer no such restrictions. While the route to Blere could be described as scenic, after 3 hours of scenic french country side the driver's (Max) patience was wearing rather thin. The quaint custom in small french towns of blocking all egress in favor of a brocante day (flea market fair type festival) did not make matters any better. Often there would be one road into and out of a town, and usually the one we needed to take. After I rerouted us back to the same blockaded town twice, Max threatened to stop driving, forcing me to drive and Gail to navigate. While Gail and I were successful in navigating and driving the last leg of the trip from the Chateau de Chenenceau to Blere, Gail became car sick from looking at the GPS. Needless to say, we were all quite grateful to arrive in Blere and the hotel, Le Cheval Blanc. (I should mention that the hotel was listed in Karen Brown's guide and as this was how we discovered Chateau de la Caze, we were confident of at least a pleasant night.) Upon arrival we learned that the highly recommended restaurant at the hotel was closed and furthermore that the doors would be locked soon, so under no circumstances were we to forget the digicode allowing us to enter and exit the building. (While many smaller hotels and gites give guests digicodes to the door, it is usually because the owner or staff person is sleeping in another room or having dinner, not because the hotel will be completely deserted from 7 in the evening until sometime the next morning. )
The seemingly friendly if harried propriataire led use up a narrow flight of stairs to our rooms on the second floor. The rooms were small, but clean and both had a shower and toilet so we were all quite content with that. After washing up we headed out into the town in search of food. As it was a Sunday, the square was preternaturally quiet in the way small french towns become on sundays and jour feries (bank holidays). All stores are closed as well as most restaurants, leaving a select few bars and cafes to cater to the tourists. We found a crowded pizza place down the road from the hotel. The restaurant was literally a mom and pop place, the woman doing all the serving and the man doing all the cooking for an unexpected crowd. The food was surprisingly good considering the mad crush of customers, although Gail made the mistake of sampling the house wine. Sometimes ordering a "pot" of wine (350ml of wine served in a recycled bottle) just isn't a good idea. And then it was back to the hotel for a hot shower and early bedtime...
Max and I stretched out debating who would take the first shower when there was a knock at the door. Gail wanted to know if our water was working. It was fine before we left, but upon our return, not a drop. So no cold water,no hot water, no functioning toilet, nothing. I naively called the front desk expecting a response only to discover it was deserted. After going down stairs and exploring the lobby and the kitchen (all equally deserted), we were at a loss. The only pleasure I had, since a nice hot shower was out of the question, was listening to the panicked pitter patter of feet on the stairs as the other hotel guests arrived back from dinner only to discover they had no water. Gail and Kenji checked throughout the night for water but to no avail. Max and I, more accustomed to not showering for extended periods of time, went to sleep. The next morning we woke to the wonder of restored running water and luxuriated in a long hot shower. We ate at the hotel, too tired from the ordeal of the previous evening to bother searching for an open cafe. Gail and I had the same idea that breakfast would probably be free due to our inconveniences of the night before, so we didn't balk at the 10 euro per person bread and tea. After packing up we were ready to check out and start our trek to Paris. Gail and I decided to handle the check out as the boys weren't as accustomed or invigorated by haggling over the check out bills. Haggling and bartering is best left to the tough girls from NYC (Gail) and just generally cranky women (me). The smiling propritaire asked us if we had a pleasant stay and did we have breakfast there. This surprised me a bit as I thought he would mention the lack of water and perhaps apologize for the inconvenience or at least acknowledge the issue. Well I told him that we had some problems, "oh you mean the water" he asked somewhat ingenuously. "Yes," I replied, "there was no running water, no toilet all night last night. We couldn't get a drink or shower." His response looking at my wet hair was "well you showered today, so it's ok then." I was momentarily at a loss and to buy time I translated for Gail. I remained calm and explained that I didn't think we should pay full price for the rooms because there was no water and one expects running water and a functioning toilet. I figured clarity with what we expected (i.e. a free breakfast at least, 10% off the rooms, something of that nature) would suffice. He then explained that the pump broke so it wasn't his fault. I (somewhat less calmly) explained that there was no one at the reception, the hotel had been deserted by staff all night, and the phones were disabled. After translating for Gail she took over and explained about the guest and hotel having a contract, and in that contract the guest expects certain things (i.e. working toilet) in exchange the hotel receives payment, etc etc etc. As she said this all in english he happily ignored her. I was about to give up under the weight of french logic (there is no "the customer is always right", only "the customer is usually wrong but is a necessary evil if one is running a hotel") when another guest arrived. He was calmly canceling his reservations for the next night and explaining how a non flushing toilet was disgusting and how they had to go to a bar down the road to use the facilities. He was controlled, cool, and articulate (ok french was his native language so sarcasm worked better for him than for me). This for some reason sent the propritaire over the edge and he told Gail and me to get out. This was fine with us as it meant getting out without paying (or at least we hoped it did). We both fled to the car and recounted our adventures in french customer service to the boys, vowing to write to Karen Brown and to scrutinize our credit card bills for the next few months.

