Original_To:  JNET%"TRAVEL-L@TREARN"
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 92 12:43:00 EST
From:         LBEZERA@EMERSON
Subject:      My trip to the Loire and Paris (long,long,long)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.travel-l


We're back, and we had a great time!  The truckers' blockade ended two days
before we arrived, and the traffic seemed normal, as far as we could tell.

We took Air France's direct flight from Boston to Paris; it flies Friday
night and returns on Sunday night.  We made reservations back in February
and then hoped prices would come down.  They didn't, but it was worth it
for the convenience of the direct flight.

The French Government Tourist Office in NYC has a 900 number (1-900-990-
0040) that sent me a lot of useful information.  It costs fifty cents a
minute, but my call only lasted one minute.  There's also an 800 (free)
number for Jet Vacations, which is affiliated with Air France.  We arranged
to rent a Hertz car through Jet Vacations, and got what seemed like a good
deal.  We had made all our hotel/inn reservatons ahead, as well, since we
didn't want to have to look for place each night.  We stayed in a combina-
tion of small hotels picked from the Michelin red guide and chateaux/inns
from the Chateau Accueil and Bienvenue au Chateau booklets the FGTO sent.

We also had a book about country inns in France that gave a lot of useful
information (don't remember the author), and we got two of the nicest
places from it.  We did not try to search for budget lodging, as this trip
was a "Dream Trip" for one of the couples, and we wanted everything to be
very nice.

We arrived midday on Saturday, picked up the rental car, and drove to
Versailles.  It was definitely necessary to have one person as chief
navigator and a couple of auxiliaries looking for signs, as exits on the
peripheral road around Paris come up quickly.  This was the only time we
drove on motorways/roads like US interstate highways.  Mostly, we kept to
smaller roads and backroads in order to see more of the towns and the
countryside.  Traffic in general was not heavy (worse nearer Paris), and it
was very fast-moving and law-abiding, especially compared to the crazy
drivers here in Boston.  At Versailles, we bought general entrance
tickets, then bought tickets for a couple of special tours.  In general,
we preferred to do self-guided tours, and most chateaux were set up that
way.  We also expected most places to be closed between noon and 2pm, but
most were, happily, open all day (major exceptions:  Fontainebleau, Vaux).

Our impression was that most areas were not very crowded, other than
Paris.  Average admission charges were about 30 francs, the range was
from 7ff (Petit Trianon) to 50ff (Usse).  Sometimes we felt almost alone
in the grounds of a grand house--a pleasant feeling!  We visited Villandry
(only the gardens, which are lovely), Azay-le-Rideau (smaller than I had
expected, and very charming), Usse ("Sleeping Beauty" castle, this was one
with a guided tour only), Langeais (right in the middle of town, very
medieval in feeling, nicely restored), Chenonceau (beautifully furnished,
very well organized), Cheverny (which seemed more like a home than a
castle; hunting is important here, and a pack of hunting dogs is maintained
--they looked kind of like giant beagles to me, I don't know what breed
they are), Blois (we arrived just as they were closing for the day, sowe
just peered into the courtyard and hung out in town for a while), Chambord
(magnificent--much more nicely furnished than I had expected, and with a
lot of masonry repair going on in the upper ceiling and stairs.  We went
through a door that we eventually ralized shouldn't have been open, and
ended up in servant's quarters--definitely not on the official tour!)  We
had thought we'd try to go to at least one son-et-lumiere show, but we
realized we'd prefer to eat dinner between 8 and midnight every night, so
we never went to one.

We stopped at Chartres on the way to the Loire, and visited the cathedral.
It was cloudy and rainy, so the glass wasn't as stunning as it could have
been, but it was glorious.  I had heard so much about Malcolm Miller's
English-language tours, but he was off duty the day we were there--a
bulletin board near the exit announces when the next various-language
tours will be given.

From Blois, we came up to Fontainebleau, and again arrived jus as the palace
was beginning to close (5pm) but the gardens stay open later.  Vaux was
our next stop, then on to Paris for a couple of days.

We stuck pretty much to our original itinerary, which was made by the one
person in the group who had been to the Loire before, and had strong
opinions about what he wanted to see.  When we got someplace too late,
we'd just do something else instead.  We all like just walking around in
towns and cities, and had a great time doing that, and people-watching.

