France, Cheese, Chateau and Strike Update

Our trip so far has been an absolute pleasure. After a whirlwind few days in Paris consisting of too much food and not enough sleep, we headed out to the French countryside. Slowly making our way down the Loire Valley in the direction of the Atlantic coast, we have been sampling the excellent cheeses, wines and chateau of the Loire, picnic-ing for lunch and treating ourselves to an excellent dinner in the evenings. We have met some very cool people along the way - the guys at Slide Performance in Orleans who helped us get some repairs done on the bug, the couple who run the Bed and Breakfast at Domaine Beaufort who shared some of their bubbly wine with us and who showed us their 1925 wooden-body Citroen car that, along with the farm and vineyard, had been in their family for 3 generations.

We are currently just outside of Angers where our friends have put us up in our very own chateau! OK, it's not really a chateau, but it certainly feels like one. It's actually an old farmhouse, parts of which date back 200 or 300 years (no one is quite sure - nor are they terribly interested in finding out because in the French scheme of things, 200-300 years is not very old) The farmhouse, which comes with it's very own name - La Fontaine du Mont - has been added to, remodeled and updated during it's history and now encompasses 1 rehearsal studio, 2 staircases, 2 living rooms, a dormitory for visiting bands, 2 offices for music producers and promoters and at least 20 other rooms. The main jewel of La Fontaine is the kitchen which is located in the oldest part of the house. It sports a stone floor, exposed beam ceiling (with enormous, smoke darkened timbers) modern appliances and a fireplace in the center of the room. It was here that, on our first night - seated on one side of the massive fireplace with our friend Chimene and her son, Goya - four-and-a-half year-old Aloise presented her spectale du danse from the other side of the rectangular fireplace, using the the frame as her "stage".


The strike, which continues with no end in sight, has made it difficult to find gasoline. It's a little disconcerting to drive past station after station and see that every one is closed...especially when you're down to 1/4 of a tank. No one here seems to be freaking out about it, so we're remaining calm as well. The gas station closure has led to a couple of funny goose-chases: We hear from someone that a station "just down the road" has gas, but invariably get lost trying to find it. If and/or when we find the station, they have run out of gas and we end up hanging out in the station parking lot, chatting with other drivers who had heard the same rumor and arrived to find that there was no gas. The strange thing is that no one is upset. Everyone seems to support, or at least understand the strike and everyone is sure that the government will figure things out very soon and that things will go back to normal. I'm sure things will go back to normal, but I am equally sure that it won't happen until after we leave the country.


Click here to read the background story about the 1959 VW convertible and my reason for being in France.