Chenonceau, Blere, no toilets

We had a fairly long day of driving today; when I was planning the itinerary, we needed to find a way to get from Albi/Cordes up to Paris without having any killer driving days. Also, I knew Paris was not going to be fun in a car, so I decided to make a stop in Chateaux country, and Blere in particular. While giving us a few longish driving days, it made the next days drive to Paris quite easy. We had chosen Blere and the hotel Cheval Blanc based on the recommendation in the Karen Brown guide, and also because Chloe has not been to the Loire before, and I wanted her to see at least one of the castles!

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel in Collonges-la-Rouge. The breakfast was excellent, and the highlight was homemmade jams and preserves made from fruit from the property. It was served on a family heirloom: a beautiful farmers table whose only fault was being a bit low and bumping into your knees occasionally. In a funny turn of events, at the communal breakfast table it was discovered that one of the other couples had a daughter about to start an internship for KPFA in Berkeley! We gave them our contact info to help her find a place to stay when she gets here.

Chloe had noticed that there was an antique fair in a neighboring town so we headed there after breakfast and checking out. As usual, there were quite a few nice things, but our lack of transportation options limited what we could actually buy. Chloe found a cute little baby high chair:

And bought it in spite of my protestations.

From the antique fair, we started the long drive North. This turned out to be a little painful. The GPS, while excellent for navigating within cities, does not seem to have any information on the relative sizes of the "Departmental" roads, and routes you on very very small roads. Additionally, it being Sunday, there were more flea markets than you could shake a stick at. This wouldn't have bothered us had it not been for the fact that the towns would close down the center of town and the road that runs through it for the fair. This caused much hair pulling and driving in reverse on tiny roads.

We eventually got arrived in the Loire valley and headed for Chenonceau before it closed. It turns out that we would have done better to go later in the day (it's open wuite late), because the castle was absolutely thronged and was not much fun to visit. The highlight of the self guided tour for me was the cool kitchen in the "basement" (in the piers of the castle in the river Cher).

look at this stove!


a few other pictures:
Kenji and Gail from above

kayaking the moat

the cold shoulder

and of course the beautiful castle itself

Chloe in the gardens

me in the gardens


It also rained briefly


and then we headed for Blere and checked into the Cheval Blanc. Things were pretty quiet in town, it being a Sunday on a long weekend but we had a decent pizza dinner at a restaurant around the corner. Unfortunately, the water was off when we got back to the hotel, which meant no showers (annoying), no drinking water (also annoying) and no flushing toilets (cause for rebellion). I was so tired from the drive that I fell asleep immediately, but was woken up at various points later on in the evening by the noises of other hotel guests trying to turn the water back on. You see, no one was at the front desk, and the hotel phones stopped working as well. Very annoying.

Cordes, Najac, Collonges-La-Rouge

We decided to get another late start today and stay in Cordes until right before checkout time (Much to the chagrin of the hotel's front desk). The breakfast room at the Hotel has a beautiful view North towards Bournazel and is a great way to start the day.

We wandered around for a while,



saw a house for sale:


and went into the Laguiole shop, but the prices seemed a little steep.

Heres kenji in front of an expensive foie gras shop where chloe bought some delicious caramels (don't worry, they weren't foie gras flavored).



I wandered down through the western gate and watched as cars barely made it through


And then headed back towards the hotel.


