Europe

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

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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.

The Sights of Tours

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Although I only spent 5 weeks in the city of Tours, France, I feel like I managed to squeeze in quite a lot of sightseeing around my French classes and cheese eating. In an attempt to organize my adventures there, this is the 2nd of 4 posts about Tours and it features attractions which are close to the city center, such as museums, gardens and interesting tourist attractions.

Musée Compagnonnage (The Companion Museum)

This was the first museum I visited in Tours because it was right next to my tram stop. I don’t know what I expected from a place called the Companion Museum, but this was not it. The Companionship (Compagnonnage) were any and all artisans and craftsmen who made things with their hands and then passed the knowledge of their crafts through apprenticeships. As you may imagine, that’s most of professions. It’s something between a secret society and a very strong union. In fact, given the amount of masonic imagery, I’m surprised to find that the museum denies any connection beyond the coincidence of the compass and square.

According to their own legends, the Compagnonnage dates back to the construction of the temple in Jerusalem, known as the “Temple of Solomon”, in the 10th century BC. The colossal project, under the direction of the architect Hiram, would have been led by Soubise and Jacques. Different legends also make these last two monastic and chivalrous characters. Salomon, Father Soubise and Maître Jacques are the 3 legendary founders of the Compagnonnage. However, there’s no archaeological evidence of the Compagnonnage until the 13th century. Incidentally, the Free Masons are not found until the 18th century so if they are linked, the French did it first.

The Compagnonnage includes any industry in which people work with their hands directly to produce things. I was going to try to list them, but the museum website takes a whole page to do so. It’s… a lot. Excluded careers were things like merchants, academics, doctors, architects and engineers (presumably the later because they design things rather than build them. Carpenters and stonemasons, people who implemented architectural and engineering designs, were absolutely included in the Compagnonnage.)

You can read more about the historical ups and downs on the museum website (thanks Google Chrome for auto-translate), but it went fairly strong until WW1 dealt it a near fatal blow. It didn’t really recover until after WW2, and it’s worth mentioning that although they claimed to welcome anyone wishing to improve in their profession, they didn’t agree to admit women until 2004(!) and didn’t actually accept one until 2006. Even though many of the trades historically included into the Compagnonnage were industries which had many women workers including sewing, weaving, laundry, and baking, it seems the society was about more than just teaching skills and protecting workers. Quelle surprise! (by the way, all of the art pieces below are sugar and pastry!)

Despite the overwhelming presence of misogyny throughout the history of Western civilization, I still enjoyed seeing the craftworks and tools of the various trades included in the Compagnonnes. I also believe that the centuries-long tradition of protecting the rights and wages of these workers has likely influenced the French cultural value of workers’ rights and collective bargaining. Did you know that striking is protected under their constitution? That not only can they not lose their jobs for striking, their employers must continue to pay them during the strike? That’s a big accomplishment for the same culture that produced Versailles.

The Hôtel Goüin

This is what happens when you don’t plan in advance and just wing it. You get weird stuff. This hotel is on my walk from the tram stop to my school and I got curious about it, and noticed it’s opening hours were only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I looked at it very very briefly online and saw that inside was an art gallery with rotating exhibitions. I thought, well I like art galleries, and it’s free, so why not? 

First, let me say, I do think it’s worth it to poke your nose into any free museum in your vicinity. Heck, even any museum under 10$ is likely to be worth a stop to me. I have gone into unexpected museums before, things I ran across that were adjacent to another stop on my journey, and it’s roulette. Also, since I had totally failed in the planning phase of my stay in Tours, I was eventually bound to suffer the slings of ‘wing it”, and only not mind too much because a) it’s 5 weeks, and b) my goal in Tours was not sightseeing – it was French Living.

If you or someone you know is headed to Tours and you happen to be in Old Tours on a Wednesday or Saturday, sure, drop in. However, there’s no need to put it on your bucket list. This summer, the Olympics are being held in Paris, so all of France is in Olympic fever. The Hôtel Goüin being no exception, they decided to offer an exhibition on the Paralympics. In large part, the exhibition was mostly very beautiful and inspiring photographs of paralympic athletes, but the upstairs (no elevator, btw, way to accommodate the athletes being celebrated!) contained not only documentaries, but interactive displays where visitors could “try on” a disability and attempt a sport. … I don’t even know what to write about that, other than, yes, I’m sure that’s what they were for because a museum employee told me about it and smilingly encouraged me to try.

If you are not cringing with me, or are wondering why I am, please check out some videos on YouTube by following this link.

The Musée des Beaux Arts

The third and easily most impressive museum I visited was the Tours Museum of Fine Arts. You can go to France and not visit an art museum, but why would you? I spent about 2.5 hours inside the museum of fine arts. I only took photos of things that struck me in particular, but it was room after room of beautiful stuff. I love looking at oil paintings up close. There’s some things that no photograph can ever capture, the quality of light, the ability for a part of a painting to seem like it’s glowing, the way the brush strokes move the eye, the size (both the enormous paintings and the tiny details). Seriously, even gallery-pro photos rarely do them justice, but if you want to see the museum’s own photographic collection, click here. 

Nonetheless, I cannot paint a picture of a gallery with only words, so I hope you enjoy the pictures I took and that maybe it can inspire you to visit an art gallery in or near your own town. Galleries often have wide collections, and even trade around highly desirable artists so that everyone can get a chance. The Tours museum is not anything so grand as is found in Paris, Lyon, London, or New York, but it still had a Rubens, a Rodin, a Rembrandt, and a Monet alongside many lesser known but still very talented artists from the 14th to 21st centuries.

Garland of flowers and trompe l’oeil, Jan-Philips van THIELEN, mid 1600s
Anonymous copy of the Mona Lisa painted mid 1500s
Mary Magdalene, Matthieu FREDEAU 1642
The Virgin, the Child Jesus and Saint John the Baptist, Eustache LE SUEUR, early 1600s
Portrait of a woman in spring, Workshop of Nicolas de LARGILLIERRE, early 1700s
Diana and her companions resting after hunting, Louis of BOULOGNE 1707
Allegory of the Times, Wealth, Power and Love; Claude VIGNON, mid 1600s
Nude study, Léon BELLY, 1857
Sarah Bernhardt in her Belle-Ilea garden, Georges CLAIRIN, late 1800s
Leaving mass on Easter Day in Labastide-du-Vert, Henri MARTIN, 1915

I recently had to try and explain Queer Coding to some folks and I found myself returning to YouTube to shore up my own understanding and references. One of the videos I watched pointed out that a lot of artists who painted under the totalitarian glare of the capital “C” Church used secret signs in their paintings of religious icons, and imagery out of Greco-Roman mythology to be able to portray scenes of queer love, romance, and eroticism that they could otherwise have been turned over to the Inquisition for. It was a perspective that made looking at many of these paintings from the 14-17th centuries much more entertaining.

I had to put this painting on its own. This is “Panoramic view of Tours in 1787” by Pierre-Antoine Demachy. When I turned a corner and saw this view, I was absolutely stunned because that’s the bridge I ride the tram over every day too and from school and my apartment. It’s actually fairly easy to regognize the major landmarks like the Cathedral on the left, the large white buildings with black roofs along side the road which is the Rue National (those are still holding shops today), and the Tower of Charlemagne as the tallest structure on the right. The artist was able to make the buildings in the distance look larger than they really are, and there are too many trees and new buildings for me to exactly replicate this view with my camera, but I gave it a go.

The lower floor of the museum is where the rotating and seasonal exhibits live. When I visited, it was an exhibit about the history of women called “THE SCEPTER & THE DISTAFF. BEING A WOMAN BETWEEN THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE“. Although it did have some generalizations, it mainly focused on France and it’s neighboring European countries and offered examples of illuminated manuscripts and artistic renditions of women as visual aids to the historical records. Anyone who has studied the history of women in the West will be well aware of the issues, but for those who are not, may I recommend the recent re-translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s eminent work, The Second Sex. If you’re on this website, I assume you like to read and so recommend the book, but there are plenty of YouTube videos reviewing and analyzing it. I don’t claim it’s the authoritative book of feminism (it’s got issues), but she does a very good job of assessing the historical condition of women in Western culture.

After I finished inside the museum, I headed outside to look for the pickup spot of the hippomobile. I didn’t make up that word. “Hippo” isn’t just a big African water mammal, it’s actually the ancient Greek word for “horse”. “Potamus” is Greek for “river”, which is how the hippopotamus got it’s name – river horse. Thus, the hippomobile is simply an ancient Greek way of saying horse-car, or horse drawn carriage. I don’t know why the one in Tours uses this name instead of the wildly more common French word “calèche“, but the first time I saw it on the website, I fell in love with the word and I refuse to relinquish it.

The internet further told me that I should catch this wonderful ride in front of “Fritz the Elephant” outside the Musée des Beaux Arts. When I arrived at the museum, a sign outside advertised the ride as picking people up at Fritz the Elephant as well, yet by the time I finished my museum tour, I still had no idea where (or really what) Fritz the Elephant was.

The Story of Fritz the Elephant

In my mind, Fritz would be a statue, or maybe a mural, adjacent to and clearly visible from the museum. Upon exiting the museum, I took a quick walk around the gardens (lord do I love the way the French put gardens everywhere). I found a little food stall, and a playground, and a trombone quartet (very unexpected), but still no elephant. Finally, I went over to a building off to one side that looked like it had been (or might still be) a stable. Lo and behold, there was Fritz in all his taxidermized glory, sheltered from the elements by a roof and plexiglass.

TW animal cruelty: because western civilization didn’t figure out animals had feelings until really recently and this is a story out of history. But also, there’s a silver lining at the end? If you want to avoid it, skip to the Hippomobile section where the animals are treated with kindness and respect.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Barnum and Baily’s Circus was at its height. You may have been exposed to a glorified version of this with a singing Hugh Jackman, but the real circuses relied heavily on exotic animal shows, and the treatment and training for those animals, including elephants, was cruel and violent. Fritz was in captivity for 35 years, which would have been most of his life considering Asian elephants only live into their late 40s. He was purchased by Barnum in Germany in 1873 and shipped by sea to the US. Sea voyages were especially hard on animals then, since they took a long time, had terrible conditions, and there was no medication available to help the animals with anxiety or seasickness. Many elephants died on such voyages, including several of Fritz’s companions. 

In 1901, the B&B circus headed over to Europe for a continental tour. While in Bordeaux in May of 1902, Fritz began to show signs of agitation and aggression, and so was chained to two other elephants to keep him in check. When the circus reached Tours in June of the same year, the circus offered a parade through town as a way of attracting visitors to the shows. Though the parades were difficult, they were also often the only time the animals had any real freedom of movement. 

For reasons unknown to history, Fritz became enraged during this parade. 35 years of captivity and violent treatment cannot have been without consequences, and whatever the reason, Fritz freaked out and terrified all the local parade attendees. The handler was able to get Fritz under control and on the ground (laying down), but director on site still ordered the elephant put down. As horrible as that is, the method of execution was worse, and yet it’s inhumanity may have been the reason why Fritz became such an important historical symbol. The method used was strangulation with chains and rope. It took more than three hours for Fritz to pass. 

The remains of Fritz were sent off to a naturalist for preservation, and within 8 months the skeleton was installed at the natural history museum, and the taxidermized hide was placed in the former stables at the Musée des Beaux Arts. The press latched on to the story, framing Fritz as a gentle giant and a victim. Wild speculation abounded as to the cause of his rage. Some posited it must have been a lit cigarette burning him, but there is no evidence to support this claim. Regardless, Fritz became a beloved mascot of the city of Tours, and the tragic incident became a pivotal talking point for a growing movement acknowledging animal suffering and animal rights. 

As of my visit, more than 100 French cities ban the use of wild animals in circus shows, and the French government at the federal level has decided to completely ban all use of wild animals in travelling circuses by 2028. If that sounds like a small and late change, you aren’t wrong, but France isn’t behind the times. Most developed (rich) nations are still in the process of passing similar laws, often in patchwork and piecemeal ways, and of course developing nations are struggling enough with human rights, that it is difficult to get them onboard with eliminating animal exploitation which can mean the difference between feeding their own children or not.

I have talked about ethical animal tourism before and how important it is to patronize businesses that prioritize animal welfare because that needs to be seen as a viable economic model in order for more people to follow suit. 122 years have passed since Fritz was strangled to death on the streets of Tours for simply being a wild animal, and that seems like a long time, but we were still going to circuses with mistreated elephants when I was a kid. As short a time ago as 2008 I watched a tiger jump through a ring of fire in China (I didn’t know that would happen when I sat down for the show). Kids on the streets in Africa and SE Asia use baby monkeys they took from the mothers in order to lure tourists into taking and paying for cute selfies. There are still plentiful places that offer swims with captive dolphins or rides on captive elephants as tourist attractions. We love looking at and interacting with animals, but all too often that love is toxic.

Horse-drawn carriages are another great example. I’ve been to developing countries where the horses are near starved, dehydrated, and forced to work without a break in the scorching sun. I recall at one point in Egypt seeing a sign near an area with shade and water troughs that an animal welfare organization had fought to have installed for the horses which carried tourists around the ruins. It’s hard to convince a person who lives in a state of desperate poverty that they need to prioritize an animal when their own children may not have enough. A shorter work-day means less money, and is a big barrier to enforcing any kind of animal rights. Thus it’s up to tourists who take the rides to express a firm requirement that the animals be treated well. Stop paying for rides with badly treated animals and the drivers will change.

Please check your sources. Look for the zoos that have habitats of comfort and preservation (lots of zoos these days are changing their habitats to protect and serve the animals, and they rely more on rescuing animals that wouldn’t have survived in the wild or breeding programs rather than capturing healthy wild animals). Look for animal interactions that protect the animal ambassadors. They exist. Animals that for one reason or another don’t mind interacting with humans on their own terms can be great species ambassadors and inspire humans to better protect the environment, but we have to respect their boundaries and needs. Even the pet cafes can have better treatment of their animals, such as creating spaces where the animals can retreat when they want to, and having highly trained staff around to make sure the animals are safe and comfortable at all times, even if that means disappointing a customer.

