Month: June 2024

Tasting Touraine

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Welcome to the 4th and final post about my 5 week sojourn in Tours, France. Saving the best for last, it’s all about the wonderful food and drink I managed to sample. It’s hard to go wrong with any French cuisine, but there are a nearly infinite number of local and regional specialties to try. Food production in France is heavily protected and you will often see products labeled either AOC or AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protégée, and Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée). The labelling applies to food like cheese, wine, and certain cured meats, as well as any other regional specialty. AOP is more broadly European, while AOC is explicitly French (I think?). My understanding is that the regulations for AOC are a little more strict, but both guarantee that the product is made with the standards set by the region to preserve the integrity of the product and taste. This includes everything from where the animals can be raised, what they can be fed, how they can be milked (or slaughtered), where the fruit can be grown, the genetic strain of the produce, the time and method of harvesting, and all of that before you even get to how the food is then processed, packaged and stored! They take their regional specialties very seriously here.

My school was just off the main square in Old Tours and so I got to walk through it every day. I would go to local boulangerie for breakfast and/or lunch, sampling a wide array of pastries and sandwiches. My favorite sandwich in France remains the butter, salami, and cornichon on baguette, but I have enjoyed an array of sandwiches with versions of butter, pork products, cheeses, and even smoked salmon. There are also a lot of restaurants on the square, everything from traditional French to dumplings, sushi, tacos, burgers, and even an Afghani restaurant! Tours is both a tourist town and a university town, so it’s full of variety. 

Bakeries

A simple bakery (boulangerie) may have 10+ different types of bread which are baked fresh every day and must follow the strict laws for quality and freshness. Bread must be baked on the premises where it is sold, and may only contain 4 main ingredients (flour, water, salt & yeast) with the exceptional addition of seeds, nuts, dried fruits, or chocolate. Because it is made without preservatives, the bread must be eaten with a day or two at most.

Boulangerie also sell pastries (patisserie), which includes everything from simple croissant and pain au chocolate to various types of tarts and cakes, all of which must also be fresh and preservative free. The best part about boulangerie is the freshness and quality of the food, but following that, the prices are very reasonable. A baguette is often less than 1€, and other types of bread are weighed out by the kilo. Treats like a pain au chocolate (often called a chocolate croissant in English) are usually a between 1-1.50€, and more complex desserts like tarts and cakes between 3-4€ per serving. Thirdly, the boulangerie do not restrict food sales to lunch and dinner hours like restaurants. They sell food from open to close. In addition to bread and sweets, they offer sandwiches and savory pastries like quiche at any time (before 7pm). This is especially useful for tourists who may not be accustomed to restaurant hours in France where no food is served between 3-7pm.

I visited a boulangerie pretty much every day for a sandwich and pastry. It can be a lot of fun to try all the different options, and see the interpretations of the same dishes from one bakery to the next. Many even offer a fixed menu of a sandwich, drink, and less expensive pastry (like an eclair) for 6-7€.

In addition to all the pastries I got at various bakeries around town, my school is also partnered with a pastry school, so sometimes we got extra treats from the pastry students. One week, a German couple were attending classes with us in town to visit their daughter who owns a patisserie and they brought boxes of her fine pastries to share with us. Another night, the sister pastry school hosted a party with tables laden with canapes and tiny bite size pastries. Heaven!

The one local pastry specialty is called Nougat of Tours. It’s not a nougat at all, it’s a cake. Specifically a “travel cake” made for easy transport and meant to stay fresh for several days (unlike bread and most other pastry which really needs to be eaten the same day).

In my quest for culinary experiences, I bought one to try, but I was a bit underwhelmed. It’s a cake with almond flour, dried fruits and apricot preserves, which should be lovely, and it’s definitely as good or better than most things you’d find in a US bakery, but after the beautiful apricot tarts and apple turnovers ate which were buttery and bursting with fruit and just the perfect amount of sweet with a hint of salt… This cake landed on the candy side of too sweet, and because the fruit used is dried and or in jam form, it lacks the pop of acidity and brightness in other fruit desserts. The cake itself was a bit dry (maybe that’s the “travel” quality?) but otherwise a nice texture.

After a couple of initial assessment bites, I ended up finishing it with some Comté cheese (a hard aged cheese that is rather sharp) which may or may not be blasphemous but it took the edge off the sweetness.

