Bad hair day, blisters, and the Apocalypse...

Wednesday June 2, 2010
Day 35

This morning I woke up to my alarm at 6:45am, although I didn’t get up until another ten minutes later, to go running with Andrea. We left at 7:10 and ran for twenty minutes, doing two big loops around the hotel area. It felt so good to exercise again, albeit a little painful. Luckily though the weather was really nice and I was awake enough to have a nice hard run. Andrea is a solid runner so it was nice to run with her because she pushed me. Unfortunately I got blisters, as usual with my blessed flat feet, so I wore flip flops the rest of the day. Also on the negative, because I ran in the morning I had to shower so my hair was wet and I waited too long to fix it for the day so it ended up being a weird half fro monstrosity. I had Paige French braid it on the bus, so at least in my plight I made an attempt at being cultural! It was disappointing though because we visited castles today and my hair wasn’t cute--you’re supposed to look like a princess in castle pictures! Dang it. Good thing we’re going to see more later!

Our first stop of the day was at Angers Castle, a chateau overlooking the river Maine and which acted as both “a fortress and a sumptuous residence.” The site has been occupied since the Neolithic period and has been used as a place to mass royal troops, a social hotspot in the 14th and 15th centuries, and a military enclosure and prison. The oldest part of the site is a cairn (a burial ground) dating back to the Neolithic period, and to the rear are two rooms dating to the Roman period, one a chimney and waste water drainage, and the other has pipes for heating the upper room.

Chateau Angers

Top of Angers Castle overlooking the town

One of the most famous and important aspects of the chateau isn’t the chateau itself but what is contained therein: the Apocalypse Tapestry. This tapestry, the largest medieval tapestry in the world, measuring approximately 100 meters in length and 4.5 meters high. It was commissioned in 1375 by Louis I, Duke of Anjou and brother to Charles V, and was likely completely in 1382. It took seven years to complete, a remarkable feat for such a large piece, and is made entirely of wool. There are six pieces to the tapestry and each has smaller scenes representing the story of the Apocalypse with a literal interpretation from the account of Saint John.

Personally I thought the work was amazing to look at strictly for its massive size. I can’t imagine making even one section of the tapestry. And if I remember correctly, not a single part was painted--all the scenes were sown, not painted on over the wool, which makes the work even more impressive when you see the detail and subtlety of colors and depictions. I will admit though that the audio guide was a little too long. I went through every single scene of the Apocalpyse tapestry, which took about half an hour I think (although its impossible to say in that dark cavelike gallery).

After going through the chateau, the beautiful gardens of the inner courtyard, and viewing the tapestry, we walked a few blocks to a cheap sandwich stand where I had a “panini pizza” which was a panini with tomato sauce and ham. It was pretty good. I tried to find something to eat that didn’t include bread but that is nigh impossible in France so I settled with the panini. I’ve made a new goal though to cut bread out of my diet for a little while because we eat so much of it here! Its really difficult though because there’s not much else...I’m doing alright however. I didn’t eat any rolls at dinner and I don’t eat bread at breakfast. We’ll see how long this lasts.


We then drove to Langeais Chateau. It was really pretty, nestled at the end of a cute little street that looked perfectly French. Betsy made the astute comment that she expected townspeople to pop open their shutters and start singing “Bonjour!” from Beauty and the Beast, and that’s not a bad description. I wish they would. We went through the chateau, where Anne of Brittany and the King of France were married, and took some pictures. We only stayed about an hour and half then took the bus to our next hotel in Tours.

Chateau Langeais

We walked about four minutes from the hotel to dinner which was in a very nice restaurant. The table setting was beautiful and every course was a piece of art--and tasted as delicious as it looked! Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera because the dishes were photo-worthy, but trust me, they were beautiful. We had tasty little appetzier samplers, and then our first course was some sort of shrimp and veggie mix on thin parmesan cheese cakes and a delicious salad that had two dried fruits on it that tasted like baked fruit chips. I know one was apricot but I don’t know what the other one was. All I know is it was delicious and I wish I could replicate it.

Our next course was tender veal in a sweet gravy sauce, with a side of some kind of potatoes, and a small wonton filled with dried fruits. The veal was especially tasty because it had cooked citrus fruit with it (I don’t know what kind it was) and it was amazingly scrumptious. For dessert they brought out the most beautiful-looking plate of thin green colored cakes (they were pistachio) with strawberries and a sweet cream in the middle with a small scoop of beautiful red strawberry sorbet that had basil and pistachio in it. I have never tasted any sorbet like it. I don’t know who thought to put basil in sorbet but it was amazing!
That was our best meal thus far, in my humble opinion. The whole meal was also served with tasty apricot juice. Apparently last year a boy liked it so much that he drank too much and threw up later in the restaurant. Ha, I did not drink that much. The best part of the drink was the two fruit slices on the side--one was star fruit but the other I’m not sure of. It had a bright red skin with a white interior and black seeds. Anyone know? In any case it was delicious. They really know how to make a good meal.

After our meal we walked back to the hotel where I attempted to write some more journal entries and put up pictures, although the latter failed because the internet was so slow. But what’s another day to being behind by 2,000 pictures?

Ps. I just tallied the picture count. I’m up to 3,549 photos.