We may be past the era of such tragedies as happened to Fritz, but we still have a long way to go to restore the balance between our love for interacting with animals and our ability to respect them.

The Hippomobile

Thankfully, in France, the labor rights are strong, even for horses, and these chevaux have restricted work hours, mandated breaks, days off for extreme weather, and nice digs.

“Our equine friends are given a day off every Monday. The horses that draw carriages in the morning are replaced by another set in the afternoon. The animals take breaks in the shade of the magnificent cedar tree outside the Museum of Fine Arts. The carriage driver decides which route to take depending on the time of day, weather conditions and/or the horses’ energy levels. When the weather is unfavorable to horses, the timetable may be modified or suspended.” — quote from the Filbleu website regarding this service

I joined the first afternoon tour (3:30pm) and although I was a bit disappointed that the weather plastic remained down (it had rained heavily a few days before), I was seated right at the back and could look out the open rear for clear views. I didn’t see a lot of new things because by this time, I’d lived in Tours for over 3 weeks and had done a lot of exploring on my own. However, Old Tours is endlessly charming and the weather that day was simply stunning, so for the price of transit ticket, I happily enjoyed the clip clop of horses hooves while I admired the scenery. 

The Cathedral of Saint-Gatien

This stunning cathedral is right next door to the museum and makes an easy side trip. I may have a love affair with gothic architecture and stained glass. I can’t seem to stop going into cathedrals which are all generally of a similar blueprint, and staring in wonder at the scale and scope of human achievement in terms of really big, really complex, and emotionally moving buildings. I took far too many photos of the different types of stained glass, but I admit that I’m more interested in the colors and shapes than I am in the catechism represented therein, so I can’t tell you what they are supposed to be depicting (though there were dozens of signs explaining each window inside the church).

When I was in the Fine Arts Museum, I found a painting of the cathedral, and did my best to replicate the angle in modern photo form. It may be a silly American thing, but we simply aren’t used to buildings which have stood for centuries, and despite knowing how old the building is (800 years), seeing a 200+ year old painting of the cathedral made it’s age somehow more real.

While I was in the church, the trombone quartet that I had found in the gardens outside the museum showed up to practice with the organist. I love listening to the giant pipe organs! It started out quiet enough so you could hear the trombones, then the organist pulled the stops out (that’s where that phrase comes from, right?) and wham!

The Botanical Gardens

Another thing to love about France is the ubiquitous nature of nature. I mean the public gardens. Although what the French call a garden may be anything from a highly cultivated botanical display to an asthetically designed artistic movement, to a grassy place with a water feature, they are all clean, safe, and well maintained, and above all free to the public.

I wrote about my three gardens in Paris earlier this spring, so while experiencing the long weekend and excellent weather in Tours, I decided to pop in to the Botanical Gardens. I was not disappointed. The bus lets passengers off right at the main entrance to the gardens (although there are multiple entrances because it is such a huge area of land). I started by walking to my right into a maze of botanical specimens. The plants are arranged in pleasing beds and trellises and I suspect at least part of it is in bloom in every season except winter. There were three paths with three different points of view and experiences, and at the far end sat a grand glass greenhouse. Unfortunately, that was closed during my visit, but it was a fairly small part of the overall parc.

As I turned around and headed back towards my entry point along a different pathway, I was treated to entirely different scenery and the sounds of very vocal frogs. I managed to sneak up on one in the water feature and snap a photo before he plonked into the depths. I walked for a while simply admiring the plants and small streams, watching families and couples enjoying picnics in the grass, and then suddenly I came upon the menagerie. Here in the middle of this garden were a small number of animal habitats. I recall seeing the same thing in the Jardin des Plants in Paris and being generally surprised that any free-to-all style park could afford the staff and upkeep for that. 

It is by no means a full zoo, but I feel like it added a layer of beauty but also entertainment and diversion (especially for children). There were some wallabies, peacocks, flamingos, turtles, tortoises, and a lot of farm type critters (chickens, geese, ducks goats, rabbits, and even a pig). Most of the animals were fenced away, but there was a mini-farm where people could go in and get a bit closer. 

At the opposite end, there were two playgrounds with equipment for children to climb and play on, and still more beautiful lawns of grass for people to picnic and nap on underneath the enormous sprawling trees. I left the park feeling tranquil and refreshed with the satisfied feeling that my last weekend in Tours was extremely well-spent.

A Brief Introduction to Tours

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

This is part 1 of a 4 post series about the city of Tours and the 5 weeks I spent there in the spring of 2024. I didn’t set out to come here specifically. At the time I decided what I needed was to go to France, I wasn’t up for the intense labor involved in planning a vacation. Instead, I decided to use French language classes as a way decide where to go and what to do, and then I just searched the internet for a good school with a flexible start date and decent accommodations. That’s how I wound up more or less randomly spending 5 weeks in Tours, France on the banks of the Loire river.

Tours is the largest urban area of the Loire Valley, but even at the most generous standard of counting census, it’s still less than half a million people in the city and all surrounding areas. The city has a well preserved historical district called “Vieux Tours” (old Tours) which is full of old churches and half-timbered buildings giving it a very provincial town / quaint European village aesthetic. Yet, it is also equipped with a very robust and affordable public transit system and a wide array of shops, restaurants, and other entertainments. It even has an IKEA.

On the day I arrived, I went straight from the train station to my accommodation (thanks to my school). The apartment is on a quiet street adjacent to the tram line (convenient), but doesn’t have much around it except other modern blocky apartment buildings. When I looked up the photos on Google maps before arrival, I was very hesitant. I didn’t want to live in an industrial complex, I wanted to experience the quaintness of Vieux Tours! I need not have worried. Although the rows and rows of housing can seem a bit Orwellian at first glance, the reality is that there’s still immense amounts of greenery all over. My balcony overlooks a nice garden and there’s a sports field across the street. The main road is lined with trees and the tram line is grassy. While there isn’t much in a stone’s throw, a quick 10-15 minute ride on the tram drops me in Old Tours, and the lack of restaurants and bars in the neighborhood means it’s quiet when I want to rest.

My first day in Vieux Tours, I was distracted by trying to find the entrance to the school, yet I was still charmed by the half-timber buildings in the Place Plumereau (Plume Square). The building my school is in is actually part of a structure that dates back to the 11th century! Despite the fact that many new additions have been built, you can still clearly see the original masonry and timber in some parts of the classrooms.

This combination of old and new is all over Old Tours. There is a church across the street from my tram stop called Église St-Julien, and although the interior was closed to the public, I was able to walk around to the courtyard and see how the old structure merges with a new shopping complex.

A couple of tram stops down the Rue National from my school stands the Hotel de Ville (the City Hall) and a wonderful place to stroll down tree lined pedestrian avenues. 

Twice, I’ve headed to the outskirts of town, all the way to the IKEA. It was an interesting experience to see the parts of town which are not so quaint and historical as Old Tours, but I still felt like the people living in them could easily head to the cute areas of town for an afternoon whenever they liked. Neighborhoods we passed along the route varied between older building that had been refurbished or repurposed and newer apartment and shopping complexes. Everywhere did a fair job of maintaining green spaces (though perhaps not as lushly as the town center). The demographic changed starkly once I left the touristy areas, but that is hardly surprising. However, at no point did I feel like anything was dirty or unsafe.

One outing, I tried to go to the local fair, but it turned out to simply be too crowded for my liking. On the other, I was heading towards the giant box store complex next to IKEA. I think most countries now have some kind of big box store. The USA has Target and Wal-Mart. South Korea has Home Plus. In many EU places it’s CarreFour. I had been shopping at small local CarreFour Express or CarreFour City shops closer to home and to my mind those shops were plenty big. However, I needed to replace my waterproof phone case in preparation for my visit to Marseille and the only shop in the area that claimed to have any in stock was all the way back IKEA way in the biggest of big boxes. I was honestly shook by how big that store was, and it wasn’t even the only one in the complex, there were restaurants and a home appliance store as well (and the IKEA across the street). It felt like it took 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other without even going up and down any aisles! Yet, there was a bus stop right at the parking lot, which means that you don’t have to have a car to go. A nice touch.

Life in Old Tours felt slow and people seem to focus on enjoying things. Most shops are still closed when I head into my 9am class. Lunch is generally seen as 12-2 when most businesses that aren’t serving food close for at least 90 minutes to allow employees to eat. Every restaurant, cafe, boulangerie, and brasserie has sidewalk seating where people can linger over lunch and a glass of wine. There’s a glacier (ice cream shop) on almost every street. After lunch, businesses reopen between 2-3pm while restaurants close or limit service to drinks only. Dinner hours begin around 7pm when the boulangeries finally close. Even in April the sun wasn’t setting until after 9pm, giving the days a languid summer feeling. There’s simply no need to rush anything.

Unlike other tourist destinations in France where people might feel the need to run around to see all the best famous sights, the main attractions in Tours involve ambling around Old Town or strolling along the river. Although just walking through Tours on a sunny day can feel like you’re in a theme park, there’s more!  There are several museums in the town, and several château (castles / really fancy mansions) in the surrounding countryside. (both to be explored in more detail in future blog posts).

My Life in Tours

Since I’m learning the French Art of Living, my life in Tours is slow paced with a focus on relaxing and enjoying. Most days, I woke up early, had some coffee and a pastry, then went to my class at 9am. The classroom lessons were very casual, and frequently we spent more of the class time conversing in French with small side explorations into vocabulary and grammar as the conversation brings them up. There were activities, worksheets, and games, but no one was pressured to “get through a lesson” or hit target learning goals. I don’t know if that’s helpful for the long term students who are trying to pass official French language tests, but for me as a casual learner, it was ideal. My confidence in speaking French increased massively, and as a result I ended up actually using the vocabulary and grammar that I learned in class.

In just a few weeks, I went from being so obviously nervous at speaking French that every shop clerk took pity on me and spoke in English to being able to have detailed conversations about the differences of certain types of bread or cheese in the shops, and place all my orders at restaurants and shops in French without the vendors feeling the need to switch. I’m by no means anywhere near fluent, but it’s been a real boost of achievement to see my progress. Hopefully when I go to other (larger) cities in France, it won’t all fall apart.

I chose to take only the morning classes so as to have my afternoons free. Most places that are not serving food are closed until 2pm, so I tend to linger over lunch and often socialize with other students. After lunch, I wander around town, possibly to run an errand such as shopping for groceries at Les Halles, or visiting a museum or part of town that seems interesting.

In the evenings and on at least one weekend day, I rest at my rented apartment. I assigned myself a YA novel in French with the help of my dictionary for extra “homework”, and I watched Drag Race France on the France national television website, entirely in French with French subtitles. I also had boring maintenance chores like cleaning and laundry, and of course editing my photos from the day, writing in this blog, or just zoning out to YouTube videos because sometimes you need a good zone.

In addition to learning French and enjoying Tours, I have had to take part of my time to plan the rest of my French holiday. Usually I plan vacations before I get on a plane, but this trip has been … unusual. The reason I generally prefer to plan before leaving is that it’s a real struggle to tear myself away from the experiences to sit down at the computer and do research. This may seem ironic since I’m obviously sitting down at my computer to write this, but a written account of my experiences is a big part of how I process the memories and savor them. It’s a wholly different experience than researching and planning for a future adventure.

Planning vacations is hard work, but something I used to enjoy doing before COVID. I started feeling better about things in general within a few days of arriving here, but it took me about a month to be able to sit down with Google and a spreadsheet and really PLAN. Every time I tried it before, it just felt overwhelming. My friends with ADHD tell me this is their life all the time, and I honestly can’t imagine. I’m so used to being able to do what needs doing, especially if it’s also something I want! It was so frustrating, but once the damn broke, I had one 12 hour marathon day at the computer and I got it all done.

I have hotels, trains, busses, and attraction tickets (where needed in advance) for a week in Marseille, Lyon and Paris each. It may sound like a very “entitled person” problem, struggling to make plans for a vacation, but I’ve said before the only reason I can afford the trips I take is that I spend hours and hours searching for deals and researching free/cheap things to do and see. I’ve seen how much “we’ll figure it out when we get there” costs and I don’t make that much. I was watching a YouTube about the economy, and one of the guests was discussing what it was like to be a person who moved economic classes (from poor to middle) and that there’s aspects of her life now that are “normal” to those raised in the middle/upper middle class that she could never have imagined as a poor person, like being able to change your flight plans, or handle even low level emergencies.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iifU7rF0hVc%3Fsi%3DyOAGz_NNkR8c7mDY%26start%3D1085

Although my parents were middle class by the time I was born, they themselves were raised poor and changed class. And though they were both college educated, doing better than their parents, there were some years of one-step-away-from-the-trailer-park with my mom as a single parent, and some jobless-homeless-sick years for myself after I moved out. There were ups and downs, but in some ways the repeated downs only served to solidify the idea that the ups were not stable. I spent combined decades living hand to mouth, worrying about the ability to pay rent if my car needed work, needing to stand in line at the food bank, and even begging my friends for a place to stay when I lost mine.

I am still shocked at myself when I can just afford something without stressing about it, and even when planning my holidays I still carefully weigh the cost of an activity against my budget goal (perhaps even too critically). I’m getting better at giving myself permission to have nicer things, but I’m still going to be staying in (all girl) dormitory hostels for three weeks because it saves me something like 900-1,200$ total. Planning and budgeting are essential to make your money go as far as it can whether you’re on vacation or at home. 

At the time of writing this, I am hours away from leaving Tours. I feel content that I’ve seen a good amount of the best Tours has to offer, and even a chance to explore what life is like outside the charm of Old Town, providing some contrast and perspective. Stay tuned for my next 3 posts which detail the sites I visited within the city of Tours, the château of the Loire Valley, and the foods and wines of Touraine that I was able to try while staying here. À la prochaine!

I Want to Learn the French Art of Living

/ Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

Why are you going to France?

It was astonishing how many people asked a version of this question. While it is true that I often travel for a job, I’ve visited 5-6x as many countries for pleasure as I have for work, and until this spring when I decided to stop working in order to take my holidays at a nicer time of the year, no one asked me why. “Because I want to”, was the real answer, but it seemed to confuse people. Other times, I told people I was going for the food, but most who have never been to France simply can’t imagine the food here being that much different. I once counted myself among them, but after my first meal in France, I thought that I had died and gone to food heaven. 

