1 hundred dogs, 1 hundred dogs... 1 hundred dogs!

(Does anyone else remember 2 Stupid Dogs, or just me?)

2016 was my 7th trip to the Vitiloire wine festival in Tours and Jules's 3rd. Every year since the first, I've managed to forestall a trip to Chenonceau by promising "maybe next year". This year, I couldn't get out of it any more, so we duly made a detour to the château on our way to Tours.

Don't get me wrong, Chenonceau is one of the fabled châteaux of the Loire that people dream their whole lives of visiting. It's just this was my fourth visit (trip one, two and three), so you can fairly count it crossed off the old bucket list. But Jules had never been, so finally we went along to tick it off his list too.
 

They have actually opened up a new part of the château since my last trip - the second story of the bridge across the Loire that you can see in the photo above. It had quite a lot more information on the history of the château through the ages, so trip not wasted. My favourite sign in the new exhibition:

"Hey, fish! Your mum smells like cabbage!"

Other than that, it's fair to say we did a relatively whirlwind tour, trying to dodge the inevitable coach-loads of Russian and Chinese tourists.

From Chenonceau, it was on to the main event in Tours. Our group this year was a little smaller, with my sister and my friend Caroline having moved to New Zealand (in separate incidents), but my sisters' friends have got such a taste for it that several of them came along anyway! I didn't go quite as crazy as the year before (since we still had a few bottles left over), but we acquitted ourselves pretty well. 

Ready for wine

Me and the British (slash Kiwi) contingent

Mel very proud of her wine purchases and her wine boy who had to run around after her carrying them

As you can see, the weather for the festival was pretty good, but by Sunday evening, the heavens had opened, and on Monday it rained solidly the entire way home across France and Belgium. I don't know if it registered with people outside France, but that week saw flooding across big areas of the country. We were lucky to get home, because the next day I saw friends on facebook posting pictures of some of the motorways we travelled home on completely washed out.

So it wasn't the greatest weather to go and do a partially outdoor activity, but we forged ahead with our plans to visit another of the dwindling list of major châteaux of the Loire I haven't yet been to. Namely, Cheverny, the inspiration behind Marlinspike Hall in the Tintin comics.

Walking in the footsteps of Tintin (and Snowy!)

Hergé lopped off the wings on the sides to make it a bit less grand

I promptly forgot pretty much everything about the inside of the château, but looking back through my photos, it has some pretty sumptuous rooms. It's not huge, but I'd rather a small but pretty château than a huge empty one, (looking at you, Palais des Papes). 

The hall was covered in vignettes from Don Quixote

Apart from the Tintin collection (assiduously promoted in the gift shop and also in an exhibition that we didn't visit since you had to pay extra), the big attraction of Cheverny is seeing the feeding of the more than one hundred hunting dogs which live there. We got in position fairly early, but even with the rain we had to stand way over on one side, so I imagine it gets really crowded on a nice day in the middle of summer. As it was, I got constantly dripped on by the umbrella of the woman next to me, but at least we got a reasonable view of the dogs.

There was a lot of waiting around, and then more time spent herding the dogs out of the yard to clean it, spreading the food, and then the master made them all line up patiently for a while before they were allowed to eat. The dogs were pretty well-behaved up to that point, and then when they got the signal to go eat, it was a total scrum. They all climbed over each other to get to the food, some even doing a comical handstand over the backs of the other dogs to make sure they got some. Which was just as well, since in under a minute, all the meat was gone. There was at least one thin and presumably timid dog who got fed separately to fatten her up, but otherwise, you snooze you lose.

The dogs and their master before feeding time

My wet sleeve and I go in for a pat

Waiting to get fed (video doesn't work on mobile, sadly)

 As usual, it was a great blend of visiting new and familiar tourist attractions, catching up with friends, and - of course - drinking a lot of wine. I especially like the new little tradition we've had the last couple of years of stopping off somewhere on the way to/from Tours. It really turns a long weekend into a proper mini holiday.

Cathar country continued: Peyrepertuse and Quéribus (aka amazing views)

I didn't want to overload with too much information earlier on, but maybe I should have said something earlier about what the whole Cathar heresy was about. It was basically a dualist outlook, which divided the universe into good and evil, each ruled over by a Good God and an Evil God respectively. The Cathars identified all of the material world as falling under the sway of the Evil God, and hence rejected any materialism such as sex or the accumulation of wealth, at least for the priestly Perfect class. Since they rejected the physical body as a creation of the Evil God, they treated men and women equally, as genderless spirits trapped in physical bodies. The Catholic Church, with its vast material wealth, perhaps understandably did not take too kindly to these doctrines and launched the Albigensian Crusade against them in 1208. The rest is long and complicated history, but finished up with the Cathars being more or less wiped out and the formally fairly independent rulers of southern France, most of whom were not actually Cathars themselves but were tolerant towards them, being either deposed or brought firmly under the control of the French crown.

