IT ALL STARTS WITH A TICKET
On this morning in July, it's from the station at Monparnasse in Paris, to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps in the Loire Valley, to visit the faerie-tale French castles that actually exist there. There are many ways to see the beautiful Loire Valley castles. You could even request Rail Europe to reserve a car for you here in Paris (Click here for Rail Europe) and you could drive there. Then you could take days, weeks... as long as you have in France... to explore every nook and crany of the many archictural styles and historical periods represented there.

Alternately, you could book one of the guided tours that go by motor coach from Paris many days of the week, although not to every French Castle every day. (It gets a little complex. You should talk that part over with someone who knows a lot about the region.) Or... you can do what we did, and take the TGV to Tours France in the Loire Valley. If you've read some of the other pages on this site, you know that we think that taking the train in Europe is a very fine choice.

... AND A PRESENT
However, the main reason we chose to do it this way is because Colleen gave me a Birthday Present. I wanted to visit certain castles I'd heard about, but our schedule allowed us to make the journey to the Loire Valley
only on certain days. No group tours matched our possibilities. But I really wanted to see this
one particular castle. What could we do....

A Birthday Present. We would arrange for a local tour guide to meet us at the station with a car and drive us around to the places we wanted to see.
It was extravagant, it was something we had not done before, but it would get us to the Castle of Usse.
I accepted gratefully. And so, one fine morning in July we headed to Monparnasse.

I have to tell you, it was not early in the morning. With a 12-hour difference between Paris and our home town, sleeping a little late can be quite a vacation in itself. Fortunately, with the many TGV trains each day from Paris to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps and back, we could pretty much choose our own timing.
The only tradeoff was that the later we left, the less time we had in the Loire.

Montparnasse is a great station. I like it a lot once I get the layout of it. It is huge, very huge, but it is extremely well designed. You can easily find the Pharmacy (getting what you want might be a little difficult, if you do not speak French) and buy clothing (no French necessary) or have a wide variety of things to eat (depends on the waiter).

It is also relatively easy to find your train. A dozen or more tracks end right there in the station, and when a train comes in, it stops in a row with all the others. See your train's track number on any one of many huge blackboards that hang from the high ceiling, walk to the track number, get on the train. Simple. There is one thing, however, that is simple only if you know about it. Quite undecipherable if you do not know French. There are orange boxes on short poles along the tracks. People are using them to stamp their tickets. But why....

Turns out that these are self-validation machines. If a French person is on a train, and has a ticket, but it has not been stamped by one of these machines, he or she is in BIG trouble. I'm told that foreigners, like me, will probably be given a pass on the penalties if we are caught with an unvalidated ticket. But I would not count on it. Anyway, now you know how to do it. Just stick your ticket in the way you see others doing it.
Very easy.

The 100-plus miles to the Saint-Pierre-des-Corps station in the rather large city of Tours France melt away in under an hour, while we get a look at the French Countryside along the way.
I would tell you about rural France, but you really have to feel it more than hear about it.
I can say there are farms and little towns and fields and crops and streams.
But that doesn't describe the difference you can
comprehend when you are there.

IN TOURS

We are met at the staion as arranged, and off we go. Our guide is a long-time student of French archiecture and offers us a choice of itineraries, including the places we have longed to go to. As he drives us along, he suggests we go first to Villandry, a different sort of castle, known even more for its gardens than its architecture.

There are three separate gardens. The Kitchen gargen, which is planted in ornate patterns with edible vegetables and fruits. The Water garden, where an artesian well feeds a large pool that warms and aerate the subterranean water before use on the rest of the gardens. And the Ornamental gardens, with three further divisions.

There is the Herb garden that contains aromatic, culinary and medical plants that have been in French gardens since the Middle Ages. There is the Music garden of colorful annual flowers, like lavanders and roses, planted in patterns of musical notes, instruments and musical scores. And there is the Love garden, which is really the most remarkable of them all. Here the four phases, or types, of love are represented. Sentimental, Unrequited, Jealous and Unfaithful. Sort of a garden window onto the psyche of the
Middle Ages. Of course, it has nothing to do with people today....

WE GET TREATS
The second castle we visit is not on our must-do list, but we are delighted by it. It is the chateau of Azay-le-Rideau, in the little village of Azay-le-Rideau by the Indre river. But before we visit, it is time for lunch. Our guide gives us a choice of places, and we end up in the most lovely dining spot in an open space sheltered by trees, in front of what was once obviously a rich family's house, now the site of a restaurant. It is unique, very French. The people who serve us glide to our tables, are completely impressed by our choices off their menu, and they have the bearing of royalty as they nod and go off to
prepare our meal.

The fact that we are there with our guide, who, to a casual observer is just another French person whom we just happen to be traveling with, gives us entre into a more French world. Even my poor attempts at the language becomes a little more acceptable. We get into a real conversation with people about real things. We feel we have discovered some of the reality of France. And the food, with its own subtle provincial nuiances, is as fine as any in Paris.

We actually walk to the castle from the restaurant, down a narrow street created long, long ago. Then we see it, and our lunch companion becomes our guide again. He tells us that this early 16th Century
castle has been revised several times by different owners over the millenia. We go inside, and visit each room, with discourse about the kings and their extensive retinue that carried their own furniture with them and visited for extended periods, weeks or seasons at a time, at the expense of the castle's owners.

But it is after we leave the castle that we get our biggest treat.
Our guide suggests we walk around the grounds of the castle at the back of it, and then meet him in the village where he will have the car ready for us. He leaves us with the slighest hint of a smile, and we do as he suggests. The largest portion of the moat still surrounding the castle is there, almost a lake. There are lawns, trees, a path... a running brook with bridges over it. We stand on a little bridge, look at the castle just as it is in the photo above, and suddenly feel transported to a time when the castle was the center of life here. Lords and ladies, servants, luxury, feasts, gameskeepers, frolicking in the forrest, hunts and hounds, romance in the shadows.

We are quite late for our rendezvous with our guide, who had become a little worried we would not have time for our designated favorite caste at Usse. But we are the ones who smile this time, and tell him not to be concerned. We have just had our best time in the castle country of the Loire.

WE GET TO SEE USSE
The final stop is Usse, the French Castle I had wanted to see so much. No one is sure when it was started, exactly, but there are indications that construction was well advanced in 1485. The architecture is memorable. In particular, some amusement park designer may have been remembering it when they drew the plans for the signature structure for a certain park in Southern California.

Frankly, we are a bit tired by then. To our bodies, it is something like five in the morning. We see it, think it is neat, but really, we like Azay better. We are thankful that we had listened to our very insightful guide who had suggested it. Afterward, our guided car humms down country roads by the Indre river, up to the Loire river, along highways and byways, and we find ourselves waking up as we near the city of Tours. Gracefully, our guide does not mention our little jet-lag induced indiscretion, and gets us to our train just on time with handshakes and smiles and exchange of business cards all round. We speed back to Paris, getting more sleep on the way, ready for a full night on the town in cosmopolitan Paris.

If you would like to explore Europe by train, Rail Europe is the prime source. Here is a link to their website.
Check out their Eurail Pass... it's a real bargain if you're doing more than one country.

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