We navigated out of Cordes without any collisions with gates or pedestrians or other cars and headed North. I had wanted to see the town of Cirq-la-Popie, but the GPS couldn't find it, and I didn't want to overdo things since we had a long way to go. Instead, we went to a town called Najac

Where we walked around for a bit

and then had lunch in the main square. Kenji and I somewhat ill-advisedly ordered a lunch menu with beef as the main course. The lesson to be learned here is to never order beef dishes that cost less than 9 euro. The steaks looked great, so Kenji and I dug in and cut ourselves big chunks. Twenty or thirty seconds later we each looked at eachother still chewing like cows and almost burst out laughing. The steaks were as tough as old tires, and our only hope for chewing them was to cut them into thin little strips.

Najac appears to be a popular vacation spot for the British, since we heard a lot of English spoken (from inside houses) and saw some very un-french nameplates (like "Adams") on doors. It was a charming town and my parents are considering renting a gite there for a month next year. Interestingly, you can buy a beautifully restored farmhouse with land there for ~250,000 euro. This seems like a much better deal to me than a shoebox in Berkeley for $800,000, but maybe thats just me.

From Najac, we drove to the town of Turenne. Kenji impressed all of us by walking not only up to the top of the citadel, but to the very top of the tower (with the flag).









To save Kenji from the long walk down, chloe and I sprinted down the hill to get the car. On the way up we had seen a store that was selling a regional specialty: a walnut cake. Neither chloe nor I can resist things like this so we bought one, and it turned out to be delicious. Here is a recipe that I found for it:

Préparation 20 mn cuisson 45 mn.
3 oeufs, 250 g de sucre, 125 g dc beurre + 20 g pour le moule, 25 cl de tait, 250 g de farine + 10 g pour le Moule.
too g de cerneaux de noix, 12 cerneaux de noix pour le décor, 1 paquet de levure, 2 paquets de sucre vanillé.
Réduire te beurre en pommade, incorporer le sucre et les jaunes un par un, ajouter ta farine et la levure, le lait et le sucre vanillé, bien travailler le tout.
Incorporer délicatement les blancs en neige, et les cerneaux de noix grossièrement hachés.
Verser l'appareil dans un moule beurré et fariné, cuire à four moyen pendant 45 mn. Décorer avec les cerneaux de noix.


We were all set to drive up and pick Kenji up when we saw the dreaded sign: Entree interdit "Sauf Riverains" : locals only. However, we had no choice and broke the law to drive up to the top. Oh well, I doubt that was the first time a traffic law was broken in France!

From Turenne, we headed to our final destination: Collonges-la-Rouge. I had found this town on the "plus beaux villages de france" web site, and the hotel on gites-de-france.fr, so we really had no idea what it was going to be like. The town turned out to be incredibly picturesque: ancient steeples and spires all made out of red sandstone bricks, small walkways and charming stores.






It's true that the town is a bit touristy, but not overly so. The hotel turned out to be one of the best of the trip. Here are our rooms:




After checking in, we looked around in the town



and I found a place which makes knives by hand in the town: Le Couteau de Correze. My friends know that I'm a little knife crazy -- it's a Japanese thing. I was totally uninterested in french or european knives until we stumbled on Laguiole a few years ago, when I bought myself and Chloe two exquisite folding pocket knives from the Forge de Laguiole. The Correze knives are in my opinion just as nice as the Laguiole knives, but a lot less expensive. Before the trip I had priced Laguiole steak knives in the US because I wanted a set of six. However, I didn't really want to spend $300! So I was happy to find a beautiful set of steak knives at this store, with olivewood handles for just over $100


Chloe also bought me a mystery birthday present there, which she has claimed is a "Spife" -- like a spork, but a spoon-knife. I hope she's joking.

The town emptied of people by 6 pm, which coincided well with some excellent light (this one was actually taken a bit earlier):



We had dinner at an informal place down the street... the best parts of the meal were my foie gras (a specialty of the region) and a dessert that I am forgetting the name of.

one last climb, Albi, Cordes

On our way out of the Amphi sector, I saw a very cool looking climb which followed a steep overhang and finished on a low angle jug filled slab. It looked like my kind of climb, and we decided to come back for a morning session.

So after another excellent breakfast

in which I FINALLY asked what those multi colored things are in the container next to the orange juice (Pollen grains, for your coffee, yogurt, or whatever), we headed to the crag again.

Unfortunately, things didn't go so well: a general lack of fitness and two days of climbing left me weak and I ended up getting demoralised on the warm up. Things went downhill rapidly from there and involved a lot of hanging on the rope, cursing, pulling on draws and general dispair. In the end everything worked out, and I can add that climb to my growing list of unfinished business in the tarn. After gathering up our gear, we headed back to the castle (yeah, I like saying that) for another bath and packed up.