The stand-out visit of our trip was to the château of Peyrepertuse, which lies at an altitude of about 800 metres in the foothills of the Pyrénées. Although in ruins, it covers an area as large as Carcassonne, and is today divided into two distinct areas, which I think are the main castle and the keep, which offers amazing views of the main fortress and the valley below. The walk up is not as steep as at Montségur, but you do face a second climb up the Saint Louis staircase (named after the French king who further reinforced the site after capturing it in the crusades) to get to the keep.

Part of the climb up the St. Louis staircase

Looking down from the staircase to the main castle

There were spectacular views from the edge of the Keep area

After we climbed back down from Peyrepertuse, we headed to nearby Quéribus. Quéribus was definitely the smallest and least impressive-looking of the castles we visited on this trip, but it also gave amazing views of its surroundings, particularly as it is perched on its rock in a very compact way, allowing you to see in all directions. Peyrepertuse is visible from Quéribus and vice-versa, although I'm not sure you can pick out either in the photos I've posted. Its exposed position also meant it was extremely windy up there - not really the place to be wearing a light summer dress. I had to hobble up the stairs trying to hold it down most of the time we were up there.

Cathar country continues: The siege of Montségur

When I told one of my colleagues we were planning a trip to the Cathar châteaux, his response was, "you know it's all ruins, right?" I did know, but was also pretty much caught up in the romanticism surrounding the sites. They've definitely done a good job of playing up the Cathar connections, even if in many cases they were apparently substantially renovated in the centuries after the crusades, by the conquerors. In the case of Montségur, an archaeological inspection in the 20th century concluded that "no trace" remained of the castle that was besieged during the crusades. The ruins that are there are still old, but 17th-century old, a far cry from the 13th century of the crusades. This is not prominently referred to on the tourist websites... However, there do still remain the ruins of some of the Cathar houses clinging to the current fortress wall.

Despite this, Montségur is perhaps the most evocative of the Cathar sites, at least by reputation. Seen as the last (major) stand of the Cathars, it was beseiged for nine months by the crusaders, who were unable to cut off supplies to the castle due to its naturally-defended location (walking up there, the mind boggles that they were able to haul supplies and building materials and so on up there, but apparently they did). Finally, though, they found a spot where they could build a catapult in range of the castle's defensive barbican and subsequently the castle itself. Finally, the besieged fortress surrendered, and while those who agreed to give up the Cathar faith were allowed to leave, around 215 Cathars gave themselves up and were burned alive at the foot of the mountain.

Myths and legends swirl around the castle today, such as that some of the Cathars escaped with a secret treasure, rumoured to be the Holy Grail. It is even often said that the Nazis were obsessed with finding the Grail, and someone hunted for it at Montségur on Himmler's orders, although it appears that this is as historically dubious as the original Grail story.

So while the castle as it is today might not be as old or mysterious as legend would have it, it still boasts impressive views of the surrounding countryside from its 1,200 metre perch. From the carpark, it's a vertical ascent of 250 metres to get to the castle, but it's all worth it when you get up there.

Before starting our climb

On the way back down

Inside the ruins

I love the layered look of each chain of hills stretching to the horizon

We didn't have the place quite all to ourselves, but it was pretty quiet up there

Photo taken by a friendly Australian

In Cathar Country: Carcassonne

Carcassonne is one of those magical names that you come across one day and then dream of visiting ever after. I'm not sure when I first heard of the city, famous for its ancient citadel enclosed by three-kilometre-long double walls, but it's definitely been on my bucket list for some time. Back in 2010, when I was living in Nice, I read a book about the Cathar crusades which opens with dramatic scenes of the siege of Montségur, another destination on our trip, which further piqued my interest in visiting the region. So way back in January, when Jules and I were discussing our travel plans for the year, I suggested a Languedoc roadtrip might be perfect, especially since he loves a good castle.

We drove down early from Beaune, with an unscheduled detour to the Pont du Gard, a large and allegedly beautiful Roman aqueduct. We had just wanted to stop off for a quick selfie, since we were running on a schedule to meet the people at our AirBnb and get the keys, but once we got there we found out you couldn't see the aqueduct from the road at all, and it cost 18€ to park the car, which seemed pretty excessive for what was meant to be a five-minute stop.

So, disgruntled, we were back on the road, arriving in Carcassonne around midday. As you can see, for the most part we had pretty moody weather, which was setting the pattern for the rest of our stay. In fact, it rained every place we stayed on the trip at least once (Beaune, Carcassonne, Albi and Lyon), which isn't really what you have in mind for the south of France.

