June 16-17, 2009
Our morning destination was the WWII town and memorial at Oradour sur Glane. What makes this memorial, well memorable, is the fact that the village was destroyed by German SS troops in reprisal for attacks by the French fighters. The SS troops killed all 642 inhabitants of the village and burned it to the ground. The French later preserved the entire town as shrine and a chilling reminder of the brutality of war. We were able to walk around the village, with its roofless, gutted buildings containing the charred remains of furniture, bicycles and autos. At one end of town is the cemetery with its wall of reminder containing the names of all those murdered on June 10, 1944.
The next two days were spent exploring the Loire Valley and its magnificent chateaux. We didn't want to go into all of them because they would pretty much all be the same on the inside and besides, they are very expensive to visit. So we decided to visit the gardens at Villandry and the chateau at Chambord and just look at the outsides of the rest. All of them were beautiful and massive and most were right on the Loire River, giving them magnificent settings as well.
The gardens at Villandry were magnificent, with beautiful designs cut into hedges and magnificent flowers that were color coordinated (the blue and white garden and the red and yellow garden.) There was also a water garden and a maze. But the most interesting part of all was the kitchen garden, with vegetables and fruit growing in artistically laid out plots. It was really lovely. The first night was spent in the Aire across the street from the chateau.
The next day was spent viewing more chateaux from the outside and visiting the inside of Chambord. This is the most frequently visited chateau in France and it is immense. The inside was pretty much what we expected, with reconstructed rooms with period furniture, but there was a very interesting double spiral staircase that is rumored to have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci.
We couldn't spend the night in the parking lot, well, we could but it would have been an additional 15euro (and we are a bit cheap), so we headed off to another Aire, this one in Beaugency, where we were lucky to get a spot, it was so crowded. This one was right on the river and very popular. When we arrived, there was a helicopter on the beach waiting to act as transport for a patient from the hospital. Apparently the beach was the only clear spot in town for the copter to land.
| This entire region is also famous as the area liberated by Joan of Arc during the 100 years war with England. Beaugency was important due to the simple fact that it had the only bridge crossing the Loire. Despite all the wars and battles fought here, the bridge is still standing and is an impressive 14th century bridge needing 26 arches to span the river. |
June 18, 2009
Leaving the Loire Valley on our way north, we left the medieval region of chateaux and entered a region of relatively flat farm land. There wasn't much to see so we drove most of the day. Our camping book mentioned another Aire along a lake so we headed there, Lac du Der. It was a nice quite parking lot within walking distance of the lake which made for a peaceful night.
June 19, 2009
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Over the past week we had felt a bit like time travelers. Starting in the Pyrenees we explored 12th century castles, then along the Loire we walked in the footsteps of Joan of Arc, and today we drove along the WWI trenches at Verdun where literally hundreds of thousands of soldiers died! We ended the day in the parking lot of the memorial in Bastogne, Belgium where in WWII the Battle of the Bulge was fought. The memorial here is to the American soldiers who fought to liberate Europe, with nearly 77,000 injuries, deaths or MIA's. Another somber reminder of the insanity of war. |
On a lighter note, we crossed the border of yet another new country for us, Luxemburg. One interesting note is that due to low taxes, Luxemburg has the lowest priced fuel in the region, so we took advantage of the cheap price to fill our tank.
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