After settling the four digit bill, we drove out of the tarn, stopping at the point sublime to look out over the Tarn



And then made a short detour to show my parents the magnificent Millau Viaduct. They have a little aire built there now, which we stopped at briefly.

From the viaduct, we headed North to Albi and somehow ended up in the pedestrian filled extreme center, which was not a pleasant driving experience. After finding parking, we walked to the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec

so that Kenji and Gail could get their fine art fix. The museum has some of the litho stones which still have images on them! There was also a fun little side kiosk with Toulouse Lautrec's "special" cane. In the later years of his life, he was put in an institution to curb his alcoholism. To get around this, he aquired a special flask-cane, complete with a cute little shot glass. I dragged Kenji into the room, ready to tell him something he didn't know, but Kenji's encyclopedic knowledge of artists prevailed and he knew exactly what it was.

After a coffee in the square next to the museum, we hit the road again to get to our next hotel. We had looked in the Karen Brown guide for a place near Albi and had come up with a place in a town called Cordes-sur-ciel, which none of us had heard of. Albi and its outskirts are really quite ugly, so it was with great surprise that we saw a fairy tale town rise up over the landscape.

Cordes is stunning: beautiful cobblestone streets and old houses in a oval pattern perched on a hilltop. It's a little unnverving driving up the steep cobbled streets, but we made it to the hotel and checked in. We were pretty happy to have found a parking space right in front of the hotel, but it turned out that parking is illegal after 10 AM. The hotel offers free parking, but the directions on how to use it are a little convoluted and require a color coded map!


After parking the car and checking out the beautiful atrium,



we explored the village a bit










and went to a restaurant that served regional specialties... and had tables set up in the central arcade. For dinner, Chloe and Kenji got the duck with aligot, which was excellent, and I got the sausage with aligot (also very good). Gail ordered the cassoulet, which was also wonderful. I think that aligot, which is a potent combination of potato, cheese and garlic would make an excellent and easy apres-ski dish. I found a recipe here. Kenji and I had the regional apple pastry for dessert, while Chloe and Gail wussed out with sorbets.

Climbing again

We warmed up in the figues au cul sector. On the way there we passed a Caterpillar with an implement that I named "the thrashing machine": basically an industrial sized weed whacker with steel whips housed in a barrel around two feet in diameter amd four feet long. The operator would just move it towards the brush on the side of the road and it would eat everything in its path with an alarming clamor. Figues au cul was a kilometer away from where we had seen the thrasher initially, and somehow I hadn't really thought that it was going to continue along the road. It was with considerable nervousness therefore that I watched it thrash its way to within a few feet of our car. As the thrasher lurched towards the Ford, I had visions of shattered windows, sideview mirrors sent shooting off into the road, and exploding tires. Thankfully, it did not demolish our car, but continued on down the road.


The thrashing appendage is at the end of the yellow arm. You can see one of the tail lights of our Ford Focus at the lower right hand edge of the image.

From Figues au Cul, we headed to what turned out to be one of my favorite areas: l'amphi. We walked through the Tennesee sector to get there

Its a rock balcony shaded by trees with a perfectly flat belaying area. It is accessible through a short via ferrata and looks out into the gorge

We did "salut les copines", 6b,



then I got my ass handed to me on "Le veuve noire", 7b, and I finished up by onsighting GR15, 6c+.
Heres a french dude casually strolling up it


and Chloe, back at the Tennesee sector

and me, tired

It was already 14:00 and we hadn't eaten lunch, so we stopped at la Malene for sandwiches. I scraped a fist sized ball of butter out of my sandwich (this is my biggest problem with French sandwiches -- WAY too much butter and mayo).
Heres CZ post-limonade and sandwich


After rinsing off, we joined my parents for some watercolors









and then took the requisite group shot in front of the castle

Chloe and I were staying in the room at the very left on the second floor before Gail kicked us out, and then in the room at the top middle (with the windows open).

Chloe and I took a walk up the Tarn before dinner



Dinner was just as good as last night, but a bit heavier. It started with scallops, followed by lamb with an emulsion of zucchini (very much like the previous night) and a cream topped fruits rouge dessert. I also had a generous cheese plate with wonderful roquefort (pronounched roak-a-fore by the locals)... and les Paradines again!