Tam and Ade's Adventures

Ade had a couple of things booked for today - Saint Chapelle and Musee D'Orsay. It's a good plan as the weather isn't looking very good. We walk the 35 mins to Saint Chapelle, for the 9am entry time slot.

It just starts to rain as we get there, which means no sunshine for the stained glass windows 😔. We were both surprised with how small it was, but we shouldn't have been as it's a chapel, not a cathedral. We had a audio guide which explained some of the stained glass depictions, so we spent about 90 mins there.

It was raining still as we left, so we found a nearby Cafe to sit it out and to have breaky. The coffee over here is very poor - they drink UHT milk in everything. It's probably why they all drink espresso. This was a cappuccino!

There was a break in the weather so we went to check out the Notre Dame rebuild. They're doing a great job and are hoping they are hoping to complete it by this Dec 😲. There was a great display around the outside on the barricades showing and explaining what they've been doing, it was very interesting.

We walked to the Musee D'Orsay. The building itself is amazing, it was originally built as a train station.

We saw artwork by the Impressionist's Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas.... And heaps of other artists. Here are some of the favorites.

After a few hours in the museum we crossed the river over to the grounds of the Louvre - it was still drizzling.

By now it's 4pm, and we've completed 24,000 steps and been on our feet for 7 hrs. We grab a warm Croque Monsieur and head home for a cuppa, a dry out and a rest!

Tea at 7 was a light crepe and salad, just around the corner and it's still raining.

We'll, that's all folks. We get on the plane to fly home at about 11.30am local time tomorrow, so it'll be up early and on the train to the airport. We arrive back in Melb at about 7.30pm on Friday and have the weekend in Melbourne before flying back to Tassie on Sunday night. Then it's back to routine and low carbs 😂 Until next time Europe!

We packed up and had a quick breakfast at a cafe called Paula, before getting on the delayed fast train to Paris - only an 80 min trip. Once we arrived we worked out which Metro line to take from Montparnasse and arrived at Gare du Nord at about 1 o'clock. We dropped our bag off at a luggage storage place and headed off to have some lunch anqd to do a bit of a self guided tour of the Montemarte area.

Lunch was at Boullion Pigalle, a highly recommended place - bustling, cheap and with good food. We jumped in the line and got seated within 30 mins. It seats over 300 on 2 levels and gets the customers in and out pretty quickly. It's cool today, so I had a chicken broth and then some ravioli with leek sauce, Ade had some mayonnaise eggs (because they were supposed to be good, but they were boiled eggs with mayonnaise 😂), and a beef bourguignon. They apparently get 1300 people through in their 12pm to 12am day! The food was okay - the chicken broth was tasty. They squeezed us in (not much room between neighbours)

We then tackled a few stairs - apparently some from John Wick (?? Ade got excited and sent Jack some photos) and climbed up to Sacre Coeur. The line up to get in was too long, and we've been in previously, so we skipped it this time.

This time we walked around behind Sacre Coeur and found a little garden with a different view of it.

We found some people playing petanque and watched for a while. We did the less touristy route and it was lovely and peaceful.

We found some cute houses and streets and Ade had to get in on the action and get a selfie with all the other selfie getters.

We saw some bits of art on the route, including the Love Wall, that has 'I love you' written 311 times in 250 languages.

We briefly passed through Place Tertre - the main tourist spot, but decided to get out of there and headed back down.

We got to our accommodation at about 5 - and it's on the 6th floor (with no lift and about 120 stairs) - Ade lugged the heavy bag up. It's a very cute little attic space, north of the river in the 9th arrondissement.

We walked through the local galleries to have a look, whilst scouting for somewhere for tea.

Dinner was a a restaurant called Le Saotisco.

We found an Aussie pub on the way back home after tea (we didn't go in) - the Grand Final is being shown at 6am on Sat. We'll be back in Melb to watch it by then though!

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Showery rain was forecast again for today, so still no bike riding. Instead we decided to take the train to Amboise to see a couple of chateaux. The trip only took 20 mind. Amboise, like Tours, is on the Loire River and is home to the Château Royal d'Amboise, Château du Clos Lucé (the residence where Leonardo Da Vinci spent the last 3 yrs of his life) and Château Gaillard.

Straight off the train it was time for a pastry, and we just had to have a Religuese au Chocolat for Roddy. They are profiteroles filled with choc custard. We ate it beside the Loire, looking at the Château Royal d'Amboise with Leonardo Da Vinci!

We then crossed the river and toured the Royal Château, I think we spent about 2 hrs in there. Sorry about all the photos, but it was pretty spectacular, and what remains today is a fraction of what has been built over the hundreds of years. It has served as a royal residence for several kings of France including Charles VIII , Louis XII and Francis I. The grounds are beautiful and very well maintained.

The grounds contain the Chapel St Hubert, which is where the remains of Leonardo are buried (it wasn't his original burial site). .

The elevated views were great, especially as the rain clouds blew over.

The showers meant the gargoyles were spilling over!

This is a bit of a snapshot of some of the interiors - which as you can imagine have changed greatly over the past 600+ years.

We walked to see the other 2 chateaux, but didn't pay to go into them, so we only got a snippet of a look.
Leonardo's chateau and his lovely garden wall.

Chateau Gaillard

Amboise also has a 15th century clock tower.

