Today was our first full day here in the Loire. We are outside of a little tiny town called Sache. The closest "big" village is Azay le Rideau. The farm we are staying at straddles the line of both the commune of Sache and Azay le Rideau.
This is what I know about Baulay. It has been here since at least 1750! It has a well that is 250 meters deep and is totally lined with the white limestone that everything around here seems to be made of. I have been trying to imagine digging a well that deep and lining it with stones all the way down. The water can be found at about 80 meters all year long. It is the deepest well in the commune.
The little house we are staying in (Baulette) is actually made from the stones of the original farmhouse that sat on this land. Our hosts Patrick and Benny built it. The converted barn (Baulay) is also for rent and is spectacular. Patrick and Benny live in a newly constructed building made from the stones of a hospital (I think) that Patrick recycled when they tore the hospital down. On my first visit here there was just a big pile of stone in the yard. On my second visit there was a home. The bedroom in this house is a room with windows that look out all around the property. There is actually an interior window that looks out thru the house and out to the courtyard. Patrick told me that he did it that way so that when they are old they can lay in bed and still look out at the property.
There are gardens, a pond with some freakishly big carp in it, flowers, fruit trees, lavender. We are surrounded by wheat fields at this visit, which they have started to harvest. On my first visit I was surrounded by sunflowers, I have been know to say that I felt like I was in the middle of a van gough painting.
Today we visited the town of Azay le Rideau,
which of course, has a chateau of the same name. It has a long history, of course. The original castle was built in the 12th century. It had been occupied and burnt to the ground. It was left in ruins until the early 1500's. Two kings of France have slept under its roof. Let me tell you about the roof. Recent renovations have exposed part of the attic and you can see the structure that holds up the chateau.
The workmanship. The size of the timbers used. They don't make them like that anymore. Timbers from the 16th century and they seem as new as if they were cut a week ago. The current chateau was was the brain child of Gilles Berthelot, the mayor of Tours and treasurer-general of the Kings finances. This job required him to travel a lot, so the rebuilding of the chateau fell to his wife, Philippe Lesbahy. The chateau is said to be very feminine and I would think this is why. Now, being the Kings treasurer was probably a hard job and after seeing what a grand place Gilles had built, the king became a little suspicious of where Gilles was getting this money from. His cousin, Jacques de Beaune (the chief minister in charge of royal finances) had recently been executed due to problems with the Kings money and Gilles took off to parts unknown. Sadly for Philippe the chateau was taken by the King and given to someone else. Gilles died a couple of years later and I don't know what happened to poor homeless Philippe.
On the doors of the chateau was a sign that Upstate and I belong here.
We wandered the town. They have a lovely little church and of course candles were lit.
There was a show of art work from a cartoon character that I don't know anything about. The street were decorated with characters from the cartoon and it made the village very festive.
We had a late lunch in the village. The waiter was very nice. We sat under the awning and he suggested we move to a table on the other side of the street where it was cooler. It was the right choice! He was very flirtey with the Girl and the Photo Girl (girlfriend of the son of Upstate).
We had our first vegetarian burger here in France. It was weird, not sure what it was made of, but it was tasty and the frites were yummy.
Then we piled back back in the car and headed back to Baulay. I was shocked when we got back and it was nearly 6:00 pm. It just is so light out that you lose track of the time. At nearly 10:00 pm it was still light enough outside that I had to force myself to go to bed since I had a 7:30 am date with Patrick to go to the village to get bread.
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