On my very last day of classes, the school’s field trip included a final trip to the pastry school where the students were sharing the results of their final exams. The five desserts we were privileged to taste included an excellent cheesecake with a grapefruit coulis, a chocolate cake, a chocolate flan (very new experience for me!), a strawberry cream tart with fresh mint, truly an inspired combination, and very most specially, an award winning 5 texture vanilla gâteau. This last creation is the brainchild of Chef Angelo Musa, who had come to the school as a guest instructor. It’s called the 100% Vanille and is served at high tea at the restaurant La Galerie inside the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris where it sells for 21€ a pop!

Restaurants

I don’t go to restaurants that often when travelling because they are more expensive, but they are fantastic and invariably both better and cheaper than any in the US. Years ago, I discovered the joy of the set menu (formule or prix fixe) where you can get an appetizer, main dish, and dessert for a fixed price by choosing from a more limited menu. In fact, you can usually find this combination for 25-30€ depending on where you are, and unless you have your heart set on a particular dish, the set menu that is chosen by the restaurant each day represents the food they most recommend and may even be based on fresh products they found in the market that morning. Ordering from the menu a la carte can set you back 50-60€ for the same amount of food! And don’t forget, in France, taxes and services are included in the price of the meal, so you don’t need to worry about tacking on an additional 20-30%.

I found a restaurant close to my school here in Tours that offers a lunch menu of main dish plus dessert for just 13.90€! I had steak lunches a few times as a break from my boulangerie sandwiches. It’s not a Michelin experience or anything, but it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to get good quality, well prepared food at extremely reasonable prices in this country. I enjoyed the desserts outside the patisserie, too. My long time favorite is the cafe gourmand, which features a selection of small bites of the restaurant’s daily dessert alongside a cup of espresso. There were also a number of ice cream and gelato shops with interesting flavors like raspberry-bergamot and rose.

Cheese

One of the best ways to explore local food specialties is to find ‘the Hall” (les Halles). It’s an indoor market space, like a mall but for high quality food vendors. In my second week, I discovered Les Halles. There I began my education in the food products local to the area, especially the cheese. The prices tend to be higher than the Carrefour (a grocery store), but the products are amazing and less expensive than eating at restaurants every day. It’s a good compromise that enables me to indulge in fantastic local products without breaking the bank.

The region around Tours is called Touraine, so you can see certain products labelled this way if they are local specialties. I started my cheese journey with Sainte-Maure de Touraine. It’s a light and creamy cheese made from goat’s milk (don’t knock it because you had bad chevre in another country). I fell head over heels in love with it and went back for more three times. Interestingly, the second time I bought it from a different shop and it was different! I had thought that the AOC/AOP labelling would mean that the products were all the same, but then I learned a whole new set of information about cheese.

Soft cheese made from raw milk (not pasteurized) does a wild thing as it ages… it liquifies. The French people I talked to about this did not approve of my use of the description of liquid, apparently it’s called creameaux (which I thought meant “creamy”?) In any case, you can see the clear differences in the textures of the younger Sainte-Maure and the slightly older one. I had to do some Googling to make sure my cheese hadn’t gone off (it hadn’t), but when I ate it, I was surprised to find that the flavor had also changed. The younger cheese with a single texture was light and slightly woodsy. The more aged version was significantly stronger with a more pungent flavor. I felt that I could eat the young cheese on its own, but I wanted some bread to support the older and stronger version. During the few days it took me to devour my log of cheese, I noticed it got runnier each day. Online reviews of the aged soft cheese (correctly called “ripe”) said that the more ripe (runnier) the better, but acknowledged that it was still a matter of personal taste. When I went back for my third purchase, I was able to ask the vendor about it, and he told me there are actually 3 ages for the Sainte Maure. I never even tried the oldest version! I guess that means I have to go back some day.

Since it’s not legal in the US to make soft cheeses from raw milk, I had never in my life encountered such a thing as “ripe” cheese. I’ve had aged hard cheeses aplenty and even taken a workshop in Amsterdam about the process, but it took some effort to learn to dive in to the runny soft cheese and enjoy it.

In addition to the Sainte-Maure, I also tried Brossauthym, a local sheep cheese made with thyme. It’s very very soft and has a wild toasted grain flavor alongside it’s rich and complex creaminess. It’s also a local specialty with strict rules. The sheep kept in special pastures with local grasses and wildflowers to graze on, and they aren’t even milked during lambing, limiting the supply to half the year. My piece was largely one texture when I cut the rind, but within a few days, it too was ripening and the flavor changed little by little. By the last day, at least half of the remaining cheese had oozed out of the rind and pooled at the bottom of the waxy cheese paper I stored it in.