We had a drink and then jumped back onto the train home. We called into the Museum of Fine Arts, in the former archbishop's palace, next door to our house, to check out their garden before going home for a few hours rest prior to dinner. They have a magnificent 200+ year old cedar tree.

Dinner was at Les Canailles and it was delicious. Ade had beef chuck confit with potato espuma and parsley oil (the white dish) and I had hot cow cheese (St Marcellin) with walnuts and maple syrup.

For mains, Ade had pulled lamb with thyme and thyme sauce and I had black Angus flank with meat sauce.

We're off to Paris tomorrow for the last 2 full days of our holiday 😭

We decided to have a bit of a lazy day in Tours today. We were going to hire bikes again to cycle out into the Loire Valley - wine and castle country, but there was a constant drizzle and it didn't seem like an appealing option.

We finally got out of the house at about 11 to check out the local market, the Halles de Tours. Ade was game to try another specialty of the area and the man at the stall kindly gave us 2 pieces to sample. It's called andouille and it's a type of sausage. The centre is first made using pork "chignons" ( large intestines ) cut into strips. Then about thirty other brined, degreased and seasoned "chignons " are threaded over the centre, according to their size, to form an andouille. The last layer is made up of a beef bladder ( caecum ). It is then smoked over a wood fire and then left to dry for several weeks. It is then pricked so that the fat can drain off and then cooked in a simmering broth for three or four hours. So it's just a smoked and boiled intestine sausage - I nibbled a tiny bit 😂 and Ade ate the rest. It was barely passable - smoky, but I didn't like the aftertaste.

Quail anyone?

This tart looked tasty though, but not a whole one for almost $60 aud.

Ade in the very long line to get some saucisse du canard (duck sausage) and saucisse du toulouse for an in-house dinner tonight from the boucherie. A lot of the locals were bringing a jar and getting the filled with the juice and fat from the bottom of the rotisserie cooking the chickens. We also purchased a bottle of local Chenin Blanc for dinner.

We discovered that today was the Tours marathon, so there were thousands of people either running 5, 10, 20 or 40 kms and a lot of very enthusiast and vocal supporters as well as different music/bands set up around the course. The rain didn't seem to have dampened their day. It also meant that the local eateries were very busy!

Lucky Ade also got a small serving of gratin du canard for lunch, duck with a mash potato topping - basically a duck Shepard's pie.

We called past the Bascillica Saint Martin and caught the last minute of Saturday Mass.

In the afternoon we visited the St Gatien Cathedral, the one we can see out of our accommodation. It has one of the most perfect ensembles of stained glass windows of the 13th century existing in Europe and apparently rivals the Sistine Chapel in Paris! Unfortunately it was a rainy day, so there was no bright sunlight, but the windows were pretty amazing.

We found a cocktail - well I did, on Place Plumeraeu.

The chef in the huge kitchen cooking dinner - it was amazing to have a feed of steamed veggies 😂

The sunset was pretty amazing.

Today we caught a midday train to a town called Tours - we aren't going on a tour (Hayley 😂). So a slow morning - sleep in, packing and coffee at the market on the way to the station.

We passed a Gustave Eiffel High School and discovered that he didn't design, but his first ever project was to oversee the building of a bridge in Bordeaux nicknamed 'le Passarelle Eiffel' (the Gateway Eiffel). It was built and used for many years as a railway bridge over the Gasconne, but was slated for demolition until UNESCO threatened to pull Bordeaux' World Heritage status if it was demolished, so it stayed as a pedestrian bridge until it was deemed too unsafe. We also crossed an Eiffel bridge when we were in Hanoi.

The trip on the train took a bit over 90 mins, and we got to face forward the whole way this time. Ade found a Leffe Bar at the Tours railway station and had to call in for a beer for Jesse, as he is having his bucks night tonight (well that's the excuse Ade gave anyway 😂)!

We walked to our very cute accommodation with a view of the cathedral - except Ade had to carry the heavy bag 3 floors up to the loft!

We have a light brunch at about 3, including the daily pastry - a shared small fraise tart.

At about 5 we headed out for a walk, a drink and to find a tea spot. Tours is on the Loire river, so we walked across a footbridge, along the river and back across another bridge. I found some cyclamen growing that I think were natives.

We found a Delerium beer bar and I had a cactus beer that I'd had a few years ago in Brussels. It's slightly green, but it doesn't look like it compared to my shirt 😂. It tastes a bit like lime flavored beer - it's relatively sweet.

We then went for tea at 7 to a restaurant called Le Trypteque. They specialise in local food and wine. Here's Ade pouring raclette cheese over his food, we had to melt it ourselves and then pour it over the cooked potatoes and meats. We got to try several local specialties including some:
- Rillons de Touraine (pieces of pork belly that are seasoned and cooked before they are stewed in pork fat for about two hours)
- Rillettes de Tours (pork cooked in pork fat for between 6-12 hrs and flavoured with wine)
- Sainte-Maure de Touraine - a goat's cheese rolled in wood ash. It has a straw through its centre, marked by the AOC seal and a number indicating the producer)

Ade tried a tasting flight of 3 Loire reds and I tried 3 Loire whites, including a Cour-Cheverny made from a rare grape variety: the Romorantin - which is exclusively grown in a small area close by! A very pleasant evening! Oh, and we had a salad too!

We walked back home and had managed to avoid most of the rain, which occured either whilst we were in Delerium or having tea. There is more forcast over the next few days too.