AMBOISE IN PICTURES

We enjoyed our day in Amboise.  Our very first visit there was in 1994 when we were on our first motorcycle tour of France together.  I was on my old Virago 535, a pretty but immensely impractical bike for long distance touring, and it broke down by the river bank on the opposite side from the château. We were on our way to the town and looking for a campsite. I remember thinking what a beautiful view of the château we had as we tinkered with the bike by the roadside.  The problem turned out to be minor, thankfully, and we were soon on our way again.

How times change, this time we were in the car, with wine tasting our aim.

 

A DAY IN AMBOISE

Some time ago, Jim Budd listed a few things that were going on in Touraine in April and one of them was the Foire aux Vins at Amboise.

 

The journey from Le Grand-Pressigny takes about an hour and one of the great joys about travelling in our part of France is the lack of traffic. We did go on a Sunday morning but even so, we barely passed a score of other cars.

When we got to Amboise it was a different matter. There was also a street market in full swing and the place was heaving with tourists. We have little patience these days for queuing for parking places so did a quick tour of the car parks and then gave up and parked well away from the town centre in a residential area. A very nice area, too. Unfortunately as it was a good 15-minute walk back into town and that rather scuppered our wine-buying prospects.

As we arrived just before midday and the place was very busy we thought it would be a good move to get lunch as soon as possible. We dived into the first restaurant we came across, which was called L'Amboiserie. Inside the decor was striking. The beams were painted in a sort of lime green colour and the napkins and other bits and pieces matched. We saw this colour everywhere and it is obviously "à la mode". .

Our classic lunch-buying tactics paid off. At 12 noon we got one of the two remaining unreserved tables and throughout our lunch we observed the waitresses turn away less fortunate people. This rejection was both given and accepted very graciously by all. I did wonder at the reasoning of families of 5, 6 or 7 people who would turn up with assorted hungry children hoping for a table. 

We also observed that had the floor staff been a bit slicker they could have tripled their turnover that day. At least two thirds of the time spent in the restaurant was in waiting for service. We would have liked to have been served with menus, food and bill much quicker as we had other things to do and we also noticed other diners getting fidgety and irritated. With a couple of extra table-clearing staff the place could have served a lot more lunches without rushing people at all or compromising the relaxed dining experience for those who wanted it. . 

We enjoyed our lunch very much. Nick had a huge salad, one of those with a couple of poached eggs on top, and I had a delicious omelette. Now that we were pleasantly stuffed, we headed off to do some degustation.

The wine fair was in the cellar of the château. This was a great setting for it. Chilly enough to keep the wine in good condition but airy and beautifully lit. The producers were all in the same kind of stand, along both sides of the cellar. It was busy but not too crowded. This was perfect for us. It meant that we could linger at a producer's stall if we wanted to discuss the wine and prices. Or just fade away politely if we weren't interested, there always being someone behind us waiting for a tasting.

 

The routine was the same as we have encountered before at similar events. There was no entry fee but you buy a tasting glass. 5€ for two this time. They are usually engraved with the details of the event and you keep them afterwards. Then you wander freely from stall to stall tasting whatever you please.

Most of the producers were from a village called Limeray just a few kilometres east of Amboise. Nick did most of the tasting as I had volunteered to drive. The wines were varied and we liked a lot of them. We got chatting to one producer who was very friendly and whose wines we really liked. We said that as we had had to park a long way away we could not really buy any wine today as we couldn't carry it. Other visitors were leaving the fair with boxes or bags containing bottles of wine. Some had trolleys full of boxes taken out to their car which they had somehow manage to shoe-horn into a space outside one of the entrances.

The lady gave us directions and a card with a map on it. Then she did a sort of shifty look over each shoulder, reached under the counter and handed us a leaflet. A quick glance at the price list told us that the prices at the vineyard were about a third cheaper than at the fair. We promised to pay her a visit when we were next in France and we will, too.

THE OLDEN DAYS

The house on the right was demolished; the one on the left still stands.

During our recent week or so in Le Grand-Pressigny, we met up with Gail and Chris who also have a lovely holiday home in the village. Chris has a super collection of old postcards of LGP. I always find things like this absolutely fascinating. As a little girl I loved sitting with my mother, aunt and grandmother listening to stories of the "olden days". Gail sent me a scan of the above postcard because I was especially interested in it. The house on the right was knocked down to make a proper road which is now the Rue du Four Banal. If you walk up the Four Banal today you can see the fireplaces on the wall, left behind when the rest of the house was demolished.

 

This is what was left behind when the house was knocked down.

I told Mme André about the postcard and she surprised me by saying she knew all about the house because she was born in the village before it was demolished. I thought that she had said she came to the village in 1956. I suppose that what she meant was that she moved into her cottage that year. That means that she should be able to tell us a lot about the village in the 20th century, if only we can ask the right questions.

Someone told us recently that our little house could have been built in the 1500's. Now that really is a long time ago and I would love to learn more about what has happened to the house and the village over the years and the centuries. Also what life was like in Le Grand Pressigny in the "olden days".

PHOTO DU JOUR

A walk by the river at L'Isle-Bouchard.

PHOTO DU JOUR

A debriefing at the PreHisto.

PHOTO DU JOUR

This bar in Descartes always appeared closed every time we passed. Then miraculously, it reopened, complete with beer pumps, glasses and barman for the Comice Agricole last summer. Then it was closed up again, just like this, as if we had dreamed it.