Pouligny St Pierre is another goat cheese, but it’s pyramid shaped. The exterior of the one I purchased was very soft to the touch, not soft as in the opposite of firm, but soft like you want to pet it. It was a bit unnerving because “velvety” is supposed to be about mouthfeel, not touch when it comes to food, but peaches are kind of fuzzy and they taste good, so I went for it. It has a similar creamy nutty flavor to the Sainte-Maure but a bigger punch than the unripened version, enough so that after my initial taste, I decided it also needed to be eaten with bread.

The last local cheese I tried was Couronne Lochoise. Although it has a distinctive ‘crown’ shape, it is otherwise very similar in texture and flavor to the young Saint Maure. I enjoyed it immensely on its own, with fruit, and with bread.

I did eat some non-regional cheeses as well such as Comté and Tomme, but these are cheese which can have a lot of variety depending on how they are made and aged. They are not soft cheeses, so the aging process results in saltier more intense flavors getting drier the longer they age. Also, since they are hard cheeses, it is likely to be easier to find them outside of France because import requirements for hard cheese are generally easier than for soft. If you happen to be able to find either in your local cheese section, I highly recommend trying them out.

This cheese is a 3 year aged Comté. I found it hard to describe the flavor, but apparently so does everyone else. It’s a little creamy, a little nutty, a little salty, and goes with anything. Check out a professional description here: Link

Other non-Touraine cheeses I tried while in Tours include Grand Causses, which is variety of Tomme made from sheep’s milk, 3 months aged, fruity, nutty, woodsy, and firm; and St Nectaire Fermier Du Marechal, a cow cheese, pressed, and cellar aged, with mushroom, cream, straw flavors.

I also had a couple of cheese failures. My first grocery trip in Tours I bought some Pont-l’Évêque. I got this thinking it was in the same family as brie or camembert, but it was far too “stinky cheese” even for me. The online flavor profile is described as “pronounced, rustic farmyard”. Farmyard is right! The other cheese I tried but didn’t like was Fumaison, a smoked sheep cheese, which should have been great because I love both those things, but I couldn’t enjoy it. At first I thought it was just the crust/rind that had a flavor I disliked. It tasted almost like melted plastic, so much so I thought I accidentally ate part of the plastic wrap on my first bite. I tried it without the rind, and it was less immediately “nope”, but not actually a flavor I enjoyed.

I also learned some interesting things about cheese vocabulary and etiquette on this trip. French has a LOT more words to describe cheese than English does. My teacher gave me a vocabulary worksheet on my last day as a little souvenir. There’s also some pretty strict rules about eating a shared cheese at any kind of event. Different shapes of cheese must be cut in different ways and with different tools, partly in deference to the texture, but mostly to make sure that everyone gets a fair share of the best part of any cheese: the middle.

Wine

France is obviously famous for wine, but this is an expensive hobby. I looked into trying a wine tour, but most are over 100$ and require you to get yourself out to the countryside and back. I’ll keep looking, but until then, I’m mostly just sampling things by getting a glass at a restaurant, or other random encounters.

I am not a sommelier. I do not speak the language of wine flavors, so when people go on about notes of cherry or whatnot, I get a bit glassy-eyed. I love learning about the techniques of wine-making and I appreciate that there are complex flavors across different varieties, regions, and ages which people train for years to be able to distinguish and discuss, and I think that’s an amazing part of the human experience, but… I also sometimes just want to drink delicious wine.

I’m not a fan of wines which are very sweet or very dry, I prefer a middle range. I also do not like wines which may be described as “citrusy” (I do not like “citrus notes” in my beer, chocolate, or coffee either, so this comes as no surprise). I often find that wines from California (for one example) are too acidic for my tastes. On of the reasons I fell in love with the Argentinian Malbec was its buttery, velvety taste. So, while I can’t discuss my wine tastes in sommelier terms, I know in general that I’m looking for things which are neither sweet nor dry, that do not have too many tannins, and that never would be described by any citrus fruit. When I say a wine is delicious to me, this is usually what I mean.

