Gent, Belgium

View of Gent from St. Michel's Bridge

June 19 - Gent, Belgium

After having a slight complication checking into the Gravensteen Hotel (they couldn’t find our reservation), we eventually got our room and settled in. Having endured our across-the-railroad-tracks hotel in Evreux, my intent had been to book us into a more comfortable three star hotel in the middle of the old city. Although the hotel was well situated, as it turned out our “suite” looked more like a thirty year old Hilton room with a view of the parking lot. So much for trying.

The medieval castle near our hotel

Luckily, Gent made up for our substandard hotel room in sheer beauty and history. Diane and I had been to Gent decades ago with my parents but we’d forgotten how lovely of a city it was. With the River Leie running through it, Gent is gem of a place. Steeped in history (literally dating back to the Stone Age), Gent offers many samples of old architecture. Starting right near our hotel, there is a medieval castle that looks like from the days of King Arthur.

St. Bavo cathedral

One of the cathedrals we visited, Saint Bavo, was originally build in 942 A.D. The original structure no longer exists, but parts of what we today was built around 1150 - Christopher Columbus’ adventures were yet over three centuries away!!!

We toured  a number of the historical sights, including the harbor area (known as the Graslei), the main town square, St. Michael’s bridge, a huge, old cast iron cannon, a giant bell, the old fish market and more cathedrals. We found Gent to be very pedestrian friendly, with many intriguing views and cityscapes. 

Since we were in Gent on Sunday afternoon and on a Monday, museums and markets were not an option - they were closed. That was unfortunate, since Gent some very interesting museums and has one of the biggest second hand markets in Europe.

In the late afternoon, we had a glass of wine near the Leie river, in Graslei and Korenlei area. It would have been better with sunshine, but still we marveled at Gent’s unique and beautiful architectural scenery. The old port area is one of the original ports in Europe that developed as a center of commerce and trade in the days of Charlemagne. It’s pretty easy to envision the old trading ships berthing along the quay and think of all the bee hive-like activity that would have been occurring each day. 

Views of Graslei and Korenlei

Unfortunately, our stay was too short. Tuesday morning found us busily making our way through traffic out of Gent, heading for the Netherlands.   

16th century building with six dancing devils atop of it.

From the outside the Marriott Hotel looks old. But inside.... 

Drill made of Belgian chocolates

Graffiti alley

Yummy bakery with great breads

Claude Monet's Gardens in Giverny

Claude Monet

The lily pond

June 19 - Evreux to Giverny and Gent (Belgium)    

Okay, just one more post for the evening. I was behind in posting due to not having internet access, so now's the time to catch up.

Finding our way to Giverny was a bit more challenging, but, with Diane being the top-notched navigator she is, we methodically found our way to the near-mythical village where Claude Monet had painted so many of his garden and pond scenes.

His house

Garden

Towards the pond

Giverny receives nearly one half million visitors per year - quite a lot for a postage-sized village. It felt like 300,000 of them were here with us today! A long line to get in to the museum. And once in, we found other hoards of people waiting to get in to his house, his gardens and the pond area. Luckily, everyone was respectful of each other and things worked out. Walking through Monet’s atelier and seeing all the paintings hanging on the walls from  top to bottom was a powerful and emotional experience. I could only imagine what it would have been like in the early 1900‘s, when he was walking these paths and sitting down to paint a scene.

After finishing the tour of Monet’s house, we strolled through Giverny, had a light lunch with two cafes alonge (expressos with a bit of water added to them), and headed for Gent, Belgium.

The water lilies

A Monet model

Chartres and Evreux

The Notre-Dame de Chartres

June 18 - Chartres and Evreux

The drive to Chartres was a quick one. Once there, we found a parking spot way underground (four levels down) at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall). All we really wanted to do was to have a quick tour of (yes, yet another) cathedral and the surrounding area.

The Notre-Dame de Chartres did not disappoint. With its two very different spires - one being Roman, the other uber-Gothic, the cathedral yields a very dramatic sight. Inside, too, it is quite amazing in its architecture, the sheer size and height, the ornamental Christian sculptures, the paintings, wood carvings, the marble floor - everywhere you look, there are works of art.

A wide pedestrian way and square in Chartres

 

After the cathedral and a quick tour around the old parts of the city, we found our way back to the parking garage and continued onward,

Evreux is a small town. For the first time, we had decided to go to a place without a hotel reservation. Big mistake. Evreux, it turns out, was having a music festival and its few hotels were booked. We ended up finding a room at the Grand de le Gare (in essence, that meant that it was a hotel located right across the street from the train station). Actually, it turned out to be okay.

