Our Airbnb in Les Bordes was an old village house, filled with hundreds of books (all in French, of course), and art, sculptures and textiles from all around the world. It was colourful and cluttered, cosy and comfortable, with a farmhouse kitchen and a huge garden with grapevines and fruit trees. The master bedroom, upstairs under the eaves, had a beam across the middle of the room at chest height, which was low enough that there was no risk to our heads, but we did have to duck under it to get to the bed. We had a cat who visited us most days and requested food, which our host had in the kitchen despite it not being his cat. We were quite happy to feed him though.
We decided to see a finished chateau as well, so we visited the chateau at Sully-sur-Loire, which was built beginning in the 14th century and has been added to, partially destroyed, and more recently restored. Joan of Arc and Voltaire both sought shelter here at times. Parts of the building are finished to illustrate the earlier history, and parts are much more ornate and lavish in the style of the 18th and 19th centuries. I find the earlier periods much more interesting.
During the week there were a few bike rides — Eric took Nate and Ben west along the bank of the Loire, but Tim and I stayed home because he wasn’t feeling great. A few days later we all went out eastwards along the river, with Nate on the tandem which meant we all went a good bit faster.
Tuesday was Eric’s birthday, so he went for a 60 mile ride alone and explored the region north of the river, stumbling on several chateaux along the way. We celebrated with Melon au Pineau (a specialty from the nearby Charente region which my family remembers from a visit when I was a teen!) and a lovely chocolate mousse cake.
Other points of interest… on the way home from our visit to Guédelon, we stopped at Briare, where a canal crosses over the Loire on a bridge. Kind of an interesting concept! We also drove right past a nuclear power plant, which was a bit weird. I’ve never seen cooling towers so close before! France gets about 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy at the moment, although it is working on reducing this. At the end of the week, we went for a walk in the Forêt d’Orléans. Not quite the sort of walk in the forest I’m used to — the paths were absolutely straight and geometric. A lot of it was closed to traffic due to fire risk as well, because it had been so hot and dry.