I did have a look at the grocery store collection, and some small wine shops, but since I’m tragically under-educated when it comes to French wines, I was rather at a loss. I discovered what I like to think of as my “favorite” French wine several visits ago when I bought a glass with a dinner and was simply blown away. It’s called Viongier, and is a delightful white wine from the Rhone Valley. It’s recently become more popular outside of France, so I’ve seen it in shops in other countries from time to time. 

During my time in Tours, I got to try a Vouvray and two types of Chinon. Vouvray is a range of white wines grown in (surprise!) Vouvray, an area just outside of Tours in the Loire Valley. They make several different types of wines including, sweet, semi-dry, dry, and sparkling. What I had was called the Vouvray Cuveé Silex. Cuveé means vintage, and Silex refers to the stone and clay content of the soil where the grapes are grown, which impacts the final flavor. I was treated to a glass at the party hosted by the pastry school and managed to snap a photo of the bottle for later reference because I liked it so much.

Chinon is another nearby region in the Loire Valley, but it produces mostly red wines. The grape used for the reds is a Cabernet grape grown on clay-limestone or sandy-clay soil (again, affecting the end flavor compared with cabernet grapes grown elsewhere) and the wines are aged in large clay pots inside of local caves. Apparently, the clay jars increase the micro-oxygenation of the wine as it ages which results in a grape-forward flavor. The caves are at a constant temperature which is also necessary for properly aging the wine. I’m told that Chinon wines are popular abroad, so I’ll have to keep an eye out now that I know about it. I had a glass with a steak lunch and felt that it held up well to the rich red meat without being in any way acidic or tannin forward – bold, but mellow.

The other Chinon wine I got to try was a gift of Philippe Brocourt Chinon Chenin, one of the rare white wines from the Chinon region. One of my teachers introduced me to this wine since the vintner is a friend of his. I enjoyed the wine very much, and was surprised to see it listed as both very dry and very acidic when I researched it online. I didn’t feel like it came close to my limit for wine in terms of tannins or acidity, yet the French seemed to think that this was the top level. I tried to find the answer, but the internet tells me American wine is actually sweeter than EU wines. It’s also possible that the wines I buy in US shops have been stored improperly and oxidized, but it seems strange that such a thing would be so pervasive. Or it could be the balance of the tannins and acidity in CA wines is just not to my liking. One day, I may learn how to pick out a bottle of wine based on the description, but I’m afraid today is not that day.

Tasting My Way Around France

When I first started international tourism (about 10 years ago now), I was often too distracted by activities and sightseeing to think of stopping for food. Although my very first trip to France in 2015 was a culinary revelation, it’s taken me a long time to learn how to prioritize food tourism, and not just view eating as something I squeeze in between museums and waterfalls. Being able to stay in Tours for so long gave me a great opportunity to ease my way into understanding local and regional specialties. As my France trip continues to unfold, I look forward to reading about and eating more such delights along the way.

The Châteaux of Loire Valley

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

In an attempt to organize my adventures in Tours, this is the 3rd of 4 posts about the city, and it features three of the châteaux in the Loire Valley. There are so many châteaux that there are top ten best châteaux near Tours listicles. Tragically, most of them are not especially convenient to public transit as they were all originally designed to be exclusive country estates. Happily, my school arranged some field trips.

One thing I’m learning while doing follow up research on my visits is that many of these historical sites now have extremely thorough virtual tours with professionally taken photographs where each plant is in peak season and the weather is ideal. There is no way that my photos can objectively compare, and while I may treasure my own photos more than those on a website because they come to me with the memory of me physically being there, I can’t actually think of a reason for any reader to prefer my photos to those professionally taken at the site. My story may be unique because I will not simply tell you the history of a place, but rather my experience of being there and learning that history, but unlike many places I’ve been where I can find little if any information, or even in contrast to when I first came to France in 2015, the museums and historical monuments in France are extremely well documented. 

So, if you’re here and you want to read about my personal experience with these places, then thank you, but also, if you want to know more or see the locations at their absolute best, then I recommend the virtual tours (links below).

Château de Villandry (virtual tour link)

My school host and ersatz guide advised us that the interior of the château is nothing special, and we all agreed we would focus our trip on the gardens. To begin, we actually went up inside the château to climb a creaky staircase to the upper wall and get our first panoramic view of the gardens below. I was quite grateful for this since the website features some very stunning drone photos of the grounds which are planted in elaborate patterns best observed from above.