Now that I’ve been in France for a couple of weeks, I know that what I was struggling to find the words to say was that I wanted to go to France to learn the French art of living. The French call this “Joie de Vivre” (Joy of Life), but it is perhaps better translated as “The Art of Living Joyfully”, and it’s a very deep rooted value in French culture. Joie de vivre isn’t about parties or euphoric joy, it’s finding happiness through living. Since arriving in Tours, I have been receiving a swift and enlightening crash course.

Musée des beaux-arts – “La Joie de vivre” (Victor Prouvé, 1904)

Practicing Kindness

I will say again that French people in general are more likely to be kind than rude (I’m sure they can be rude when called for, and that there are some percentage of rude people everywhere, but rudeness is not the default way of life). My first week in town, I had to run errands and do shopping while jet lagged and after my 3.5 hour French immersion class which left my brain feeling like a wet noodle. I could barely make comprehensive sentences in English (my native language) let alone in French. Despite my overt disorientation, every shopkeeper was kind and patient with me, most were even happy to use both French and English with me when I explained I was learning, giving me a chance to practice but also helping when the language was outside my skill.

I have not formally studied French since middle school. I came into this language program with a hodgepodge of random vocabulary and grammar that does not conform to standard learning levels in any way. I am not a quiet student, but I also felt that if I asked about everything I didn’t understand, I would derail the whole class. On my second day, I experienced an intense moment of frustration, and the teacher worked very hard to find out what was confusing me. I wanted to shut down and look it up later in private, but she worked it out with me in class. In the moment, I wasn’t happy to be the focus of so much time and attention, but in retrospect, it was a glorious act of kindness and support on her part. I’ve done the same for my own students, and it’s eye-opening to feel it from the other side.

I also had some disappointment in the apartment when I arrived –the washing machine was broken, and there was no Wi-Fi. In most other places I’ve lived, these kinds of problems were dismissed and I was left to handle them on my own or forced to nag the property manager (my last apartment in Korea was a nice exception, those people were great). I didn’t feel any animosity at the lack of amenities. I had of course emailed ahead of my flight to be sure that I would have access to a washing machine and Wi-Fi (among other things), but my response to the absence of promised resources while traveling abroad is less often anger and more often resignation. 

To my surprise and delight, the owner of the school arranged for me to get 120gb of data for the month so I would be able to do things like make video calls, watch YouTube, and write in my blog. His efforts were above and beyond what he needed to do to meet his obligations to me as a paying student. The landlady came the next day with a repair man to fix the washing machine, so it was working again before I had a full load of laundry. While we waited for the repairman to finish his work, she engaged me in conversation, despite not speaking any English, and was patient and kind with my poor French, repeating things more slowly or finding simpler phrasing. She told me about several beautiful tourist attractions around the area that I look forward to exploring.

It’s hard to believe, but even panhandlers on the street here are nicer. I don’t speak French well and in any case have fallen out of the habit of carrying cash. I have nothing to give them, but even after I tell them this, they smile and ask where I’m from, try to speak some English with me, and wish me a good day.

Receiving Kindness

This is all in stark contrast to my experience in Sénégal where I was promised support and given none, treated brusquely by shopkeepers, and viewed as a walking wallet by most. Even in the US, my job had offered support and fallen short, resulting in an overabundance of stress, and my co-workers (who are nice people) still took a couple months to really warm up to me.

My knee-jerk response to this level of kindness and support was shock. For the first several days, every time it happened, I gawped like an idiot, stunned for a moment before a part of my mind went, “it’s ok, relax, trust, let yourself be supported by your fellow humans not because of prior relationships, not because of obligations, but merely because we are humans together.”

Photo Credit:  www.semtrio.com/

It wasn’t until later when I went to write about my experiences that I realized how much I craved this kind of human connection. I love my friends and family, I enjoy forming relationships with my coworkers, but there’s something deeply healing in looking up from our bubbles and saying “hello fellow human, this world is tough enough, so let’s do our best to make it softer for each other while we’re here”.

A Culture of Joyfulness

By the middle of my second week, it was apparent that the effect of joie de vivre is exponential. When everyone is focused on enjoying the little things, it’s easy to be happy and kind which makes everyone happier and kinder. Joie de vivre isn’t at its best when experienced in isolation, it’s something that needs a majority of people to buy into in order to reach its full potential. I can feel it soaking into me, too. I don’t need or want to run around looking for one exiting experience after another because the everyday life here is good. Not ecstatic, or overflowing with awesome, just persistently good.

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alicepopkorn/

The other day I gave my seat on the tram to a mother with two younger girls. I enjoyed watching them interact on the trip. The girls were talking about my blue hair, and when they got restless, the mom played “find that body part” (where’s your nose? touch your ears!, etc.) which was also fun for me because I’m not the best at French vocabulary. I was able to relax and enjoy the experience. It made me smile to see their small delights. No one was giving the mom dirty looks for her kids being kids, and the mom didn’t have to be self-conscious about playing with her kids on public transit.

Joy and Other Feelings

Joie de vivre could be compared to the practice of mindfulness, in that one of the goals is to be present in the present. Lingering over a meal, sharing an afternoon with friends, and watching kids on the tram are all wonderful examples of the everyday, but international vacations and once in a lifetime experiences are not excluded. The definition of joie de vivre isn’t what you are doing, but how you are doing it: a lunch without an agenda, a hangout with friends for no reason, an international vacation without the stress of focusing on what could go wrong, or what is waiting for you when you get back.

Joie de vivre also isn’t about being happy all the time. Obviously the French have “negative feelings”, I mean, have you read Sartre? But a range of feelings is the normal human experience. The impression I get is that “pretty good” is the baseline here, and feelings of more extreme happiness, sadness, anger, boredom etc. are all coming from and returning to that. In contrast, when I look at people in the US and a few other places I’ve lived, I see them defaulting to a baseline of “meh” (numbness or boredom) or even a baseline of anxiety and sadness. Image Credit: https://sketchplanations.com

Regardless of what culture they are from, people are capable of feeling a full range of emotions, and a normal human will experience most of them in a lifetime, but living in a culture that forwardly values kindness and everyday joy makes a difference in everyone’s quality of life.

Can Americans Live Joyfully?

My initial answer to the question “Why are you going to France?” was often greeted with the suspicion that anyone going to live in a foreign country and not work for a couple of months just to enjoy things was dangerously decadent. This happened so often that I began to become suspicious of myself. Was I leaving my students and co-workers in the lurch? Would they be ok without me? Could I really justify the expense, not only of the vacation but of the time spent not working? The regular messaging of the culture around me made it harder and harder to be sure I was making the right choice.

There is a tendency in (but not exclusive to) American culture to view any action that is not productive (making money) as frivolous (selfish, useless, a drain). For me, joie de vivre is more likely to involve things that make you happy but don’t make money, nor lead to making money in the future. These are things that you do just because you like them (and that don’t hurt anyone else). I rate this kind of joy as sitting from tier 3-5 of the Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s hard to go after it when you don’t have basic needs met, but I would argue that it’s integral to love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization.

Side Note: money, privilege, poverty trauma, and first world problems. I could write entire essays on these topics, but I am not doing that here. TLDR; I know I have privilege; I know a lot of people genuinely do not have money for travel; I know poverty trauma (for those of us who were either raised in poverty or spent years as adults in poverty) has long-term effects on our spending and sense of worthiness; and I know that being able to afford a luxury that you don’t feel like you deserve is a first world problem. I am using my trip to France as a stand-in for a wide variety of frivolously enjoyable experiences in order to examine why many people struggle with letting themselves fully enjoy things. 

When I started telling people instead that I was going to France to study French, they seemed much more comfortable. Once there was a cultivation of skill involved, it wasn’t just frivolous happiness, it was productive, and that was more socially acceptable. One day as I was hand-wringing about whether I needed to justify my trip to France, someone said to me, “Why are you beating yourself up about this? You deserve this. You can do this without going broke or wrecking your life, so go enjoy it.” It was an extremely succinct account of the two most important obstacles to frivolous (non-monetizable) happiness:  Can you afford this? Have you earned this?

Can you afford this?

Credit: FreePix.uk

It’s a valid question, but I don’t think it’s the only hurdle to frivolous joy. There are many people who do not have travel money, or have other challenges to travel such as health and children, and I’m not suggesting (as I have seen other travel bloggers do) that one can simply manifest global travel with enough bootstraps. Maybe they can’t afford a trip to Paris, but what types of joie de vivre can they afford but are held back from doing because they feel guilty about it?

During my experiences in developing countries where almost no one has enough money, the social values writ large tend to be more focused on “slow living” and finding joy in daily experiences such as community, shared meals, nature, children, and expressing creativity – things that don’t cost much if any money. While people in these cultures may feel guilt about spending money on themselves instead of their family or community, they don’t seem to have any trouble enjoying themselves when it’s not a question of money. Even in Japan and Korea, wealthy countries famous for overworking, I still noticed people placing importance on these types of low cost joys.

Have you earned this?

American culture is embedded with an exchange rate of work for pleasure. You must burn x number of calories to “earn” dessert. You must work x hours to “earn” a break. I talked to people in my income bracket and above who can absolutely afford to travel, but felt that they could never possibly, because they haven’t hit the ever-shifting goal post of “enough work” to earn the pleasure.

The earning in question isn’t financial; it’s the unspoken moral economy. Many Americans have internalized the idea that we don’t really deserve to feel good (at least until we’ve suffered enough to “earn it”, which may mean never). But because we are human, we sneak around with minor infractions we call guilty pleasures while lacking the ability to fully feel the delight these activities should bring because we are too busy feeling guilty and wondering how we’ll be judged.

What will people think? If I eat a second slice of cake? If I skip mowing the lawn to have a nap in the afternoon sun? If I take my kids out of school for a day to drive up to the mountains and splash around in a glacial river? If I leave my spouse to feed themself and the kids and they end up eating Cheerios and ice cream while I have a nice dinner with my friends? If I leave the office when there’s a big project (and there’s always a big project) and my co-workers all have to pick up my slack while I’m tasting wine in the Loire Valley?

Look at the horrible social media backlash that middle and lower income people get for having nice things deemed by society to be “too luxurious”. When they use food stamps to buy steaks instead of rice and beans, or dare to have a new phone, a nice laptop, play video games, drink frilly coffee, eat avocado toast or anything else that might make life bearable, the internet loves to pile on. Grind culture tells us that the one true path to financial success is to have nothing that brings joy, and only to work as much as possible until you can earn your way to a house, a car, and a (maybe once yearly) family vacation to a theme park.

Let me be clear, none of these examples are likely to result in anything bad actually happening, but the real world consequences are not reflected in the imaginary consequences of people who are held back by these thoughts. The extreme version of this is called “catastrophizing” and people who suffer from this type of anxiety (as you might guess) imagine catastrophic results of actions they perceive as risky. The less extreme version is a bunch of people who don’t critically examine what is likely to happen, they just feel the guilt and shame as a gut-level reaction.

A New Way of Thinking

I don’t take these internalized feelings of guilt and shame lightly. They are deeply ingrained in us from childhood, and can feel like an irrefutable pillar of reality. But they need to go. Maybe in the way black mold or an insidious termite infestation needs to go, or maybe in the way a cavity needs to go: knock down a wall, drill a hole, excavate the rot and repair the damage. It isn’t something a person can just do –wake up one day suddenly be free of the pressure of guilt induced by unproductive pleasure. However, I suggest that everyone reading this start the long and difficult process of releasing the weight of these fears and finding the freedom to do things just for fun. 

“[Joie de vivre is] revolutionary because for work-driven, vacation-and-long-lunch deprived Americans, it almost requires brain surgery. Why? Because to make that lunch a moment with a French touch it has to be just for fun, no rush, no agenda. An American [said] that her French women friends, who are physicians, ‘work long hours but find time to meet their friends, take vacations, and indulge in the life part of life, which is as important or perhaps more important to them than work.'”
— Huffington Post, “What is joie de vivre, and why are the French so good at it?”

This isn’t “run away with the circus” advice. I do not advocate joy at the expense of security or community. We still need to be able to answer the question “Can I afford it” with “yes”. Please do not go into debt chasing a consumerism driven idea of happiness (been there, done that, regretted my financial choices). It’s important to balance joy and responsibility, but until we learn what things are truly our responsibilities and what things are the weight of other’s expectations and demands that we have taken on unnecessarily, we won’t be able to say “yes” when asking “Do I deserve it?”

Once we are able to accept that we deserve to enjoy things without having to earn the moral currency to do so, there is a different way of life ahead. 

Paris in the Spring

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Despite the detour, this is still mainly a travel blog, so without further ado, I bring you a sunny day in April exploring Paris. The romantic ideal of Paris in the spring is perhaps more marketed to lovers, but having been to Paris both in spring and in summer, I can say I have a definite preference. The weather is better, the crowds are fewer, and if you go early enough in the spring, you get cherry blossoms! (For those looking for tips and advice, specific details about transportation and accommodation are at the end).

When I decided that I would spend a couple months in France, I knew I didn’t want to have Paris as my home base for a few reasons. The top being “oh my god it’s expensive”. The next being “it’s full of tourists”, and the last and perhaps most important: I wanted to see other parts of France. Nonetheless, every international flight into France lands in Paris, so although I would start classes in Tours on April 15th, the best price to fly was April 11th (several hundred dollars cheaper than the 12-14th). I decided that I’d rather spend the money in Paris, so I booked a dorm and planned a laid back day of viewing the gardens and eating delicious food.

Breakfast

Refreshed from my flight by a good night’s sleep, I headed into the city center to my favorite breakfast place in Paris: Angelina’s. I have gone to Angelina’s every time I’ve visited Paris for their amazing hot chocolate, even in the worst summer heat wave. For people who have only had packet hot chocolate, I can’t express my sympathies deeply enough. Some of you have been lucky enough to have real hot chocolate made from milk and chocolate (not a powder) and you begin to know the heights to which this beverage can soar. Those of us who have been graced by the chocolat chaud at Angelina’s know the celestial chocolate experience.

