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We struggled aboard with our luggage, which now contained 10 bottles of wine in addition to our clothes and whatever else we had picked up along the way. Fortunately there was plenty of room in the luggage area, and we left the heavy bags and found our seats. The train took off and soon was...
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In the XVth century, Chinon received fame as the place where Jeanne D’Arc recognized the Dauphin, Charles VII, whom she had never met, and who was hiding in a crowd in the castle’s main hall....
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We arose the next day and decided to try breakfast at the hotel. Here, the Agnès Sorel proved to be a bargain. What it provides, for only 7 euros, is a plate filled with croissants and rolls,...
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We had decided to drop the rental car off in Tours, and take the TGV – the high speed train – back to Paris. We had stopped at the Chinon train station a few days earlier and bought our tickets, so all we had to do was get on the train.
Taking the TGV is kind of like taking an...
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After walking around town and checking out more potential restaurants to visit, we bought some lunch items at a boulangerie and headed for the Chateau. The entrance is at the clock tower. This is...
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All told it took us about 4 hours to get to Chinon, including our misstep in Paris. It rained on and off, sometimes very hard, but the roads were excellent. We had to stop once, for gas. Gas is expensive in France. We were about ½ full when we stopped, and it cost about 40 euros to fill the...
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We made it past the gypsy camp and walked under a bridge. It was here that we discovered we were on the wrong road. Now we had to walk past the gypsy camp again, which had now swelled, in my...
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Beyond the square and to the south, you pick up another street, rue Rabelais, which runs further east past more restaurants and shops, and finally runs into a large parking lot where the statue of Jeanne D’Arc is to be found. A few blocks further east is the train station. Beyond that, Chinon...
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The hike went in a large circle starting from the park, through the countryside, and passed through the village of Rivière before returning to the park along the Vienne. One of the attractions was...
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In this section of town, you truly get the feel for life in the Middle Ages, at least what the streets and houses looked like. There are many houses built in the pan de bois style, where the brick facing, or in some cases a stucco-like material, is framed in rough timbers. On some buildings, the...
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As we drove around the various towns and villages in Touraine and the Val-de-Loire, whe noticed that quite a few were either in the process of having, or getting ready to have, a fête (festival). There was the fête de fromage in St. Maur. One town was having a fête de poisson – a fish...
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We soon found that Chinon can be covered from one end to the other on foot. Our hotel was on the southwest edge of town, along the river. The busiest road runs along the river, east west through town. Crossing this road and heading toward the town center, you pick up a narrow, cobblestone street...
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We woke up on our fourth day, looked outside, and to our delight it had stopped raining. We had decided that the first thing we would do when the weather broke would be to take a walking tour of our town. Immediately after breakfast we started out.
Chinon puts out a map that traces out a...
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