My guide explained briefly about the history of the design of the gardens below (and since he’s also the of our French language school, he did it in French (albeit very simple French) to help us learn. I double checked my understanding by taking photos of the informative signs and reading the website, but I actually caught most of it. Yay, learning!

Villandry traces it’s origins to the 11th century Colombiers Fortress, but the modern edifice and grounds bears little resemblance to it’s ancestral lineage. The current château is of Renaissance architecture, which means around the mid 1500s. It looks like the first major attempt at decorative gardening was in the 1750s. At that time it was done in the style of a French garden. Then in the 1840s it was changed to the style of an English park. All this time, the property keeps changing hands as well. In December of 1906, a rich American heiress bought the property for her husband, Joachim Carvallo who is responsible for the current structure of the gardens. Later additions were made by their children, and finally the sun garden was added last in 2008.

The gardens are immense. The first division splits the area into three sections: the Kitchen Garden, the Water Garden and the Ornamental Garden. The main view from above and the most striking panoramic view is of the Ornamental Garden. The Love Garden represents 4 types of love: Tender Love: hearts separated by flames of love in the corners of the square with masquerade masks in the center. Passionate Love: broken hearts and a tangled maze. Flighty Love: four fans in the corners for fickleness, horns representing betrayed love, love letters. Tragic Love: blades of daggers and swords used in duels between those fighting over a shared love. To the left is the Garden of Crosses with Maltese Cross, the Cross of Languedoc, and the Basque Cross along with highly stylized fleur-de-lis.

I was quite captivated by this entire notion as it was explained to me, and it made me think of the sort of Regency Era period dramas that show high society engaging in all manner of romantic hijinks. I’ve read histories about the way that fans were used to flirt, about the affairs at court, and about the duels. Then I found out the garden was not installed like this until the early 1900s and I realized that rather than a representation of courtly romantic drama by those who lived it, it was a recreation by a historical fan from a later era. I don’t think that makes the gardens less beautiful in any way, but it is interesting to think of the layers of history that go into famous monuments and tourist attractions. Villandry as a property certainly predated, hosted and then survived after the period of courtly intrigue that dominated the century between 1750-1850, yet the current historical restoration and preservations were not replicas of anything that existed at that time, instead created as tributes or memorials.

We moved rather quickly through the so called Water Garden, as it’s main feature is a reflecting pool. The next area we entered on our way was full of flowers hued in shades of purple, blue, and white. When I caught up with my group in the next area, one staged in shades of red, orange, and yellow, my guide explained that these were the moon and sun gardens respectively. I found the sun garden on the website, but no evidence of the moon garden. It was clearly there, but I can’t find it on the webpage. Instead, there’s a whole other space called the Music Room that I have no memory of seeing, nor any photos of it in my cloud. 

The next main space we walked through was the herbs and medicinal garden, followed by the kitchen gardens. Since it was still early spring, these were a bit sparse, but I was nonetheless enchanted by the geometrical patterns created by the beds for herbs and vegetables. I took a great many photos of the château itself from this angle as well since it looked quite lovely as a backdrop to the gardens. At the time, I felt like we had explored every nook and cranny, but looking a the website afterward I can see there are aspects we did not discover, nor may they have been much worth seeing when not in bloom or harvest.

As with many things here in the Loire Valley, an afternoon at the château gardens isn’t about rushing through to see as many sights as you can; it’s about a stroll through a beautiful environment on a lovely day to enjoy the views and the take the air. Though the courtly days are long gone (and truly, I am grateful to live in modern times), there’s something to be said for “taking a turn around the gardens” as though I were a heroine in a Jane Austen novel. I took many photos of the flowers in bloom, so if you love flowers, check out the slide show below!

Château d’Azay-le-Rideau Castle (the virtual tour link)

While Villandry was all about the gardens, the Château d’Azay has excellent interiors. The grounds are nothing to sneeze at, but they are considerably simpler than the elaborate gardens of Villandry. D’Azay is not quite as old, but has many architectural themes in common since it was also constructed during the renaissance. The French Renaissance King Francis the First established the Loire Valley as his seat of government, and the château was built to honor his reign. The interior was remodeled in the 19th century and eventually acquired by the state in 1905. The walk from the parking lot to the château was through a charming little village.

We started our tour by climbing all the way to the top and getting a view of the architectural engineering from the inside. The roof itself contains 75 tons of slate! A lot of structural work goes into holding up that much weight. The current exhibition is a reconstruction, but it’s done in the same style as the original to preserve the craftsmanship.