The last time I was in Paris in 2019, I made breakfast reservations because we had tickets to the museum and I wanted to make sure we were not rushed to finish eating. It turned out we didn’t need the reservations since most tables were still empty when we arrived. This year, Angelina’s website says they are no longer accepting reservations, and when I arrived, I discovered the otherwise totally empty sidewalk to be teeming with a crowd in line at my favorite breakfast spot. I queued up while I looked on my phone to see if there was some explanation. I was informed by my neighbors in line that the restaurant had recently become TikTok famous, which is why they themselves where there.

I’m never sure how to feel when a restaurant gets influencer famous. Many restaurants have actually been destroyed by fame induced crowds flocking in numbers that their small scale production process simply could not handle. Others have had to reduce the quality of their once famous dishes in order to keep up with the demand. I stood in line thinking that there must be another restaurant in Paris that had really good hot chocolate, and maybe it was time for me to try a new thing, when the line started moving. It only took perhaps 15-20 minutes before I was at my own table. The wait was considerably shorter than I would have expected at a restaurant in Paris. It may be that foreigners are accustomed to eating quickly, and tourists who had made Angelina’s a stop on an otherwise full day of activities were eager to get on.

I was fully prepared to order my breakfast in French (knowing I didn’t need to), and the server was very kind about it. Then I realized that about half the patrons in the dining room were Asian, and were all using English to communicate with the staff. I told my Korean students over and over again that English was the key to world travel, but it strange to see it in action here in Paris after struggling though my bad French on previous visits. Stereotypes about the Parisians persist, yet I have never known them to be anything but kind. It’s possible they appreciate the attempt to speak French more from native English speakers because of the stereotypes about English speakers being monolingual, but they seemed quite content to speak English with me and with every other tourist around.

When my order arrived, I was delighted to discover that despite the newfound TikTok fame, the quality of Angelina’s hot chocolate had not diminished in any way, and that the French cultural value of never rushing a diner at the end of a meal was still going strong. Regardless of the line at the door, everyone seated was fully welcome to spend as long as they liked savoring the thick chocolatey goodness and rich pastries. Bliss!

Jardin des Tuileries

An online search for cherry blossoms in Paris revealed that the largest grove of cherry trees was about 90 minutes on transit from my hostel, and after viewing the blossoms at some of Asia’s biggest collections, I doubted at the mere volume of trees would be a top draw for me in France. Instead, I opted for closer gardens with fewer trees where I could have a lovely stroll with less time in the Metro. My first stop was Jardin des Tuileries, right across the street from Angelina’s.

I like to come to this garden when I’m in Paris no matter what else I’m doing. My first time in Paris (2015), I ended up in Tuileries purely by accident, and ate a glorious sandwich next to a fountain with a view of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a memory that sticks in my mind because I felt in that moment that I had “made it”, that all my repeated struggles towards my dream of global travel and daydream freedom had landed me in this garden, with the best sandwich I’d ever eaten, basking in the sun and watching the Eiffel tower in the distance. I like to come and visit the park and relieve that memory whenever possible.

There were plenty of people, both locals and tourists, enjoying the unseasonably warm sunny spring day in the park. I ambled around and taking photos of the pink blossomed trees, stopping occasionally to take photos for groups who were struggling to use the timer on their phones or get everyone into one selfie. My feet were still swollen from the flight and my back hurt, but none of that could impact the growing sense of ease and contentment I experienced just discovering that I had once again “made it”. I survived the COVID induced lockdowns, I took my years of isolation and I packed them up in a box in the closet and I once again embraced travel for joy.

Jardin des Plantes

The next garden I visited was the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden that I had not been to before. It also houses a small zoo, and some indoor exhibits, but I was there for cherry blossoms! Priorities.

When I found the area where the park’s cherry trees grow, I was initially disappointed. It seemed that all the “white” (very pale pink) trees had finished blooming the week before I arrived. There were four darker pink blossomed trees of prodigious size, but they too seemed to be at season’s end. Thankfully, that was an illusion. These enormous trees look full of fading blossoms from a distance, but once you step under the sprawling canopy, you have entered the bower of a magical fairy land. Queen Titania herself might set up a divan there and feel entirely appropriately decorated. 

It was like stepping into a snow globe of pink petals. The branches swept from high above all the way down to the ground, cutting off the view of the outside world. Fallen petals covered the ground as well, resulting in a 360° sphere of pink. I lost track of how much time I spent under just one tree, discovering new delights at every angle I looked or aimed my camera. When the spring breeze came by and the petals fluttered around us like pink snow, everyone stopped their photo posing and gasped in awe.

I visited the other three cherry trees and then branched (haha) outward to look at other plants and flowers. In early spring, there aren’t as many blooming, but I found some other pink trees, some purple irises and a garden with enormous blooms I do not know the name of.

Un Pause

Still jetlagged and walking for hours, I decided to stop at a sidewalk cafe. I couldn’t find any coffee places with seating near the gardens, but I did find a little bistro from which I ordered a delightful craft cocktail. As I sat in the shade of the awning with my drink and watched the daily life of Paris around me, a quote from Anthony Bourdain came to my mind:

“Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap…Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine, walk around a bit more, eat, repeat. See? It’s easy.”

― Anthony Bourdain, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

However much I wish it had not taken me 4 visits to Paris to learn this, I don’t think anyone could have convinced me on my first trip that I shouldn’t be running around trying to see the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the art museums, the catacombs, the cemeteries, Montmartre, and every other cool thing in Paris. The tourists I talked to in line at Angelina’s and whose photos I helped take in the garden were just as eager to squeeze in as many sights as possible. I can’t blame them, but I’m very grateful that I finally reached a point where I can just enjoy sitting at a sidewalk table with a drink.

Jardin du Luxembourg

My last stop on the way back to my hotel, Jardin du Luxembourg, was also a garden that I had not previously visited. I found it to be much more like a park than a garden with plenty of places to walk and sit and play sports, but fewer flowerbeds or decorative trees. Most of the gardens in Paris have lawns (tapis vert, or green carpets) that are cultivated to within an inch of their lives that no one is permitted to walk or sit on (thank you, Louis XIV). It creates a beautiful landscape, but leaves one yearning to run barefoot in the grass. Luxembourg had many sweeping no-touch lawns, but added a sitting lawn! (There is another good sitting lawn just in front of the Eiffel Tower). Large blocks of soft dark green grass just for lounging around or having picnics on.

Given the beautiful weather that day, all the parks were full, but it was not hard to find a spot to plop down and enjoy the cool green lawn. I watched the people and the pigeons. Every pigeon I had seen all day seemed to be unusually plump and healthy. I’ve seen pictures and videos of show pigeons, but street pigeons are so often sickly and deformed that it’s become a trope, people calling them “rats with wings” or “cooing plague pits”. And yet an animal is only as healthy as it’s ecosystem. If pigeons in New York are malnourished, diseased, and deformed, it is not a result of the natural state of pigeons, but rather a reflection of the life they are forced to live. It really made me think about how much healthier Paris must be as an ecosystem than the vast majority of other dense urban cities I’ve visited. It also gave me a new appreciation for the presence of squab in French cuisine.

La Fin

As the day drew to a close, I realized I had made no plans for dinner, and that the combination of Saturday plus glorious weather meant more people than usual would be going out to eat. From my seat in the grass, I searched online for nearby options and snagged a last minute reservation at a restaurant across the street. Once more, the staff were very friendly and happy to speak in English (where does the stereotype of rude Parisians come from?) I ordered the daily special of duck confit, with a bière picon (a beer mixed with picon, a sweet orange liquor, not available in the US, I’m afraid), and for dessert, a chocolate cake and coffee with bailey’s and Chantilly. I may have gone a little overboard, but it was delightful to sit on the indoor balcony and look out the restaurant’s giant picture window at the garden across the road while dining on top notch food and drink. Not an everyday occurrence, and I think a worthwhile treat to end my day in Paris.

The next day, I repacked my bags and caught the bus to Tours, the small city in the Loire Valley that was to become my home and my school for the next 5 weeks. Stay tuned for more on life in the Loire!

Planes, Trains, & Hotels

If you are interested in the practical side of this trip, this Post Script is for you. Here I have attempted to include some useful information and links about airfare, public transit, and accomodation.

When searching for airfare, I was lucky enough to find an off brand company that didn’t suck called French Bee. Their cheapest package is very similar to Spirit or Ryan (no luggage, no meals, etc.), but the price difference for the upgrade to a more inclusive fare was only about 40$. I ended up with a normal international luggage allowance, an inflight meal, the ability to choose my seats, and the no-fee change policy.

The Paris public transit system is good, but confusing to outsiders. I have an old Navigo card which was still valid and could be topped up, but my research revealed there is now an app which allows you to buy tickets online and scan your phone via RF/NFC rather than having to carry a card and top it up at ticket kiosks. The app for local Paris transit is My Navigo Tickets, and the intercity train system is Bonjour RATP. It is a big improvement since my previous visit. The Navigo app also offers a good trip planner, showing the best transit routes to get from where you are to where you want to be. Sadly, after you find your route, and press the “buy ticket” button, it just takes you to the general ticket page with no indication of what you need for the journey you have planned.

Why does this matter? Paris has 5 zones, and transit tickets are sold in groups of zones. The more zones, the higher the price. I want there to be a way to easily see what zone you and your destination are in, but I haven’t found it. The last time I was in Paris, I just talked to the ticket seller about the places we wanted to go, and she knew what zones I needed. In general, if you’re sticking to the city center, 1-2 is enough, but there are some high demand tourist spots in zone 3. And if you’re staying further out to save on hotels, you may even be in 4-5. Transit to and from the airports and Disney Paris have their own special rates.

Additionally, passes are available by day, week, or month, but the week is Saturday to Sunday, no matter when you purchase it (not 7 days from the day of purchase). Is your head spinning yet? Do you suddenly want a taxi? Well, just remember the taxi rates from the airport are 50$+, but the bus rate is about 12$. Taxis in the city traffic can be difficult to catch, drivers may not speak English, and they may rely on your poor knowledge of fees and laws to overcharge you (this happens everywhere, it’s not unique to Paris). Transit trips cost about 2€ each or a day pass of unlimited rides for about 8€. I like the unlimited rides because I never have to worry about transfers or having to take extra transit if I get lost (which happens at least once a trip).

On to hotels! Paris is definitely one of the top most expensive places to spend a night. Before COVID, my usual travel budget was 100$ a day split 30/30/30 (hotel/food/entertainment) with a small extra cushion. Even then, I couldn’t find a room in Paris for 30$, I couldn’t find a bed in a dorm for 30$! There are a few youth hostels where, if you happen to be a young man, you can bunk down in a 12-16 bed dorm with other young men for around 35$ a night. If you would like a female-only dorm, be prepared for the pink-tax. All-girls dorms cost on average 10$ more than the male or mixed dorms. I stayed in a mixed dorm in Paris once, and it was fine. I was safe. No one was skeezy or anything. But, the older I get the harder it is for me to spend time in dorms. I find I need a private space to decompress at the end of a long day.

In post-COVID inflation-land, room prices in Paris seem to have risen (although to their credit, not as much as US based inflation). The best deal I found was a bed in an all-girls dorm for 50$ a night. (are there cheaper? Yes, but then you start getting issues with cleanliness, quality, safety, and distance from the transit stations). Hotels and hostels are getting better at tricking the algorithms to promote their place in search engines and reservation websites. It’s important to read real reviews (good and bad), see what people liked and didn’t (it might be things that don’t matter to you), and look at a good map to see not just how far the hotel is from a landmark or transit station, but also, how you can get there. 

It can take hours of searching to find a good price, a good location, and a good quality, but the time you spend in advance is worth it not to have unexpected unpleasant surprises after you arrive. My decision to take a dorm bed at the Eklo also related to factors like the photos of the dorm rooms, the reviews by other guests, and the closeness of the bus stop. I knew it would be hard to be really comfortable in a dorm, but I was willing to take it for just two nights.

I ended up eating at the rooftop restaurant for dinner the night I arrived. I am always skeptical of eating in a place so clearly designed to cater to tourists. High end hotels have amazing restaurants, but hostels tend to focus on alcohol and cheap food. The Eklo partners with a small chain restaurant called French Kiss which had a good looking website, and I was too worn out from the flight to go anywhere else. The view was stunning, and the food surpassed my expectations for hostel restaurant fare, and the staff were all friendly and quite fluent in English.

Northern Ireland: Game of Thrones

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Regardless of your feelings about the series finale, one cannot argue that Game of Thrones failed to leave a lasting mark on the collective TV viewing audience around the world. Even if you are not a Game of Thrones fan, I think you can still enjoy the photos and descriptions here since I’m telling my story, not JRR Martin’s. I enjoyed the books a lot (wish he’d finish!) and I like most of the TV show as well, even many parts that diverged greatly from the books. However, this is not a blog about a TV show, it is about Ireland: the museum exhibit in Belfast, and the outdoor landmarks which would are enjoyable on their own, minus the CGI and regardless of their attachment to the show.

Game of Thrones Touring Exhibition: Belfast

At the time I was in Ireland, the GoT Touring Exhibition was in the TEC in Belfast. I understand that it was in Belfast from April – September of 2019. I was told that there will be some part of the exhibit which will permanently stay in Belfast due to it size, but as I write this, there’s zero information on the TEC website because it’s all closed due to Covid-19. Additionally, the exhibition’s tour schedule is currently suspended for the same reason. I’d love to be able to tell you where to go to see it, but I can’t.

Warning: there are SPOILERS. If for some reason you are living under a rock and haven’t seen season 8 (or already had it spoiled for you) and still want to experience that… uh, experience, then maybe just look at the pictures or skip to the outdoor part of the GoT sightseeing.

I booked tickets well in advance because I was warned it might be sold out and we were on a bit of a schedule. There’s plenty of parking at the TEC and a place to get a cup of coffee and a snack in the lobby. It was such a relief to have an indoor activity on a rainy day. I got there before opening because I wanted to be in the door before the crowds arrived. There weren’t actually that many people there, but I’m still glad I went early because it was filling up by the time we left about 3 hours later.

