A drive in the country…

Monday May 15 finds us looking to break new ground in this latest installment.

Today we’re going to visit a castle… by rental car.  I’m starting to feel a little apprehensive because the roads are narrow with no room for error; sidewalks and stone homes lined along the roads in town and winding asphalt pathways with no shoulder,  no center lines, and tons of bikes and motorcycles everywhere (motorcycles drive on the sidewalk in order to park in front of some businesses).

Mix in octogenarian pedestrians and road signs that would only make sense in Bulgaria, plus an unknown vehicle and finally a tense and near hysterical co-pilot with compromised eyesight to round out the potential for chaos.

Luckily I have James the all-knowing UK GPS voice to make sense of the madness.  No more of that Druzilla-themed character from my Canadian GPS that snarkily says RECALCULATING every time you change lanes. James calmly says ‘make a U-turn at your earliest convenience ‘, which is very common here as it turns out.  He sounds like he would be a great dinner guest,  almost James Bond-like in a white dinner jacket with cufflinks and black tie; great at geography too I bet.

Anyways, James, the gentleman that he is, proposes a pleasant ride through the French countryside free of traffic on a balmy afternoon with birds singing, flowers in a pantheon of colours dotting the fields , grasses swaying in choreographed splendor.  This will be a day like no other (if only Carol would stop screaming).

After only a half dozen U-turns and 65 kms on our 40 kms journey we are parking our Peugeot Sonic in the Chambord Castle parking lot.  It dawns on me that the last stick-shift car that I drove had 510 more hp than this sewing-machine driven economy vehicle, but then I had to tow a gas station behind me everytime I drove it so I sold it.

It had been a relaxing drive with nary a scratch to the fenders,  a few horns honking now and again;  although Carol’s perspiration stains on her seat might take some elbow grease to disguise when we return the car 2 days hence.  But here we are.

Chambord is a magnificent structure with it’s beginnings in the early 16th century. It was begun by James I in 1515 as a hunting lodge and by it’s grandiose size and splendor you must assume that he was the world’s first zillionaire. I mean this place is freakin’  HUGE!  What was he hunting… diamonds and pearls?  I mean he would get bored and play pin the tail on the townsfolk with a crossbow.  He would be up in the LODGE eating canaries and kittens and his subjects would be scraping together a bowl of dust soup!

I have a love of history.  I absolutely dote on the Baby Boomer version of Trivial Pursuit. I’m like the Bob Einstein of old collectibles. All my vehicles are old and my wife isn’t getting any younger either; so ya, I would say I know my way around a hay fork.  This place though it had it all, including flush toilets and a gift shop. Who’s up for a pewter mortar and pestle?  Or a  $5 post card of an old woman being dragged by a burro (haha spell check thought I meant burrito, James would get a kick out of that).  I nodded off briefly during the video presentation… in Latin but managed to get the gist of it and we were off.

Stone everything,  everywhere,  no colours other than grey  (I’m colour blind and I found it boring, I mean that’s my normal palette)  nothing warm and fuzzy , no human element or concession to comfort.  They probably stuffed baby rabbits into their straw mattresses so they wouldn’t get hemorrhoids . We trundled behind some Latvian tour group who were all in period costume, then climbed the 114 stone stairs to see the view from the parapet but when we reached the end the door was spiked close with a sheet of plywood.  By this time Carol’s bad leg was bleeding and I got a vicar  (long colourless robe, no hair except fringe around the ears like Moe from the 3 Stooges) to help me drag her down to the courtyard.  I wished we didn’t cheap out on that travel insurance.

Anyways we made it back to the car.  It was great to hear James croon “Drive to the highlighted route ” when I turned the key but I did happen to notice during the preamble that his maps were 5 years out of date.  Druzilla back in Castlegar is 14 years out of date  (she was on sale at the thrift shop) but in sleepy old Castlegar it takes 3 years to change a manhole cover so it was never an issue. Here though there was potential for confusion,  lots of confusion.

Things began to take a turn for the worst when we decided to interject an additional stop on our way home. A mere 25 kms away was Cheverny which had one of those smaller 200,000 sq ft castles that was barely 400 years old. I figured we could cruise by,  click a few snaps through the car window,  and check it off my castle to-do  list.  Well this is when James was starting to show his age. We were approaching the 50k mark on the odometer and all we were seeing was more stupid flowers and grass.  Where’s the big grey thing? But lo and behold up pops the sign saying Cheverny  Castle and it had free parking! (It was 6€ at Chambord plus the 26€ entry fee).  Well no drive by here. It had a 6 foot pike-top fence with 5 foot thick shrubbery intermingled with it.   I wasn’t going to spring for another big € hit and Carol couldn’t manage the fence with that leg so I thrust my camera into a dead spot in the bushes, hit the shutter a few times and hoped for the best.

Now I was bragging up James with the great route he chose on the first leg but after Cheverny he seemed tired and wanted us to try the Super Highway on the way home,  and go figure it will be rush hour in sleepy 50,000 strong Blois with the narrow winding roads by the time we get there. We hit 4 straight spots where he said turn left in 20 meters  (at 110 kmh), apparently progress had reached little Blois and they were doing away with left turns and added 3 dozen roundabouts in the past 5 years. Now the horn honking was a little more prevalent and fists were being pounded into steering wheels.  WHERE ARE ALL THE FREAKIN’ NORMAL SIGNS! Hey watch out… whoa… ya, you too buddy !  WHAAAT the gas gauge is getting low!  Carol, stop moaning!  It had been 36 hours since I said a swear word.  Looks like I’ll be starting a new set of downs.  Everybody in France wants to be a Formula 1 driver and they were passing me faster than Usain Bolt fleeing a Chicago traffic stop.

Finally familiar territory and now to take advantage of the free street parking that was advertised for the Airbnb we were at.  Except the streets near us were made for Vikings walking single file and people parked on the sidewalk in front of their homes and now everyone was home from work and cooking supper.  On my 3rd time around the block  (which was actually 4 blocks) a woman was getting into her car and ready to leave.  By the time I saw her I was right abreast of her and had to back up a few feet but some Mario Andretti lookalike pulls right onto my bumper and I have to make another pass.  Now I’m the F1 driver and I make it back around only to see she was parked illegally and there’s no way we leave a rental car in that spot.  To make a long story long we find one spot 3 blocks away and call it good.  Tomorrow we’re taking the car to Chenenceau 60  (90) kms away.  I can’t wait.