Lights, Cameras and Cousin Love

 Oh my. Today started very early. Music Man and Photo Girl are leaving and needed a ride to Tours to the train station. Their train is scheduled to leave at 7:45 am and that meant a 6:30 departure for them, Upstate and I. While talking to our hosts about this the evening before, Benny said "oh no, they should leave from Druye, the next village over. They can catch the train to Tours, change at Saint Pierre Des Corps and then right to CDG. It is very easy, I did this for 17 years to Paris. There is no need to drive into Tours. We will ask Patrick to take them. He is up at that time."

Patrick, Upstate, MM & PG and I all piled into the car at 6:30 and headed to the next village. We got to the village and the little shop that sells tickets to the train was not open yet. We waited for the train to come, Patrick explained what they needed to do, the train pulled up at exactly the time specified on the schedule, they jumped on and their trip home begins. I think they were both ready to get home. Upstate got updates of their journey and seems they were both picked out at CDG for more extensive searches and Music Man was the last on the person on the plane much to Photo Girls relief. Last I heard they are home safe and sound and going to weekend music festival. Ah to to be young.

Near the train station is the place where all that wheat that is being harvested is brought.  A big mountain of wheat, you are only seeing part of it in the picture.  I am telling you there are a lot of very happy birds that live in this neck of the woods.

Upstate, Patrick and I continued on to get our daily fresh baguettes. I am not sure what I will do for the few weeks after we return home and there is no fresh baguette waiting for me or actually taking a daily trip to the traditional baker in town and being the only ones around on a quite morning. It is one of my favorite times of the day. Patrick showed us the map of the area in the Plaza Calder, which for some strange reason is missing it's Calder sculpture. I was surprised to actually see Baulay on this map. Now everyone will know how to find it.  

Then back to Baulay to plan the day. And today's day was a quite restful one. My beloved was having a bit of stomach issue, so she slept most of the day away. And The Girl, well she is a teenager and can sleep, sleep, sleep. So, Upstate and I spent the day reading and relaxing, something I could get very used to and Upstate said she was just not used to having this luxury of time.  

At some point Patrick took his tractor out and harvested some of the freshly mown hay left over in the wheat fields for his garden - it keeps down the weeds.

I must say a few words about our hosts and not just because I know that Benny is following this blog, but because they must be said. Patrick and Benny are the kind of people you want to host you on your travels. They are as involved as you want them to be, they know everything about this area, they are welcoming and they live a life in a beautiful place that they enjoy sharing with others. I am a lucky girl to have crossed paths with them so many years ago and been invited to this magical place and been blessed to be able to return. I hope to return many more times.

So as the day goes on we decide to take a trip to Blois (pronounced Blah) this evening for the light show at the Chateau. We pile into the car - actually now that we are down to four there is plenty of room for all of us - and head out.

Yesterday I told you about the detour at Azay le Rideau, well the road work has moved down the road to our little road. We drive out our little windy road and get ready to take a left at the end of it. Sadly the road is blocked, we can't take a left - oh no! So we must go right.

I have say that having GPS in the car is wonderful. I used to the think that people that could not read a map and relied on GPS should not be let out of the house alone. But the GPS is now my new best friend.   

The nice lady inside the GPS rerouted us - we are following her directions on a newly paved road (I don't even want to think what the bottom of the car looks like) we continue and are preparing to take a right turn in a few kilometers. Now at this point there are two or three cars behind us, so we feel confident it is alright to be on this road, then...

In front of us, with no place to turn off, the road is blocked by cones and a sign that we cannot read. Not because it is in French, but because it is for traffic coming the other way? I felt like I should be in a cartoon, you know where you look one way and then the other and can't go either way and your eyes bulge out of your head.

We stop the car and I get out and do what must be done. I move the cones so we can pass. The woman driving the car behind us smiles, shrugs her shoulders and gives me a thumbs up. Well, on we go. We follow our re-routed instructions and boom we are on the A10 and on our way.

Some background on Blois, because I know you, my faithful readers demand it.  

Let's start with Joan of Arc. In 1429 she came from Chinon to Blois to be blessed before taking her army to push the English out of Orleans. The siege of Orleans lasted only nine days, but imagine these being hurled at your for nine days. I'd give in after a couple of hours.

I don't know how old she was, but again they let her do all the dirty work then burned her at the stake. And truthfully being declared a saint a few hundred years later would not have been worth it in my book. Let Charles fight his own battles. I have said that if Joan stopped at every church they say she stopped in she would have never made it Orleans, but who am I to argue with her travel blog - which is a statue in every town, village and church in the Loire.

This chateau has 564 rooms. Each room has a fireplace. There are 100 bedrooms and 75 staircases. It has got some really creepy water down spouts. I have tried to find info on them, but have been unable to find anything. They look like people in absolute agony.

I try to imagine the number of people it must have taken to keep a place like this going. Maybe some of the down spouts are people that worked here, because going up and down all the stairs would have made me cry out in agony.

As the sun began to set and lights started to come on the pathways were transformed and people started gathering in the courtyard of the Chateau to await the light show. 

I am going to skip a lot of years and get to 1588 and Henry III, the son of Catherine De Medici. During the Estates-General convention here during that year Henry III assured his cousin, the Duke of Guise, that he loved him and trusted no one in France more, then the next morning had him assassinated by a bunch of guys with knives. Then he had the Duke's brother, the Cardinal of Guise bumped off the following day.  

Catherine died in this chateau about a dozen years later. In tonight's light show they portrayed her as a person that only wanted the Catholics and Protestants to get along. But, you can't be behind the St. Bartholomew's day massacre and cry about how people don't like you.

The light show brought us thru many years in the life the Blois Chateau and luckily in 1841 t was declared a historic monument! Thanks King Louis-Philippe and to Felix Durban the architect who lead the restoration.  

The show started at 10:30 and lasted a bit more than an hour. Now we had our hour drive back to Sache. Let me say here that my beloved did a great job of getting us back. The roads here, even the highways are DARK. There are no street lights and the stars don't give you enough light to drive by. We made it back were very glad to see the sign for Baulay at the end of the drive.

We staggered in an fell into dreamland where I am sure we all dreamed in in techno color tonight.

As a side note, I normally write this blog in the morning after the day I am talking about. I write and then I look back at the pictures I took during the day to decide which to include in the blog. While looking at them, I realize, oh I left that out or should I blog about that? Then I go back a revise a little. Right before I left I downloaded the newest version of the blogging software I use and it was having issues, my posts were disappearing, so I started writing them in another app and copying them to the blog, I am much happier and you are getting a lot more info. Lucky you and a way less frustrated me.