The exhibit hall was enormous. It was divided into smaller rooms by theme and there was a suggested path to follow. There was a plethora of information about every item on display as well as knowledgeable staff everywhere, most of whom had worked on the show when it was being filmed and had personal on set anecdotes to share about the actors or scenes. Generally all of them were happy to have had the experience which made it nice to have the staff share fandom and enthusiasm.

Photos were allowed everywhere, but flash photography was forbidden and the lighting was very low, so most of my photos did not turn out terribly well, I’m afraid. Honestly, you can see wide shots of the costumes and props in the show, so the impressive part of the exhibit is being able to look at the close up details involved in the dresses, jewelry, weapons and other props that are never seen on screen, or shown for only fractions of a second. There are so many more things in the exhibit than I can show here, in part because no one wants to see that many photos and the rest because so many of my photos turned out blurry or dark or both.


The display starts by introducing the houses of Westeros and their relationships and fealty with a dazzling array of flowcharts accompanied by a variety of common or popular character costumes for the main houses.


It moves next into an area that replicates the Stark family crypt at Winterfell. I was told by the guide for this portion that these statues would not be moving on with the exhibition tour since they were too large and fragile. The room was dark and the statues lit moodily as though by torch light. It was a fun effect to walk through, but a frustrating one to photograph.


The third module gets into the further houses such as those of Dorne and the Iron Islands as well as Stannis Baratheon’s unholy union with Melisandre.

The fourth section is arguably the best. It’s a room full of dragon skulls, the very same ones Tyrion finds while under the palace in Kings Landing that belonged to the Targaryans of days past. I have rarely been so sad about low lighting, but it did make the skulls feel a little creepy and alive, and lived experience is always better than a photo. The skulls are seriously dinosaur sized. The smallest one could probably bite me in half, and the largest could swallow me whole. Standing up. Without opening it’s jaw all the way. So incredibly cool.


Following the dragon skulls were all things Mother of Dragons. Daenerys’ most iconic costumes and jewelry as well as models of the dragon eggs and baby dragons.


There’s an interactive display of the temple of the Faceless Men. Arya trained there, learning deep ancient secrets of how to assassinate people and then NEVER USED THEM. *sigh The display is still cool. You can pose for a photo and have your face digitally added to the wall of faces.


Next up is the Wall where John Snow joins the Night Watch to protect the realms against the coming of the Night King and his horde of walking dead that kill all the Dothraki and then… shatter?… when Arya stabs him, not using her Girl Has No Name skills in any way… ugh. Look at the shiny costumes!


The final display is the Iron Throne in King’s Landing with some of the later season costumes arrayed around it. In addition to all the beautiful set pieces and costumes, there are several interactive stations where you can pose with Arya’s sword Needle, John’s sword Longclaw, the Wall (a cute trick with mirrors to make it look like you’re holding on to a rope for dear life), and the Iron Throne itself. You can walk both forward and backward through the display, so I was able to double back and have a closer look at a few things. All in all, a lovely experience combining museum quality displays and fantastical world building.


On the way out, one of the staff told us to keep an eye out in the parking lot for the King’s Landing set. He implied that one day it might be open to the public as part of a permanent exhibit, but not yet. I tried to find any information about it online, but again, since tourism is closed, there’s no telling if or when the full size set that was used to film the burning of King’s Landing in season 8 will ever be a public attraction or not.
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The Film Locations

A large number of the stunning landscapes of the show are part of Northern Ireland. There are scads of websites dedicated to helping people find and enjoy GoT filming locations. Many of the locations are empty fields where this or that battle was filmed, while others had significant CGI added in post production. There are specialized tours where you can play dress up and act out scenes from the show. There’s even a very expensive opportunity to spend some time with the actual animals who played the Stark children’s direwolves.

*The photos that follow are a mix of screenshots from Game of Thrones and my own photos of the locations I visited for comparison and contrast.*

Dark Hedges

This was probably the shortest stop and yet the most beautiful. The Dark Hedges were a popular site in Northern Ireland even before the show. They also have the honor of being one of the only locations that was not CGI enhanced and are therefore quite recognizable as the King’s Road in seasons 1 and 2, as well as the place where Arya Stark escaped from King’s Landing.

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From the outside, the dark hedges just look like a little stand of trees in between two large fields. The short stretch of road runs through a private farm, and although the patient farmer has to put up with tourists on the public road, he also seems to have a good sense of humor about the situation. Busloads of tourists come through both on Game of Thrones themed tours and on regular tours of the area because it’s famous for more than just it’s show appearance. As a result, parking is scarce. There was supposedly a parking lot some distance away, but everyone simply parked on the side of the road that ran perpendicular to the hedges. There’s not supposed to be any cars on the hedge road itself, but of course there are always people who think the rules don’t apply to them.


It’s a short stop for most tours, so if photography is your goal, you might want to go on your own. I only spent about 30 minutes there and took a lot of photos which I was eventually able to parlay into a version that makes it look totally empty! Yay, photoshop? Otherwise, it’s very easy to see how true to life this set is between the show and the reality.

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Downhill Demesne & Mussenden Temple

Here is the filming location of Dragonstone in Season 2. Downhill Strand is the place where the seven gods of Westeros were sacrificed by Lady Melisandre. Dragonstone was the ancestral home of House Targaryen and current stronghold of the Stannis Baratheon. The scene in question is filmed at night on the beach below, so there’s no real way to see it in the show. Nonetheless, it seems that the tourism board has installed statues of the seven on the beach for eager fans to see. I didn’t make it down to the beach, but rather came through the Downhill Demesne gardens and grounds. If you want to see the beach, I think the A2 road goes there pretty directly.

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We entered via Bishop’s Gate and enjoyed the gardens with a variety of flowering bushes and trees, water features and stonework. Following the trail, we came upon an open area where the ruins of the old manor stood. Finally, walking all the way to the cliff edge, I found Mussenden Temple. Contrary to it’s name, it was never a temple, merely modeled after one. It was in fact a library. It is possible to enter the “temple” during the day, but by the time we arrived it was locked up for the night.

Dunluce (again)

I did not actually realize it at the time, since it didn’t show up on my initial searches for GoT locations, but Dunluce Castle was also Pyke Castle of House Grayjoy on the Iron Islands. I had to look it up and it turns out this is one of the locations that was extreme CGI. I would say more that Dunluce was the inspiration rather than the location, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. I wrote more about Dunluce in my description of the Causeway Route.

Castle Ward

This was one of the places I was most looking forward to seeing, and turned into the greatest disappointment. It’s advertised as “the real life Winterfell” and while it was technically the place where Winterfell was filmed… CGI.

In all fairness, one of the reasons I did not enjoy the stop was that we were experiencing some of the hardest and most vicious rain of the entire trip that day. Ireland kind of always rains. For some reason, I thought that was like Seattle rain which is really just heavy mist and no native Seattlite owns an umbrella (at least not for rain). I had a travel umbrella and I had rain booties to keep my shoes dry and I thought that would be enough. Mostly it was. There was one terrible soaking I got while on a ferry, but other than that, I’d been mostly dry or at least only merely damp.

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Not so this day. The rain was opaque. It was as though the sky was trying to be the sea. In addition, the signage for where to go and park in the sprawling acreage of Castle Ward is not clear. I followed the signs for Winterfell and wound up in a very small parking lot which in retrospect might have been staff parking, but we were so lost by then that I just gave up and parked anyway. (Now I know we should have parked at the Shore Parking Lot, but it was not obvious in any way when we drove in that day) It turned out to still be a long walk from the trail head to the actual “Winterfell” area, and on a beautiful day, or even a merely drizzly day it probably would have been a lovely walk through the National Trust. It’s still very pretty, but it was harder to appreciate while wet.

Another reason I think I was disappointed is that I’ve been to Hobbiton in New Zealand. There are plenty of LOTR locations you can visit there that are just unchanged landscape and like Northern Ireland, they are beautiful and worth seeing, just… not like the movies. Hobbiton, on the other hand, was purpose built (twice) for the LOTR and Hobbit movies. Although the farmer who owned the land originally didn’t want permanent structures, after seeing the huge influx of tourism money, he decided to keep them after all.

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Thus, walking around Hobbiton, you feel like you are THERE. I knew that most of the locations I visited for GoT were not altered for the show or for tourism, but Winterfell was so highly advertised as this great experience, like being in Winterfell, stepping into the show, that I imagined it would be at least a little like Hobbiton, and give me a sense of being at the Stark family home.

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When I finally arrived at “Winterfell” I felt very let down. It looked like a reconstructed historical village, the kind that kids take school field trips to see. I expect that it was meant to be a replica of the original Castle Ward. It wasn’t ugly or anything, it just wasn’t at all like Winterfell.

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There are a ton of pay to play style activities at the Winterfell center. You can take an archery class, an axe throwing class, rent a bicycle and tour the park while wearing a cape and a special GoT messenger bag that purportedly takes you to 20 different filming locations within the grounds, most of which are “this tree” or “that field”. I don’t want to diminish from anyone who enjoys this kind of experience. If that is your jam, rock on. For me, a place has to be cool for more than just being the canvas on which CGI was painted. In addition, I was traveling with an older person who simply wasn’t up for lots of hikes or bikes.

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I wanted to simply see the grounds and enjoy the castle. The thing is… it’s not really there. The closest you come is one short tower and part of a wall that kind of look like Winterfell if you squint. In the courtyard there were a dozen or so cars and a huge tent, which made getting decent photos of the type that are shown on the website nearly impossible. This is the closest angle of any building that I found to resemble the castle on the show (show: top, reality: bottom). The resemblance is there, but the feel was lacking.

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In addition to the experience selling shops, there was a small art gallery and a gift shop. I spent a long time hiding in the replica ruins of an old mill waiting for another torrent to pass long enough to walk again. The rain was so extensive that the ground was almost entirely underwater.

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It just goes to show that managing expectations is extremely important. I think I would have been able to overlook the disappointment of either the weather or the failure to be anything like Winterfell, but I wasn’t able to overcome them both and I left feeling profoundly damp in shoes and spirits.

Inch Abbey

Thankfully, that day I had one more GoT location to visit, and it was the ruins of an old abby, which it’s almost impossible for me to feel let down by. The scene is where Robb Stark’s bannermen rallied to their leader after taking victory (and Jaime Lannister prisoner) at the Battle of the Whispering Wood. While Winterfell had made the cut onto my list because of my (mistaken) belief that it would be a grand immersive experience, Inch Abbey made the list just for being old ruins.

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The first traces of a sacred building on this site go all the way back to 800 C.E., although it is thought that the monestary of Inis Cumhscraigh (as it was called at the time) was mainly earth and wood, so little of it remains today. The beautiful stonework remains that makes this site stand out were not built until 1180-88. It remained an active catholic monastery until 1542 when Henry the Eighth left the Catholic church because he wanted a divorce and then forced everyone under his rule to become Church of England.

The rain had eased back significantly, and one of the local tour bus drivers even offered us spare ponchos as his passengers were offloading. The tour group was rather amusing, and seemed to be having an absolute blast. They were equipped with cloaks and replica swords which appeared to be blunt steel, not plastic or wood. The tour guide, like many of those working on GoT tourist sites, had been an extra on the show and enjoyed telling stories from being on set.

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They all gathered together and, at the guide’s prompting, everyone bent the knee to one lady, swords aloft and shouted “the queen in the north!”, echoing the original scene in which Robb was named such for the first time, but with a nod to the fact that Sansa (at that time) had taken up her brother’s title. I didn’t reach the group in time to catch that pose, but I did happen to get another that shows off their costumes and props. Once the group photos were over, they had a few minutes to go and take individual poses around the ruins before being herded back onto the bus.

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At one point the guide expressed a thought that had not occured to me as a fan, and I want to share that as well. I think a lot of fans were disappointed by the final battle of Winterfell because it was SO DARK (among other things, so many other things). The guide for the group that was at Inch Abbey that day had been an extra in the final battle and talked about the extreme conditions that the cast and crew worked in: not sleeping, being wet and cold all the time, running up and down over and over again until they were just physically wrecked. It was something he put a lot of work into and it was really hard for him to turn around and face the criticism online.


I still think the shows writers, producers, and cinematographers FAILED in every way for that scene, but I now I also think about all the people who didn’t have any creative control, or any idea what the final product would look like who were just excited to work on such a popular and groundbreaking show. In addition, the tragedy that is season 8 has not stopped most fans from continuing to love the series, the characters, and the world of Westeros. We complain a lot online, but I think it’s important to use fan voices to say thanks as well. So, thanks to all the cast and crew who worked their asses off and had no control over what happened in the scripting and editing process.


The group didn’t stay long, and soon we had the ruins to ourselves and I was able to tramp around with impunity, my umbrella enough to keep the now light rain off. The ruins themselves are stunning, and I think that the rain brought out the beautiful contrast of the stones and the grass that would not have been as strong on a sunny day. The stones themselves are fascinating as you can see the remnants of interior structures long since crumbled and it was exactly the kind of film location I had been hoping to see combining real life beauty with my fandom.

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Inch Abbey was the final stop on both my Game of Thrones self-tour, and the Northern Ireland portion of the road trip. We tried to go to Newgrange on the way back to Dublin, but there was a series of unfortunate events involving Germans and cars (why is it always Germans I have car problems with?) that only Lemony Snicket could possibly narrate which prevented us from doing so. I did learn that you have to go there and put your name on the wait list in person. You can’t make reservations ahead of time and you can’t go without signing up… so. This seems like an event that it might be easier to do with a tour group than on your own. Maybe next time? Meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed my sojourn through Northern Ireland, and I hope you’ll continue to join me as the story takes me back into the south.

 

Northern Island: Natural Beauty

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Northern Ireland is stunning. I was incredibly lucky to have very nice weather on the days we were exploring the country and the coast, but I can’t imagine it is any less stunning when it’s cloudy and ominous than when it’s sunny and blue and you can see Scotland from the cliffs. This isn’t only wild, untamed scenery. It includes some ruins which have begun to merge with the landscape and some cultivated gardens that show the lovely flowers to their best advantage. In the tradition of saving the best for last, you have to wait till the end to see the Giant’s Causeway.