We plunked our stuff down and went off to see what all the hoopla was about. Around town there were several different venues going on with people singing, playing piano, dancing and playing medieval instruments. We listened to several students doing their recital for a class in classical ragtime music. Really fun.

Cathedral in Evreux

The Hotel de Ville (city hall)

Evreux was nearly all destroyed in the WWII (the cathedral seems to have been kept in tact). So much of what we saw had been rebuilt. They did an excellent job of creating a warm atmosphere and utilizing the river to enhance the feel of the city. It was a very comfortable town and we definitely enjoyed our one night stay in Evreux.

Vendome

View of Vendome from the castle

June 16 - Saumur to Vendome

After a breakfast of coffee, yogurt and muesli we drove east towards Tours and then northward. Here I must mention, that navigating in France is no simple task. Signs may display the name of a city at one point, then suddenly a round-about appears and the city you are heading for is no longer mentioned. We got used to keeping our eyes on Tout Directions.

We eventually made it to our destination, Vendome, in the heart of the Loir et Cher (not to be confused with the Loire River and valley). With its own wine appellation, there are lots of vineyards and wineries in the area. Vendome itself is very historic, dating back to a treaty that was signed here in 587 A.D. The remains of a castle still remain on the hill top overlooking Vendome. This very area was likely first inhabited by Celts and then Romans.
  

The Loir River

The cathedral in Vendome

Vendome itself is very quaint, with the Loir River running through it in several branches. The city’s architecture and design made good use of the river’s flow. On Friday mornings there’s a market held in the town center, with all the standard foods, wares and even clothes. It’s quite a lively event.

The Porto Entrance to Vendome 

Vendome has a lively Saturday morning market that is held in a central building that was designed just for the purpose. The city bought a block of houses, razed them and built the central market building.

We took a drive to visit the small village of Troo. What made it worth the side trip were its troglodyte (cave) dwellings. We had never encountered these before. Apparently some date back to the twelfth century when quite a number of the population in France lived in these limestone caves.

Troglodyte dwellings in Troo

In Troo a number of these caves remain in use. There are homes, bars, restaurants and even B&B’s in these cave structures. We walked passed very neat little gardens with elegant entrances built to the cave dwellings - lots of glass and ventilation pipes. We checked into staying at a B&B, but it was full. Next time.  

We drove back to hotel in Vendome and prepared for the next day's trip to Chartres and Evreux.     

Saumur and The Loire Valley

The Loire River and Saumur Castle in background

June 14 - Vannes to Saumur

Our drive eastward, from Vannes to Saumur  was one of our longer ones, passing by the cities of Nantes and Angers. As we drove into Saumur across the Loire River we were greeted with a grand view of the city’s brooding castle and a medieval looking bridge.

Our hotel was situated in a small village next to Saumur. After getting settled into our room we went into Saumur and walked along the Loire River, touring the steep walls of the castle and its grounds. They provided a splendid view of the Loire Valley as well as the river itself.

Right next to the castle, also having a grand view, there was a small restaurant perched at the top of a knoll. We settled in for a refreshing beer. Life’s good.

As luck would have it, we found an open cave (winery) as we made our way down back into town. Helene, a young lady at the Caves de Grenelle, gave us a wonderfully informative tour of the winery. Although they made many different wines, this was their sparkling wines facility. Their regular (still) wines were made elsewhere.

Helene proceeded to take us into the cool and dark caves a hundred feet below the surface and showed us the process they utilize (methode traditionelle) to make the sparkling wines. Afterwards, we got a chance to taste their sparkling wines. Typically, the wines are made with Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc and Savignon Blanc grapes. Needless to say, there was not a bad one in the bunch.

The following day our plan was to drive to the Chenonceaux chateau, one of the more outstanding chateaus in the Loire Valley. The drive was longer and more convoluted than we had anticipated, but we finally made it.

 

The driveway

Our new home

One of the several bedrooms

A hall used for balls and banquets

Part of the kitchen 

The Chenonceaux chateau is built across the River Cher grounds and gardens. As we walked through it, it struck me that there was an abundance of bedrooms - I concluded that it was perhaps due to all the women the chateau had in its history. It was here that Henry II kept a mistress (Diane), while he was married to one of the Medici ladies. After Henry died, Diane gave the chateau to Catherine Medici in exchange for another chateau. Appropriately, the castle the Diane garden and a Catherine garden.

Although you can tell these people led quite the opulent lives, it also had a gruesome aspect to it, evident with the early deaths of both Henry II and the Henry III. There was lots of scheming, intrigue and back stabbing. Life didn’t consist of only banquets, feasts and masquerade balls.