Wednesday 31 July 2013 Chenonceau (the Chateau does not have the x at the end of its name as the town does).

After sleeping late we had a nice breakfast and headed for Chateau Chenonceau. The hour and a half tour was well done and the iPod and the pictures were very useful in understanding the history of the Chateau and its interesting inhabitants. After the tour of the Chateau we walked through the gardens of Diane de Potiere and Catherine d’Medici. The latter was the favorite mistress of Henry II who lived at Chenonceau until, after Henry’s untimely death in a jousting contest, she was forced by Catherine, Henry II’s wife, to leave Chenonceau and take up residence at Chateau C. Nice, good view high above the River Loire, but not Chenonceau!

We the had a fantastic lunch on the Orangerie porch in perfect weather!

We caught the train to St. Pierre des Corps (the TGV station for Tours) where we connected to the train to Libourne (10 minutes from St. Emilion). The train was filled with bicycles (I counted 11) which occupied all entries to the one car train.

After leaving the train Cathy rushed to get her purse/handbag from the train which she had forgotten in the rush to leave the train via the bicycles. The train pulled away from the station and Arnold remembered that he had left his camera and 3 lens on the train. After a great deal of back and forth the camera bag and its contents were located. Arnold went to the main Tours station and retrieved his camera bag and contents. He took a train to Libourne than the one we took.

Arriving in Libourne we found a list of 11 taxi drivers and their numbers but no taxis. After 11 unsuccessful calls we failed to reach anyone. Of course it was 8 pm when we arrived and I imagine all of the taxi owners were at dinner. We called the hotel in St. Emilion and they sent a taxi to fetch us. After 3 round trips (Arnold was the third arriving shortly after we had gotten to St. Emilion) we found a very nice restaurant and closed it down about 11:00. The hotel, Auberge de la Commanderie, had been “modernized” since we last visited it. The charming place had been redone with fake walls pained in hip-hop colors and designs. Clean but disconcerting to those of us who had enjoyed the charming historic building where we had stayed before.