In Between

There are places in Ireland that everyone wants to go to, me too, but driving from one of those to the next could mean endless hours of highways OR it could mean tiny back roads and mini stop offs to lesser known, but still beautiful sights. Guess which one I chose? Here are a few of the in between places that were added to the itinerary purely because we wanted somewhere to stop between points A and B.

Grianan of Aileach

I almost forgot about this stop. For shame. It was a bit of an afterthought on the day  we visited as well. On the road between the Belleek Pottery factory and the city of Derry, we drove up a little side road to find this ring fort. The view from the top is breathtaking, and it’s just my type of mountain top that you can drive up and park on top! There were not too many other people out, but there was a small cafe style food truck hoping to sell some refreshments. There’s no toilet facilities however, so we declined.

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The fort was built in the late 700s-early 800s, raided by Vikings in the early 900s, and finally destroyed around 1100. The restoration project started in 1870 and is protected and maintained by the Office of Public Works today. It’s one of many tiny little treasures that make driving a much more appealing option to bus tours. We only spent about 15 minutes at the fort, just long enough to gasp at the view and enjoy the archaeology.

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Glenarm & Glenarife

These two stops were along the west coast of Northern Ireland, after we finished the Causeway and before we arrived in Belfast. Glenarm is a beautiful castle estate (not a ruin) with cultivated walled gardens. Genarife is a beautiful forest hike with a waterfall.

Glenarm Castle is related to Dunluce Castle, a ruin located on the Causeway Coast which I’ll get to that later in the post. The story goes that in 1639 as the McDonnell family were waiting for dinner one evening at Dunluce, the kitchen – along with kitchen staff – fell into the sea. After that, the family commissioned a new castle to be built on their land at Glenarm which was finally completed some 80 years later. Viscount and Viscountess Dunluce and their family still live there today. Tours are offered of the public portions of the castle, usually between 12-4pm (although the website gives a lot of COVID closure warnings these days).

While I’m sure the inside of the castle is stunning, we were much more interested in the walled garden on our visit and so I can’t tell you anything else about the home. The garden is well worth the visit, however. It is one of Ireland’s oldest walled gardens and it is impeccably maintained. There are dozens and dozens of beautiful examples of flowers, fruits and vegetables, a lovely miniature maze, a small “mountain”, and multiple lovely statues placed throughout.

The afternoon we visited was quite gray and rainy. We were forced to wear our outer shoe rain booties and carry around umbrellas, but I personally think that raindrops on flowers make for beautiful scenery (and photos) so I wasn’t too upset.

Sidenote: We lost MS Video Maker, then YouTube Video Editor and now Google Photos has decided to make the photo slide shows vertical for some unholy reason, I had to go find a quick and dirty way to make a slideshow. I’m sorry that the quality is a little rough. If one of the hip people could clue me in on what we’re all using these days, I’d really appreciate it.

Glenarife was a bit of a back track for us on the road trip, but we had made the decision to go there second so we could have dinner at the restaurant inside the park. I plan to write a separate post about the food in Ireland, but I want to stress that planning meals on any vacation is really important, but especially on a road trip through the countryside. If you’re staying in a city, it can be easy to just head down any major street and walk into any restaurant that looks interesting. If you’re driving (or busing) around, then taking time to find where there are restaurants and WHEN THEY ARE OPEN can save you a lot of heartache and petrol station snack meals.

There is not a lot in the way of eateries on this particular stretch of the Irish coastline, so when I found the Laragh Lodge attached to a waterfall I was excited to get two birds with one parking lot, so to speak. We arrived at the Lodge around dinner time and were quite surprised to find the place very full. They had a wedding party in. Thankfully, there was a dining room off to the side for the general public, so we could still eat there. Because the day was drawing to a close, we decided to go on our waterfall walk before dinner. Same gray rainy day, still, but the raindrops had mostly stopped.

The trail leads a over a little creek which looked like it was made of Guinness, and up a slight hill. It’s a short walk from the parking lot to the falls. There are longer hikes around the enormous forest park for those who want to spend more time in the great outdoors. I personally was there for the waterfall and the food.

When you look up the Glenarife falls online or go to their website, you see pictures of a pretty little fall with usually 2-3 streams down the broad rock face. When I was there, it had been raining. A lot. No cute trickle of water, not even a stout fall, no — that day, the torrent could be used to power a whole hydroelectric station. Waterfalls release negative ions, which reduce depression and stimulate the brain and body. I know sounds kind of like pseudo-science bunk, but it’s been tested I swear! #waterfallinlove

One Day on the Causeway Coast

The Giant’s Causeway may be the most popular thing on the north coast, but it’s far from the only one. We spent an entire day from dawn to dusk travelling the Causeway Road, visiting both it’s famous and less well known attractions. Technically the Coastal Route extends from Derry to Belfast and would therefore include my stops at Downhill Demesne, Bushmills, and Glenarm, but I am focusing on those parts most immediately surrounding the Giant’s Causeway itself.

Carrick a Rede

The rope bride of Carrick a Rede is often included on a tour of the Giant’s Causeway. After my initial research about things like parking and ticket times, we decided that the best way to do the bridge was very first thing in the morning. There is a parking lot near (1km) from the bridge access, but it’s small and fills up fast. Alternate parking is, of course, farther away. In addition, you must buy tickets in advance and reserve a ticket time. If you miss your window, then you don’t get to go. The bridge can only accommodate so many people at once, so the staff on site work hard to make sure everyone can have a good and safe experience. Weather is also important. As you may have seen in my Aran Islands post, the Irish weather on the coast is extremely fickle, and tourists aren’t able to enter the bridge if the weather makes conditions unsafe.

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I was so happy that our weather was clear and blue. We showed up to the parking lot with plenty of time to walk. We had no trouble parking since we were in the first group. There was a little confusion at the ticket booth, a little bottle neck where we all clustered together waiting for them to let us in already! The other advantage to early morning tickets is that the tour buses almost never show up that early, so those of us who had made this effort really wanted to get the jump.

Finally, our e-tickets were scanned and we started the hike from the gate to the bridge. It’s not a hard hike, but there is an upward incline and many stairs. The great news is that the whole path walks along the cliffs and so you spend the hike up with the view to your left, and the hike down with the view to your right. Almost all the photos I took were on the way back down since we were in a hurry going up.

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The bridge was built by salmon fishermen way back in the day because the little volcanic island had much better fishing than the mainland. The bridge today is purely a tourist attraction, but you can see the remains of the small fishing “village” on the island after you cross. There is a gate at the point where the trail meets the bridge manned by park staff who ensure that the safety measures are followed and to help people who may be nervous. The narrow (one person wide) rope and plank bridge is 100 ft above the sea and sways and wobbles as you walk on it. It is recommended that you and your travel buddies take pictures with the camera holder on solid ground while the other poses on the bridge. There’s no time for perfect Instagram poses, though, because while the staff will let you take a couple snaps, they urge everyone to keep going. Being so narrow, the bridge cannot accommodate cross traffic, and so a small group goes to the island, then when the bridge is clear a small group returns.

I could have spent the whole day on the beautiful little island. It was just such perfect weather and the grass was soft and fresh. I took a small infinity of photos of the sea and the sky, as well as the little flowers and volcanic rocks. It was only with great reluctance that I finally left to get to the next stops on the day’s itinerary.

I found a slightly alternate route back that took me up a little farther and gave some spectacular views down onto the path and island, and I positively delighted in the tiny flowers and busy bees along the cliff-side path on the way back down.

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Dunseverick Castle & Falls

Along the Causeway Road are a large number of small sights. The rope bridge and the Giant’s Causeway are the main stops on every tourist bus tour, and in order to avoid those crowds, we decided to spend the prime tourism hours going to the smaller locales. The first one of these as we drove westward was Dunseverick Castle and Falls. What? Castle ruins and waterfalls? in one place? Twist my arm.

Dunseverick has been a seat of power in Ireland from the 400s! It was a ring fort for a bit, and supposedly visited by St. Patrick himself. Invaded by Vikings, and contested by clans, it was owned by the O’Cahan (anglicized as McCain or O’Kane) family until it was destroyed by CROMWELL (ugh, that guy again) in 1642. All that remains of the castle is the ruins of the gate lodge.

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There’s a long walking trail that also runs alongside the cliffs which some people choose to hike, and you can access the ruins this way. I was not particularly interested in the route from parking spot to ruin, but the falls looked decently close, so I hopped a stile and headed off through the nettles to find a waterfall. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Stiles are meant to be hopped, they’re just ways to step over fences that humans can do but animals can’t. Also, nettles only hurt you if you grab them (which I didn’t) or fall on them (which I did, ouch).

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Nonetheless, the day persisted in being superb and I found the low and wide falls amid the dark brown and black volcanic rock. I don’t think I’ve ever seen falls along the seaside, so while they were a bit short, they made up for that by being unique.

Bushfoot Beach

There are a few “beaches” along the coast as well, but not especially the kind you think of for sandcastles or bathing. We looked for Runkerry Beach, but I wasn’t able to figure out how to get the car there. Bushfoot Beach was adjacent to a golf club so we parked there and meandered down to have a look. It was small, and cute, with a nice bench to sit on and rest. Locals were out walking dogs along the path, and there was a river that came down and flowed into the sea right where we were. It wasn’t a highlight, but it was a beautiful and quiet place to have a little rest before the next stop.

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Dunluce Castle

Sound familiar? Yeah! This is the same Dunluce castle that dropped it’s kitchen and staff into the sea, prompting the McDonnells to move to Glenarm. The McDonnells are not actually Irish, they’re Scottish originally.

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In case it wasn’t abundantly clear by now, I am an absolute sucker for ruins. Literally, if I could take a vacation that was made of waterfalls and ruins with a few good restaurants, I would be in heaven. I try to look up the history and learn things about the ruins I visit. They often have fascinating secrets or at least interesting stories. In the case of Dunluce, the kitchen staff falling into the sea might be the most interesting thing that ever happened to it until it was used by Led Zeplin as album art.

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There were some very informative signs on site, showing artist renditions of what the house and grounds may have looked like when it was alive, and there’s a very dry Wikipedia article about the Earls and the invasions. I could recite that for you, but why? A far more amusing resource is this Belfast Telegraph article. Otherwise, please enjoy the photos!

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Giants Causeway

This is what we’re here for right? If you’ve come all the way to the tippy top of Northern Ireland you are here for THIS and everything else is pretty much frosting and sprinkles. Don’t get me wrong, everything else was wonderful, and I’m extremely grateful that I had the chance to drive myself around to the variety of stops. If you can’t rent a car or don’t want to drive on the left, there are tour buses that go to Carrick-a-Rede, Dunluce, and the Giant’s Causeway in a day, but after having done a driving tour and a bus tour (later) I have to say that driving in Ireland is (mostly) very easy and pleasant and having the freedom is well worth it.

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The Giant’s Causeway is a totally unique geographical formation of honeycomb-like stones reaching from the base of high grassy cliffs out into the sea. These formations are called basalt columns, and are made by lava cooling. As a not-geologist, I can’t really understand, let alone explain why some lava makes pumice, and some makes lava tubes, and some makes these cool hexagonal shapes, but I trust that there are geologists who can. The short and easy version is that something in the molecular makeup of basalt causes it to form cracks in these shapes when it cools rapidly. Probably why these formations are almost always found near water.

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Although the Giant’s Causeway is by far the most famous, there are many other examples of basalt columns around the world, so you can still see them even if you don’t make it here. I was most fascinated to see there’s one here in Korea, on Jeju Island, that looks like a tiny version of the one in Ireland. It’s not a popular tourist attraction yet, so my tour didn’t go there when I visited Jeju several years ago. I’ll look for it if I ever go back.

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Today we understand the science behind these fascinating formations, but when humans first came into the area, they incorporated the stones into the mythology of Ireland. I talked briefly about the pre-history mythology in my Two Irelands post. The beginning of Ireland was fraught with many races of monsters, giants, gods, and fairies, each one supplanted by the next. The 5th race was the Tuatha Dé Danann (from which almost all modern fairies seem to be descended), and the 6th and final were the humans. The stories of Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill) seem to be set toward the beginning of the humans arrival into Ireland since he fights with giants and at least one of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

The myth, like all myths, is tricky, and not every source agrees on the details. Most of us are more familiar with the Arthurian legends, and as anyone who has tried to sort out the details knows, it’s not possible. So, I’m presenting a vague and “best guess” version of Finn McCool here.

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He was born into if not actual royalty, then the next best thing. His father’s clan was said to be descendants of the Fir Bolg (the 4th race) and his mother was recorded as a granddaughter of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Finn himself became the leader of the Fianna, a kind of warrior band, and had all kinds of fantastic feats attributed to him. You can’t go anywhere in Ireland without finding some piece of local Finn legend. According to the most popular stories, he (like Arthur) is not dead, but merely sleeping in a secret cave and will return in Ireland’s greatest hour of need.

When it comes to the Giant’s Causeway, there are still a few versions of the tale, but the most common involves a Giant named Benadonner. Benadonner was a fierce Scottish warrior and a giant (one of the races previously driven from Ireland). One day Finn challenged him to a fight, but the giant didn’t want to cross from Scotland and made excuses about the sea as an obstacle.

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Finn then built a bridge between Ireland and Scotland. This is one of the closest points between Ireland and Scotland, only about 28 miles to the nearest Scottish peninsula. When the bridge was complete, Finn sent a message to Benadonner that he had no more excuses, so come along and fight me!

20190808_185238However, when Finn saw Benadonner crossing, he realized the giant was much bigger than he previously thought. He fled the coast, retreating into his home. His wife Sadhbh (omg Gaelic, amirite?, that’s probably pronounced “Saive”, maybe?) heard what he’d done and quickly dressed her husband up as a baby.

When Benadonner came to find him, he saw the disguised Finn alone in the house and thought to himself, “If this is the infant, what must the father be like?”, and quickly fled back to Scotland, tearing up the bridge in his haste, leaving only the remnants at either end: The Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, and Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish Isle of Staffa, named for Finn himself. (Although the nearest point is only  28 miles from the Causeway in Ireland, Fingal’s Cave is 82.5 miles as the giant flees).