As we descended, we entered room after room decorated in the styles of the different eras that the château has existed throughout. The first being the Renaissance room, a faithful replica of the room of the architect’s wife. Although it is fairly simple compared to later rooms, it’s still interesting to see the way people lived. Additionally, at that time, bedrooms were not just for sleeping, but also for socializing and entertaining. Mats made of reeds lined the walls to keep the chill of the stone from overwhelming the room, and there was a small alcove off to one side in which sits a secretary’s desk.

The next room is called Psyche’s Chamber because the ornate tapestries along the walls depict the Greek myth of Psyche which was all the rage at the time. This is followed by the Great Hall. This room was used for hosting feasts and dances, and to be honest, after watching far too many period dramas in film and television, I was surprised at how small it seemed, even when mostly empty.

Following that we crossed through the ante-chamber where visitors wishing to see the King could wait, and the King’s Chamber. A royal suite had to be maintained by pretty much all the nobles since the King could drop by with very little notice and expect to be hosted in style. Apparently Louis XIII stayed there for just two nights in 1619, and yet the room was kept ready for a royal visit at any time.

Jumping starkly forward in time, the next suite of rooms reflect the fashions of the 19th century. The Biencourt Salon was a room for people to relax, talk, and maybe take some light refreshments. The Billiard Room was more of an informal space, featuring a billiard table.

From there we had a peak into the “below stairs” (though not physically below) of the larder and the kitchen. These were quite close to a 19th century style dining room (a contrast to the Great Hall of the Renaissance style). After the dinning room, a final salon-library shows comfortable furniture, musical instruments, and a small collection of books.

A repeating motif in the stonework of the château is the fire-breathing salamander. This was a motif of King Francis I whose motto was “Nutrisco and Extingo” (translated: I feed on the good fire and I extinguish the bad) – a metaphor for pursuing justice and weeding out injustice.

Château du Clos Luce (link)

This was my final excursion in Tours, and I once again went with the language school. Perhaps because of that, we didn’t get to see everything there was to see at this, the final dwelling of Leonardo Da Vinci. The château itself was built in the 1200s, and after a few changes in ownership, it was offered to Leonardo in 1516. Despite his advanced age, he continued to work on projects for the King and to entertain students. He also had a secret tunnel that led to the King’s palace next door which allowed him to meet with fellow artist Domenico da Cortona all the time… in secret… underground… but I’m sure they were just friends.

It’s also interesting to note that when Leonardo finally accepted the King’s invitation to move to France, he brought several of his paintings with him, including the Mona Lisa, which is why that painting resides in the Louvre in Paris rather than in any museum in Italy. The interior of the château is decorated to resemble the time Leonardo lived and died there, and includes replica paintings of the Mona Lisa and The Death of Leonardo da Vinci or Francis I Receives the Last Breaths of Leonardo da Vinci  which depicts the King of France embracing the genius to breathe in the last breath that Leonardo breathes out. It’s worth noting that nothing other than the house itself is likely from the time of Leonardo, and that this is a reproduction for historical and educational purposes, but it’s still interesting to go and see the way that historians think Leonardo was living in the last few years of his life.

The basement of the château is a museum dedicated to the practical and military inventions of da Vinci with small models and detailed explanations of how each worked in theory if not in actual practice.

The grounds outside are beautifully designed to preserve a natural aesthetic with paths and waterworks connecting interactive models of several of da Vinci’s inventions, allowing visitors to see the natural world that inspired him, and to have a hands on experience with his engineering genius. Also, the last photo in the slide show is a breed of rose named “Mona Lisa” which I loved.

When I heard about the variety of château around the Loire Valley, this is the one I wanted to visit most, because I have personally been fascinated with da Vinci since I found out about him as a child. He was so clearly unique, intellectually and socially different from the culture and times that he was born into. As a person who often felt like I didn’t particularly belong, I enjoy seeing others like that in history. Although, over time, I came to understand that the combination of being born male and the patronage system that supported artists allowed people like Leonardo (if anyone can be said to be like Leonardo) to stay economically afloat and pursue their art and invention without the need to worry about where to live or what to eat.

In many ways, he and others like him are nearly mythological, and being able to stand in a room where they slept, or scribbled sketches or ate soup makes them more real, and it’s an experience I am glad to have had before leaving Tours.