Our favorite place to stay was Domain de Beauvois, just outside of Luynes,
near Tours.  It's a member of the Chateaux & Relais chain, and was a very
charming place, almost like a resort.  It was a good base for the chateaux
around Tours.  The rooms were spacious and individually decorated (mine
had beige fabrid-padded walls and the one next door had ceiling and walls
hung with red and white striped fabric), there was a tennis court and pool,
and fishing pond, and the restaurant was wonderful.  We had one of the best
meals here, which included a "petit nage de sole et langoustine au basilic"
which was a souplike creamy buttery sauce with sole, shrimp, vegetables, &
basil.  It was wonderful.  My dessert was a heavenly warm chocolate cake in a
raspberry coulis, and my husband had a delicate turnover in a pomegranate
sauce.  Our mouths were happy!  We felt very pampered.  We also ate at a
Michelin one-star restaurant in Tours, which was good, but not as good.

The next place we stayed was chosen from the Chateau booklets after our
first choice (Hotel St-Michel at Chambord) fell through.  We'd called Hotel
St.-Michel in Feb. and they said, "July 14th?  No problem.  Plenty of
space.  Just write us, it's okay."  When we wrote, they were booked up.
So we picked a little place called Chateau de Colliers from the booklet.
This is a fancy farmhouse dating from about 1750 on the banks of the Loire;
the owners have 5 rooms available for guests.  Each is different--ours had
a staircase up to a new roofdeck, from which we could see the tops of July
14 fireworks in three separate towns, and our friends had a suite.  Dinner
was served family-style and we all sat around a big table and talked the
evening away (in both French & English).  Very homey & friendly, yet elegant.

The hotels in Versailles & Fontainebleau were 2-symbol hotels picked from
Michelin; they were adequate, but not as nice as we'd hoped.  The
mosquitos at us up in Fontainebleau, our friends had a tiny stuffy room
with a bathtub that didn't work right, and at breakfast we were brought a
stale, already-sliced baguette (which, to give her credit, the waitress
ran in a grabbed away before we realized it wasn't fresh).

In Paris, we stayed on the Ile-St-Louis, at Hotel du Lutece.  The location
was fabulous.  I'd forgotten how much street noise there is in Paris; our
room was on the street side of the hotel, but because of the island
location and the lack of through traffic, it was much quieter than it could h
have been.  It was very easy to walk to most places we wanted to see, and
easy enough to take the Metro if it was too far to walk.  We did a variety
of things in Paris--we all went to the Louvre for a morning, and to the
Cluny museum one afternoon (I hadn't realized there were actual Roman
ruins in Paris), and walked around in the Marais.  Various subsets of us
went to the Musee d'Orsay (I was impressed by the complex spacial arrange-
ment inside this old train station, and I love to look at Impressionists.
But if you don't follow the path on the brochure they give you, you'll never
find the Impressionists!), Montmartre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame (2 of
us climbed to the top--wonderful views of both Paris and gargoyles), and
just walking around all over.  We ate a dinner at Dodin-Bouffant and one
at Miravile, both with one Michelin star.  Both were excellent.  It was
very easy to make a reservation the same day for dinner that evening.

We tried to balance out all these wonderful (expensive!) dinners by making
up picnic lunches by buying bread at a boulangerie, pates and prepared
foods at a charcuterie, desserts at a patisserie.  This worked out very
well.  Even on July 14, there would be at least one or two shops open in
each little town--not a lot of choice, perhaps, but enough.

We returned the rental car at the Gare du Nord Hertz as soon as we got to
Paris (and watched the garage attendant back it into the entrance gate!).
It was a Peugeot 405, which was fairly large compared to most cars we saw.
It held the four of us and all our luggage very comfortably.  No power
steering.  We found that everyone was very polite and friendly.  We
always tried to speak French, and we were frequently replied to in English,
in very good English.  We had no trouble keeping up with road signs and
directions (well, we missed turns a couple of times, but we knew it
immediately and could get back where we wanted to be).  We used the
Michelin yellow maps and red guides and green guides and I would
highly recommend them for navigating and just cruising around.

Apologies for going on at such length, but we really did have a wonderful
trip.  If anyone has specific comments or questions, I'd love to
correspond directly.  Thank you so much to Chantal and Maurice and
Colin and Alexandra and David, who helped with suggestions.

Au revoir!

Liz Bezera
Bitnet:  LBEZERA@EMERSON
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