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Whether you are drawn to the science or the more whimsical heroic tale, there’s no doubt that the natural beauty of the Causeway is breathtaking. We scheduled 4 hours for it and that was barely enough. It’s a hard choice to make as far as what to see in a single day. If I had it to do over, I might have scheduled one day for just the Causeway, and a second day for all the other stops. We planned to arrive around 3pm so that we would be walking in about the time that most of the tour buses were walking out.

I found some shuttle bus information online, but it turned out not to be as accurate as I’d hoped and in the end, we decided that paying for parking at the visitors center was going to be better for us convenience-wise than trying to take the shuttle bus from Bushmills, and honestly only slightly more expensive. If you happen to have a National Trust membership or possibly even a tourist pass, you can get steep discounts on things like the shuttles, the parking and the entry tickets (many are free included), and I also looked into buying that, but since only Northern Ireland is run by the UK National Trust, we just weren’t going to go to enough places to make pass worthwhile. If I were to plan a trip that included even one more day in the UK, I think it would have been.

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The parking lot is enormous and the walkways funnel tourists to the Visitor’s Center. You don’t have to go there. The outdoor parts of the park are FREE (after you pay for parking or the shuttle bus) and the visitor’s center is like 13£. I opted to spend my time and money seeing the sights in person, but I can see if you perhaps had bad weather, the visitor’s center might be appealing.

Another travel blogger advised me to take the red trail from the Visitor’s Center to the Causeway. There is a main road (paved wide road) that goes very directly. People who are in a hurry may use this, and there is another shuttle bus that runs between the Causeway and the Visitor’s center which I think is very nice for those with limited walking ability. However, the red trail leads up along the cliff tops before descending to the sea, and it has some really stunning views. It’s much easier to walk it going down than going up, so starting on the red trail and then using the wide seaside road to return seemed the way to go.

The main trail starts by going through a tunnel near the visitor’s center, while the red trail starts before the tunnel and off to one side. There are signs. It is marked as a more demanding route, but that is only in comparison to the smooth wide paved main path. It’s about a mile (UK, back to imperial not metric!) and there are maybe 100 stairs going down. I thought we could take the shuttle bus back up, but that stops running when the visitor’s center closes at 4pm, so if you are mobility limited, make sure you plan your visit earlier in the day that I did.

The red trail is not for those afraid of heights. It goes along the edge and has some harrowing narrow paths and steep steps on the climb down. I thoroughly enjoyed the walk which included yet more stunning cliff-side views, a million tiny flowers and the little bugs that live in them (one of my favorite subject for photography), and a chance to see the organ pipes formation and the giant’s boot on the way down (something those who take the main path would have to climb up to see).


It was charming to see the tourists delighting in hopping from rock to rock like a childhood game of hopscotch. I climbed as far out to the edge as I could, marveling at the geometrical patterns and the tiny lichens and barnacles living there.

Finally, as dusk loomed, we headed back up the road, enjoying the tide pools and sunset over the water. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Giant’s Causeway is the jewel in the crown of Northern Ireland’s natural beauty and I’m grateful that I was able to experience it on such a beautiful day.

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Northern Ireland: Cultural Legacy

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Going into Northern Ireland I was not really sure what to expect. When I was growing up, the North was known for it’s hard life and angry militant (terrorist?) political movements: The Troubles. There are three great reasons to visit the North: the stunning natural beauty, the unique and historical culture, and Game of Thrones. That last one seems a lot less important after the series finale aired disappointing literally every fan, but dragons are always cool. Today’s post focuses on the culture and more recent history. I wrote a much more detailed account of the two Irelands what seems like an eon ago (before the Plague), and while I prefer to focus on my experiences while traveling, sometimes those experiences include some painful history and deep thinking. 

Belleek Pottery

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The first stop on my road trip after crossing the unimposing border (marked mainly by the sudden change from Euros to Pounds at the petrol stations) was the Belleek Pottery factory. I didn’t know anything about Belleek Pottery. I know we had some in the house growing up, but I guess it went with my stepfather when he did.

Founded in 1857, it is the oldest pottery factory in Ireland (either of them), and was initially started because of the availability of special mineral ingredients locally. Eventually, it became more common to source materials from Cornwall or Norway, but the unique Belleek style has continued to make the pottery famous and sought after.

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The factory was in holiday mode during our tour so there were only a few employees on site. Perhaps this made for an emptier experience, but I thought it was nice to be able to focus on a single work table or look closely at the pottery without being rushed or in someone’s way. Our tour guide walked us through the process of making the beautiful and unique ceramics from the artistic conceptualization to the making of molds and refining of pieces. We had the chance to see workers attaching separate pieces and refining the details from the mold by hand. We were also offered the chance to break the rejects, since the factory will never allow “seconds” or flawed pieces out into the world.

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However lovely the molded pieces are, they are as nothing compared to the beautiful hand crafted flowers and lacy woven baskets that represent iconic Belleek. We had the chance to see some of the craftspeople at work on these fine details. The flowers and detailed add ons are simply stunning tiny craftsmanship, but the weaving was simply the most unique. The clay used for the basket strands is blended in such a way to make it slightly elastic and so less likely to break when manipulated over and over. Don’t try this with your regular clay in pottery class, kids.

The painting center was no less beautiful. Each finished piece is painted by hand to give a unique finish to every piece and to make sure that the little green shamrocks are just right. At the end of our tour we were let out into a small museum showcasing the evolution of Belleek styles over the years. The special pieces showed even more detail in the handmade flowers, but my absolute favorite was a pearl glaze that was only in fashion for a few brief years.

I doubt I would have chosen to tour Belleek on my own, but nonetheless, I did enjoy the trip. Non-solo trips can be a mix of “well, I wouldn’t have picked that myself, but cool”, and “yes, please!” kinds of stops. While Belleek was the former, Bushmills was definitely the later.

Bushmills

Bushmills has been in my family and house for as long as I can recall. It was my grandmother’s whisky of choice and hers was the immigrant family with some deep dies to the Irish diaspora culture in America. She passed when I was 17. It was a very sudden turn from being old and chronically ill, but lively – to hospitalized, comatose and gone. I know, morbid, but it was about a week of me sleeping on the hospital room floor and then it was over. Her children (my mom, aunt and uncles) and I shared out the remains of her last bottle of Bushmills while we told stories about our memories of her. Bushmills holds a place in my heart as well as my tastebuds.

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There is no photography allowed inside the distillery to protect their trade secrets, but we had a fun tour that took us from mash to cask. It was very interesting to me to do this after my lovely brewery tours in Belgium since the basic process to start both beer and whisky is very similar. The malting, mashing, and fermenting is more or less the same (a great deal more similar than to wine-making), the shiny and hot copper stills is where spirits take a hard (pun intended) left turn from beer.

The still room in Bushmills felt like walking into a sauna. The entire room was warmed and steamed as the low alcohol “wash” is heated and pressurized into boiling at about 78C (much less than the boiling point of water). This causes the alcohol to evaporate where it is caught in the tubes and condensed back into liquid form in a new reservoir while the water remains in liquid state below.

Amid the giant copper contraptions was a small and extremely climate controlled glass walled room where a further refinement process took place in small batches under intense supervision. Neither the large copper nor the smaller stills can be left unattended, so a highly trained employee has to spend hours a day in that hot and sweaty room just to make sure that the resultant distilled spirits are correctly balanced and purified.

The main method of distillation is well known and basic still kits can be assembled fairly easily (that’s where moonshine comes from after all), but each of the worlds best distilleries has a few proprietary methods and Bushmills is no exception. The tour guide did an excellent job answering all my questions about the science without giving away any trade secrets.

(The photo is an old copper still on display in the tasting room.)

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After the stills, it’s still not whiskey. The magic that turns white lighting into that dark amber ambrosia is cask ageing. This might be my favorite part of any alcohol tour (ok, except for the tasting) when we get to enter the cool and dark rooms filled floor to ceiling with dark barrels and simply redolent with the luxurious smells. Our guide explained the different types of casks used to flavor and age the whisky and showed us examples of the changes in color and volume over time. Not only does the wood of the cask color and flavor the alcohol, but the alcohol leaks out through the porous wood over the years. This loss is referred to as the Angel’s Share (I guess Irish Angels like a wee dram, too) and in areas like Ireland accounts to 2-3% loss per year. A 50 gallon barrel can be reduced to less than 15 gallons in a 25 year age! Those heavy price tags are not only taking into account the amount of time the whisky must be stored before sold, but also the sheer volume of alcohol lost to the angels.

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However, the longer it ages, the more the sharp and harsh flavors of the distilled moonshine soften and the more of the flavors of the wood become absorbed. Mostly 10-12 years is enough to get a good mellow flavor for the non-aficionado. Less if you’re planning to mix it with (shudder) coke. In addition, some of what evaporates is yet more water and the finished product of maturation can be between 115-150 proof. But wait, Kaine, I’ve had Bushmills and it’s only 80 proof, what gives? Well, the factory puts some lovely fresh Irish spring water (honestly I don’t know where the water comes from, but it sounds nice?) into the mix before bottling to create a consistent and ideal proofing. This is for two reasons: product consistency is super important to a brand, so they do need to be sure that all bottles are the same. Second, and to my mind more importantly, you simply cannot enjoy the taste of the whisky at 150 proof! Even 100 proof is pushing it.

The great debate about whether you should add water to your whisky is almost hilarious in this context, knowing that the distillery did it for you. However, 80 proof is simply their best guess where most people would be able to enjoy the flavors ideally, so if you wanna add a little water to enhance your own flavor experience, go for it. Bushmills itself served a small pitcher of water along side the whisky in the tasting room for just that purpose, so obviously they don’t mind.

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I really enjoyed the 12 year distillery reserve (lower right, sky blue label), a unique flavor profile and of course not sold anywhere but the distillery… literally, not even in the duty free shops. I heavily debated buying a bottle but there were no small sizes and I knew that without the duty free sealed bags, I’d have to try and lug it in the checked bag, not to mention lugging it around the rest of my Ireland trip (not even half over yet), and the fact that if you want to bring more than 1L of booze over borders you have to figure out how to pay them taxes (not a huge burden, but …). A smaller bottle would have meant easier packing or just enjoying it in Ireland, but alas. I did end up with a bottle of the fantastic Dingle Peninsula Gin from the duty free, which almost makes up for this loss.

Derry

Also known as Londonderry, it is the second largest city in Northern Ireland and home of The Troubles. I am going to have to get political/historical again because almost all of the major landmarks in Derry are related to the Troubles in some way or another.

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The first big one we came upon was the Peace Bridge: a beautiful bridge that eases pedestrian traffic and makes for a lovely riverside view. It’s easy to think of the clashes in Ireland as being in the distant past, but they are not.  The Peace Bridge was only built in 2011 and it’s construction was an attempt to ease communication and interaction between the unionists (stay in the UK) ‘Waterside’ on the east bank and the nationalists (join Southern Ireland) ‘Cityside’ on the west bank.

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Mere steps from the riverside is the Guildhall. This is an iconic work of architecture built originally in 1890 to be a ceremonial government house / town hall. It’s been destroyed a couple times in fires or bombings, but the restoration project of 2012 has been very successful. To be honest, I thought it was a restructured church given it’s beautiful stained glass windows and enormous pipe organ, but I’m told it’s intention has always been secular in nature. There were several memorials inside dedicated to those who fought (and died) during various stages of revolution against the British occupation. Since at the moment of writing this, the unionists still outnumber the nationalists, that occupation is ongoing, and while the conflict hardly ever results in whole historic buildings being bombed these days, it is far from over.

However, even if you aren’t interested in Irish history or politics, the Guildhall is worth a visit for the exquisite stained glass in every available window.

Bogside Murals

From the Guildhall, we headed over to the Bogside neighborhood to see the murals. Bogside is … perhaps more politically relevant in 2020 (as I write this) than it was when I visited a year ago. The global Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality have highlighted clashes between state sponsored police and citizens who are tired of being treated as less than.

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I gave my own detailed account of the IRA in the Two Irelands post before, and then as now, I ask people to remember that any comparisons between the Troubles in Ireland and the BLM protests in America should only be examined as “shitty police state problems” and NOT used as a way to compare white (Irish) struggles to black (African American) struggles. Just. Don’t.

For those less familiar with American culture, it is a common white supremacist tactic to argue that white Irish immigrants in America had it just as bad or worse than black slaves (lol). Lots of really well meaning white people get caught up in this because at first blush it sounds very reasonable. It isn’t. (You can find more details here,here, and here as a starting place.)

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In this case, the discriminated against minority were the Catholics who had all manner of extremely bigoted laws passed to keep them down including limiting their employment, education, marriage and property access. It was only marginally a religious issue, as the lines of unionist and nationalist were also generally drawn along church lines. The nationalist Catholics were understandably pissed about it. When protest marches were banned, some marched anyway and were brutally attacked by the police. This was in 1968 so the actions of the police were filmed and shown on television, prompting demonstrations of solidarity at the Guildhall and elsewhere.

As the civil unrest went on, off duty police officers in plain clothes attacked protesters who were involved in marches or demonstrations. Uniformed on duty officers refused to protect the protesters from the assault. By January of 1969, police were breaking into protesters homes to assault them and the residents of Bogside erected barricades to keep the police out, declaring a “Free Derry”.

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Enter “The Apprentice Boys”. I cannot make this stuff up. No, they aren’t an obviously white nationalist group like the Proud Boys, but… come on. They are a Protestant fraternal (men only -read: patriarchal) order, however, and at the time in 1969, they enjoyed keeping those dirty Catholics “in their place”. Something something shoe fits.

The annual Apprentice Boys parade in August 1969 came so close to Free Derry that a fight erupted. Guess which side the police took. The police effectively dismantled the barricades, letting the Apprentice Boys into the neighborhood and leading the Catholic residents of Bogside to include the police in their targets.

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A three day riot ensued. The neighborhood was flooded with tear gas and well over 1,000 residents were injured in some way. Police from neighboring areas were brought in, but due to a severe lack of training, they only made it worse. On the third day, the British Army came in and basically separated the three sides: Apprentice Boys (Protestant), Bogside residents (Catholic) and police (Protestant) — while allowing the Bogside residents to maintain their barricades (probably the only reason it worked).

