This residence is from the 15th
century. The famous (at least for horsing around) staircase
is on the far right
We traveled south east from the Abbey to end our Saturday sojourn at the Chateau de Montreuil-Bellay. By this time, the rains were starting to come and chase us inside where we joined a French tour (luckily someone was translating for his English-only friends and we were eavesdropping.
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside which is a shame because this was one of the chateaux still in private hands and so it had a lot of furniture. Ceilings were typically 23 feet high.
The place did have a beautiful garden on the river banks (a subsidiary flowing Northward into the Loire) as seen below.
The highlight was buying a case of wine at a very cheap price. When we got home and opened a bottle, we wish we had bought more as the Saumur Cabernet is really remarkable. Turns out this castle is the place where its one-time owner in 1904 organized the other Anjou growers into a federation. According to the guide, their initiation consists of getting drunk in the cellar and having to walk up the stairs without touching the sides. Good wines, of course, are well known here and many folks take wine tours of the area and ignore the chateaux. By now you may wish we had don that, but we probably would have taken just as many pictures, they'd just ALL be blurred.
A better stair-climbing story is of the naughty Duchess (Anne de Longueville) who misbehaved so much in Paris that Louis XIV exiled her to Montreuil. Here she is remembered for riding her horse to the top of a the spiral staircase pictured at top. (The horese wouldn't come down until it was blindfolded; we don't know how Anne made it down). Hey, not big news -- but this was in the 1600s, long after the Geoffrey Plantagenet had finished sacking the place (1151).
Afterwards we drove North back to Saumur for a second night at the Hotel St-Pierre (we'd recommend it). It is about 14 rooms and run by father (a little English) and son (quiet fluent and personable). Nicely remodeled and cozy. Pietrina insisted on taking a picture of the outside so I insisted that she be in it. The window at the right is our bathroom (I'm sure someone cares). The place claims that every bathroom has been designed by an artist. You probably wondered what Picasso was doing before he got famous. Given his drawings of women, I can now figure out what that second basin in french bathrooms is for.
The hotel is across a small alley from St. Pierre church. Unfortunately, none of my church pictures came out except for this one we took the next morning showing its square tower in front of two of the many bridges that cross the Loire. The church is Plantagenet Gothic (like the Abbey church) except for the western front which collapsed and was rebuilt in the 17th century (they don't make them like they used to, I guess).
Not suprisingly, the church names the St.-Pierre's square which contains two half-timbered houses dating from the 15th century and still in use:
Before dinner we walked around town trying to get into the Romanesque Notre-Dame-de-Nantilly church (no luck, mass was going on), and walking through the Saumur gardens. Here's a picture of some of the wisteria growing over the edge of the garden. (Pietrina is a wisteria freak so we had to take another picture).:
Dinner was a surprisingly good affair at the foot of the castle's walls near the river. The place was the only restaurant mentioned in both the guide books we took and we found out why. At a reasonable price, we ate the gourmet meal of about 7 courses. We've been spoiled by 6 months in Paris, several of them on the expense account, but this was as good as any. If you go to Saumur, we'd highly recommend Les Menestrels. Below is a view of the castle (which we would visit the next morning) taken near the restaurant. As you can see, this would not be the ideal angle from which to base your attack. (But
The next morning we were on the road again all of 200 meters to visit the fortress. Please join us by clicking here.
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