We spent the first afternoon walking around the walls - as I said, they stretch around 3 km, so that took up quite some time - and then wandering through the streets of the citadel mostly looking for somewhere to have dinner. We managed to find a great place, with a delicious starter of beetroot and goat's cheese salad and then a yummy cassoulet for the main. I love a good cassoulet. I think we struck it lucky (or the careful consideration of the options paid off), because in general I imagine the Cité is probably too touristy to have good food as a rule.

The main streets inside the second wall were pretty busy, but I imagine not nearly as bad as it must be in July and August. According to the latest statistics I found, between 4 and 4.5 million people visited the citadel of Carcassonne in 2011, and I can only imagine it's increased since then. On the second day, we went inside the castle of Carcassonne, another layer of fortification inside the double walls. Since you have to pay to get into this part, only about half a million people visit each year, thus it's a lot less crowded. You also get to walk on portions of the walls which are otherwise inaccessible and there's a free guided tour, so it's worth doing if you have the time and inclination.

Of course, the citadel has been much restored over the years (apparently 30% is restored i.e. rebuilt and the slum-like dwellings dating back to the Middle Ages were razed), beginning with the intervention of Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century, but you still can't help but be amazed by the size and completeness of the city and walls and by its turbulent (and confusing) history. In a nutshell, the fortified town was founded by the Romans, and some Roman walls and towers exist to this day. It used to stand on the border between France and Aragon, hence the need for its strong fortifications. It became the property of the Trencavel family in the 11th century, who built the castle inside its walls, and who would later shelter the Cathar heretics. Thus it got caught up in the Crusades, beseiged, and brought under the control of the French King. Much later on, the border moved and it became strategically unimportant, going into decline and ruin until Viollet-le-Duc intervened.

At the gate of the castle inside the citadel

A very nice lady took a nice photo of us, but failed to get anything interesting in the background

Between the two walls by night

Panoramic view of the walls and basilica

Family fun in Luxembourg and France

The weekend before we went to the Belgian Grand Prix, my parents came for their first visit to Luxembourg, to see Jules's home country and meet his family for the first time. It was nice to show off what is, I think, a pretty underappreciated destination. The weather wasn't playing into our hands, but we still enjoyed walking around the key areas of Luxembourg City with them. We even went over the fortifications to the other side of the Grund valley, where I'd actually not been before (obviously I had been on that side of the river plenty of times, but not specifically the part straight across from the Bock). The large amounts of green space, the different levels between valleys and plateaux, and the old city fortifications makes it a very picturesque city for a walking tour.

View of the Grund

Ha, me and a small child

It got a bit drizzly by the time we got to the far side of town

The next day, we went just over the border to France, to visit Château Malbrouck. The route passed through the town of Schengen, in Luxembourg, and you can really understand why it gave its name to the Schengen zone. When you're in Schengen, you drive onto a bridge across the Moselle river and you're in Germany for 100 metres or so, and when you get to the bank on the far side, if you turn left you stay in Germany, but if you turn right, as we did, you're now in France. After we visited the château, we had lunch just down the road in Germany before driving back over into Luxembourg for a drive along the Moselle. It really made you realise just how inconvenient things would be if they ever did end up going back to proper borders.

The Château, which is actually named after the Duke of Marlborough, Churchill's ancestor, who came here at some point during the War of Spanish Succession or something (there was an explanation of this in the château but I got a bit lost in all the details), is mostly reconstructed, but it's been done really well. One interesting thing in one of the towers was a display of the methods used to reconstruct the site. The level of detail and the care they took to make sure they used authentic methods and tried to reconstruct exactly what was here before it fell into ruin was very impressive. I think it's one of the biggest and most expensive castle renovations undertaken in France.

On the walls of Château Malbrouck

View from the Château

The main reason for visiting the château on this occasion was that I saw a friend's photos of its current exhibition, Knights and Samurai, on Facebook. It's a pretty interesting concept for an exhibition - to compare and contrast the culture, lifestyle and history of European Knights and Japanese Samurai. On one level, the similarities are obviously - both noble classes of fighting men. But it went deeper to show how the two groups fit into the wider culture of their homelands - the influences of things like courtly love poetry and adventure literature in Europe and the place of knights in Japanese art and literature, knights and samurai on film, the different ceremonies that took place to become a knight or a samurai, the codes of honour - chivalry and bushido - etc.

There were some great displays of samurai armour and masks too. I'm usually not that interested in displays of armour and weaponry, but the intricate Japanese armour really was a work of art. Interestingly, most of these pieces came from a single, private collection, which I imagine must be someone's lifework and passion (or maybe they're just really rich?)

Samurai armour

I liked how you could really see the influence of traditional Japanese art on things like manga (not that I'm an expert)

Got to have that fake moustache

Cute 19th-century owl

We finished off the weekend with a very nice dinner with Jules's family in the heart of Luxembourg - with our old friends the péckvillercher standing guard outside. I think it was a pretty successful family visit!

Péckvillercher outside the restaurant