Free Derry was maintained for three years by armed IRA soldiers patrolling to keep British soldiers and  Irish police out. This was not a time of peace, but of intensified armed conflict between the British state and the IRA. Free Derry was eventually dismantled after the massacre of Bloody Sunday where 14 people (13 outright and one later from injuries) were shot down by British soldiers during a protest march against the practice of imprisonment without trial. The soldiers were exonerated on the basis that they claimed to be shooting at armed targets.

If I took out the names and dates, these details could be from any number of American cities in 2020. I will not apologize for the comparison, or for getting political in my blog. We are repeating historical mistakes by continuing to find those among us to “other” and diminish based on pseudo-science and hate-fueled religious arguments. Derry may be a lovely place to have a holiday now, covered with boutique shopping and delectable cafe eateries and pubs, but 50 years ago it was a bloodbath as those who strove for equal rights were murdered by those who valued the status quo.

Do I like the bombings, the riots, the violence employed by the IRA? No… but I understand it – why it happened and why it was necessary to achieve equality under the law. What you would do if your country made it so you and your family always have less, are always be behind or under someone “preferred”, and allowed to be beaten or murdered without consequence after decades of peaceful protests and political marches were systematically ignored or criminalized?

I hope that America listens to BLM before it gets any worse because the result of these kinds of clashes are decades of pain and destruction. There is no question that the history being remembered here is one of state sponsored oppression and violence. You cannot visit and be unaffected by the striking contrast between the now peaceful streets and the murals dedicated to the fallen.

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History kept alive in the neighborhoods affected serves to remind us what we are capable of as a species, best and worst. If you travel the world and you skip the hard parts, you’re missing out on a magical opportunity to open your mind and grow your heart. Thanks for coming with me. Stay safe, wear a mask, wash your hands, destroy systemic forms of oppression and end police brutality.

Doolin & The Aran Islands

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The Aran Islands are another quintessential Irish bucket list. There are three, and you can take a boat out to any of them. If you are travelling via tour bus, then the most likely path is from Galway through Rossaveal, but we had a car and decided to go out of Doolin. Doolin itself is spoken of with a kind of reverential awe by those who visit regularly and now I know why. If you are lucky enough to plan your trip to the islands from Doolin instead of Galway, make sure you plan time for some trad music in the evening.

Inis Oírr

We chose to go to Inis Oírr (pronounced roughly “inis sheer”), the closest and smallest of the islands. It seemed like a nice way to see them without being overloaded with tour groups which all go to Inis Mann or Inis Mor. When I was planning the day, I looked at a map of all the things to do and see, mostly ruins but you know I am a sucker for ruins, and I figured I could just rent a bike and ride around to see it all.

It’s also possible to get into the carriage and ride around, but I like to go at my own pace, and the island was neither large nor described as very hilly, so a bike seemed great. I was looking forward to seeing the ruins of the O’Brien castle, the sunken graveyard, and the wrecked battleship. In addition, I was planning to hunt down some Aran knitted wool products because, well, they’re famous. So much I did not know…

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On the day of our ferry tickets, we made it to the parking lot and drove aimlessly looking for a spot for longer than planned. It was with some relief that we made it with a few minutes to spare, or so I thought. I was informed at the ticket office that our ferry had already left! Of course, like every ticketed event, they advised us to arrive 10-15 minutes early and the parking dilemma set us back from that goal, but we were still at least 5 minutes early. I couldn’t believe that they would just leave!

I began to protest and ask about refunds since they left before the scheduled time, and they agreed to put us on another boat. The longer I watched the docks, the more it became obvious that there was almost no order to the ferries at all. It seems like a few boats make the trip, and a few companies sell tickets, but they are not connected. Both going out and returning, we were just put on whatever boat was most convenient and the staff collected a variety of colorful tickets. I suspect that they then use those to collect their passenger fees from the ticket selling companies later. It’s confusing and disorienting and more than a little frustrating, but I guess it works.

It was such a lovely day with clear skies and bright sunshine that my companion wanted to sit on the deck instead of in the covered portion of the boat. There is something to be said for this, as one is much less likely to get seasick on deck, however, one is also much less likely to stay dry. We were hardly out of the harbor when the wind picked up and the waves began to splash in, covering the floor.

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I pulled my shoes up to try and keep dry as the water swirled around. We were not allowed to move once the boat was in motion due to the extreme bouncing, so I was stuck. Then the waves began to come over the side. Small splashes at first, but soon large drenching waves. It began to rain. Sudden hard sheeting buckets of rain combined with waves splashing us in all directions. I did not have any waterproof clothing on whatsoever because the day was so lovely when we were on land. By the time we arrived to the island 30+ minutes later, I was entirely soaked: socks, underwear, everything.

This extreme damper on my mood was not tempered by the fact that the rain had once more evaporated as we pulled into the island harbor and beautiful sunny blue skies prevailed. If anything, it made me even more grumpy. If I’d just sat inside on the boat, I’d have gone from sunny dry land to sunny dry land. Instead I got soaked to the bone with no change of clothes ahead for hours. I declined the carriage and the bike rental shop and immediately set off in the opposite direction of all the other ferry passengers, hoping to find a quiet and empty place to soothe my emotional distress and dry my wet socks.

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I did find a quiet section of beach with no humans around and I traded out my layers of clothing, alternately wearing and sun/wind drying. I managed to go from totally soaking to slightly damp over the course of about an hour. I listened to some music and watched the ocean. I let go of my expectations and my plans, and was finally able/willing to head back toward the cluster of buildings and see what there was to see nearby. I didn’t really have the time or energy to bike around to all the sights, so I just walked. I got to see some of the homes, quaint little cottages all divided by stone walls. I found a sweater shop. I learned a lot more about Aran Knit.

The Aran knitting patterns are unique, especially when combined with a rougher, less treated (more waterproof) type of wool. They were made by fishermen’s wives to stave off the rain, seawater, and cold winds that I had gotten only a tiny taste of on my boat ride over. (I got drenched on a “sunny” day, imagine what it was like for the fishermen?) The tradition is maybe 100-150 years old, and the sheep aren’t from the Aran islands (anymore, not enough sheep). There’s a strong mythology about the types of stitch and patterns in the knit, but it’s mostly from a single source, which always makes me skeptical.

Whether or not the patterns link to certain clans or whether the original ladies who knitted them ascribed the mythological meaning to bring health, wealth and such to the wearer we can’t be sure. What is sure is that the distinctive patterns are unique and in high demand. Such high demand that there’s now factories churning out machine made versions of the traditional fisherman’s wear. You can order them online, you can buy them in any city in Ireland. I doubt any casual observer will know the difference. The machine made sweaters are lovely and affordable. I didn’t want one.

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I perused the shop’s offerings, observing tags and occasionally asking questions. The hand knitted sweaters were truly lovely, but they started around 100€ each. I thought a lot about how often I’d wear a really thick wool sweater in my life. It would be great for the 20 minutes I’m outside each day in the depths of winter, but then it would be too hot to wear inside. Plus, I’m already quite fluffy, and bulky clothes are not flattering on my figure. I looked longingly at the scarves, because I love scarves, but I also have too many already and am trying to figure out which ones to leave behind on my next major move. Finally, I settled on a hat. It is hard to keep my head warm in the cold winter winds and they’re meant to be taken off inside, plus don’t take up so much room in the luggage.

I chose a hand knitted hat in a lovely moss green with several different classic Aran stitches. The gentleman at the counter and I chatted for a while about the changes in Ireland and on the island specifically in his lifetime. He told me when he was younger, everyone went down to the lighthouse to watch the football (soccer) game on the only television on the whole island, and now they had stuff like WiFi! His wife was part of the group of ladies that knitted the in house goods, but he wasn’t sure if she had knitted the hat I chose or one of the other ladies had. The wool itself was from the Connemara area because there just weren’t enough sheep on the Aran Islands themselves to support the knitting, it being more a fishing (and lately tourism) economy than a sheep based one.

I actually wore the hat a lot during the rest of my trip in Ireland and it was a welcome addition to a wardrobe that was packed for a more summery climate than I ended up with.

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With my souvenir goal achieved, I continued to explore and came across a small meadow behind some abandoned buildings. Down among the grass and weeds was a zoo of tiny life. Little black winged and red spotted moths, fuzzy bumble bees, stripey caterpillars, and beautiful butterflies. I had a wonderful time crawling around on the ground and taking pictures.

The line for the ferries back was almost as chaotic as the ferries out, but I had more faith that we wouldn’t be left behind. The weather was getting squally again, and the ships captains were having chats about the best way to get back. They started out asking all the people subject to seasickness to get into certain boats which were less likely to be as impacted by the waves and which would take the most direct route back to Doolin. Our reservations included a trip past the Cliffs of Moher and would be about twice as long as the direct route.

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Sadly, by the time we all bundled onto the boats, the captains had decreed the weather was too bad to go to the cliffs. I made sure to get a seat inside for the ride back, turned on my music and had a little nap. I have been known to get seasick when I’m below decks, but this ship was fairly wide and had big picture windows. It was not a real question of being wet and cold vs being a little nauseous.

Once more, I learned that no matter what the weather looks like on land, it is not related to the weather even 5 minutes out to sea and that whatever plans you make in Ireland that involve the ocean are subject to drastic change and cancellation without warning. I think the boat trips were worth it, and I’m glad I went to the island, even if it meant getting soaked, but if you only have a couple days in Ireland, maybe stick to mainland activities to avoid disappointment.

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Doolin Cave

When putting together the day plan, we had a few hours in the late afternoon free and the cave looked like a good “all weather” option. I booked the tickets for pretty much everything we did ahead of time online because summer is the high season in Ireland and popular sites sell out fast. Even though I wasn’t feeling great after my very wet morning, it seemed like a waste not to use the tickets that were already paid for, so we headed to the cave.

20190805_162628The cave is famous because it has the longest freestanding (or free hanging I suppose) stalactite in Europe. It is quite impressive. Tours go down in groups with hard hats and a guide. There’s a LOT of stairs, a fairly short walk, and a very dramatic presentation where you walk into the main cavern in the dark (flashlights pointed at the ground) so that when the lights come on, you get a stunning view of the star stalactite. Originally, there was meant to be a garden walk involved in this as well, but the rainy weather which had prevented us from seeing the Cliffs had caught up to the mainland and it was positively pouring down. On top of that, the cafe was closed by the time we came back up. I think the stalactite was stunning, but overall, I wish we’d been able to enjoy the other things at the location.

Doolin Music House

Whatever hardships the day threw at us, the evening plans made up for it all. I was able to change into dry clothes, which helped a lot, and our nighttime plans were for some trad music in a local house. I’d reached out to Christy and Sheila via email and arranged for a space in their house show. Trad (traditional) Irish music is a big draw both for locals and tourists in Ireland and while a lot of it is available in pubs, those can be loud and crowded – a challenge to anyone who’s feeling overwhelmed at the end of a long, hard, rainy day of touristing.

The idea of sitting in a nice quiet living room and listening to music and stories was far more appealing than the pub. Sheila welcomed us in and invited us to sit by the fire which was burning local peat and smelled amazing. Peat is harvested from the bogs of Ireland. It’s dead and decaying organic matter that’s been pressed into turf. It’s dug up in chunks and dried in the sun, then used for fuel. Ireland doesn’t have a lot of trees, which is why so much is build of stone and why the people burn peat for fire. Even with new gas and electric heating systems being installed around the island, a lot of folks still use peat in their fireplaces and stoves. I also had the chance to see some of the harvesting and drying in process when we drove through peat bogs later on.

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When we first came in, we entered Sheila’s painting studio where she creates and displays her artwork. In the living room, however, the walls are covered with charcoal sketches of some of Ireland’s most influential trad musicians of yore. Sheila brought us some wine and other guests filtered in. It was mostly people over 50, I may have been the youngest in the room, but they were lively and talkative (I think the Irish might be the only people who talk as much as the Americans). We were served a light meal of local salmon and local cheeses with fresh bread and we just ate and chatted for a while. It was very relaxing, like a dinner party at a friend’s house.

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When we had all finished eating, Kristy and James came out with a fiddle and an armload of flutes. James stuck to his fiddle the whole night and only very rarely spoke. Kristy was every inch the Irish story spinner and played a variety of flutes and even the spoons at one point. Between songs, Kristy would tell us all stories about the music and about growing up in Ireland. Although he never said his age directly, I gather he must at least be in his 70s if not older. He’s been performing professionally for more than 40 years, but the stories he told about his childhood experiences lead me to believe he’s been playing much much longer. 

I did not have the kind of memory capacity in my phone to record all those wonderful stories, but I was charmed by tales of the older way of life that had still been common when he was a boy. How all the men worked hard physical labor jobs, and almost no one had any money, but it barely mattered because they could go round to each others homes at night and play music and dance. He told us the history of the instruments and how the music grew up as something more to accompany dancers than as it’s own art. Dancers were the percussion and the main entertainment. A musician who couldn’t follow the dancer’s beat wouldn’t soon be invited to play again.

Sheila and her friend came out to show a small demonstration of the dancing, so focused on the movement of the feet and the stillness of the body. The whole world has seen Riverdance by now, the famous show that came from this traditional dance style. It has been heavily adapted to appeal to a broader audience with more movement and flash, but the original style is very subtle and very challenging to master.

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We listened to music and stories totally captivated. It is one of my best memories of the entire trip. My Airbnb host, Marcella, lives just up the road, and of course has known Sheila for years and was stunned to find they were asking so “high” a price as 25€ per person for the experience. I found it to be totally reasonable for such a wonderful evening. No public show could have compared to the warmth and personal touches of being in their home, and yet they were impeccable hosts with regard to our comfort and keeping our wine glasses full. Plus, while they may just be the neighbors to Marcella, Kristy is a world renowned and award winning musician with a lifetime of amazing stories to share.

Every night is different because different musicians and dancers show up to accompany Kristy. Plus, although the night I was there, none of us were brave enough, Kristy did say he likes it to feel more like a group event than a performance, and anyone is welcome to sing, play or dance as they like.

The main website is very classy, and doesn’t properly give the impression of the impish charm that Christy exudes. I took a single video for my own memories and to share with you all, but if you want to see more, their Facebook Page has a much wider selection than the primary website.