Saumur was a wonderful place to stay while we explored the Loire Valley. Photo: MDLF/R-Cast After visiting the Hotel Anne d’Anjou’s breakfast buffet, having eaten perhaps one too many pain au chocolat, we start the day by following our guide, Laurent, on an interesting walking tour around the old section of Saumur. Laurent continues his efforts to help us “read” the history of French cities by noting places where traces of doors or windows marked the walls, now bricked over by later construction with newer stone, and indicating traces of the medieval city wall that had been replaced in some locations by boulevards or main streets in the town. He explained how the very soft limestone of the Loire Valley region, known as tuffeau, hardens once it has been cut, and provides a beautiful white color to buildings from the famous chateaux of the region to the caves that keep mushrooms and wine at a constant temperature, and will even provide the setting for a wonderful little restaurant where we will enjoy lunch later on the trip. At the end of our walking tour we arrive at a small distillery named Combier after the inventor of Triple Sec, where we enjoy a tour of the facilities led by one of the 12 full time members of the staff who produce an array of liqueurs made by hand from the fruits of the region, exactly as they have been produced since the founding of the distillery in 1834. This visit is “topped off” by the degustation (tasting) of some of the company’s best products. We walk back from this experience looking for a leisurely lunch before the departure for the highlight of our day. At 1:30 we take the bus at our hotel and follow the Loire River for a short trip to discover the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which, by any reckoning, is one of the most exciting visits of our tour. Our local guide, Zoe, speaks a charmingly-accented English and is a fount of knowledge about all the details of the site. She is wonderfully responsive to questions from the Smithsonian travelers. After explaining the origins of the Abbey at Fountevraud, founded by an itinerate priest named Robert d’Arbrissel in 1099, she notes that one particularity of the abbey is that it was home to both men and women, who were kept in separate residences, as well as separate working and praying areas. Jan 05, 2011 A World in A Pan: A beautiful day! - See 184 traveler reviews, 82 candid photos, and great deals for Paris, France, at TripAdvisor. Posts about France written by A Beautiful Day to Blog. More A Beautiful Day (France) images. Alpes Guides Interpretes: A Beautiful Day! - See 152 traveler reviews, 92 candid photos, and great deals for Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, at TripAdvisor. ![]() But especially notable was the fact that the Abbey was run by a woman, the Abbess, not by an Abbot, as was usually the case in medieval France. The guide leads us into the main church building at Fontevraud where we see the tombstone effigies of four Plantagenet kings and queens, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II Plantagenet, Richard the Lionhearted, and Isabella of Angouleme, the wife of King John Plantagenet (son of Eleanor and Henry II). Zoe jokes that the bars around the tombs are to keep the British tourists from trying to take “their” kings back to England. During the medieval period, the Plantagenets were among the most generous benefactors of the Abbey, and at one point as many as 15 of the Plantagenet sovereigns and their wives were buried at Fontevraud, although only these four sarcophagi remain today. From the main church building, Zoe leads us to the cloister with its beautiful galleries and into the chapter room of the women’s quarters. On the chapter room walls we see an unusual series of paintings, dating from the 15th century, which depict the crucifixion of Christ, but with interesting and seemingly inappropriate pictures of different abbesses in the bottom corners of each painting. Our guide explains that these striking portraits are a reflection of the extremely wealthy and noble women who ruled over the Abbey, which came to be the most powerful abbey in France before the French Revolution. At that point in time, Zoe tells us, most Abbeys and Monasteries were taken over by the French state, and usually demolished with their stone serving as “quarries” for new buildings in the area. ![]() Fontevraud was ironically “saved” from destruction by Napoleon Bonaparte, who converted it into a prison, a function it maintained for more than 150 years through the Napoleonic Empire, several revolutions, and down through France’s current Fifth Republic, which closed the prison in 1963 and began the process of restoration that had resulted in today’s amazing national monument which serves also as a cultural center. One final mystery remains about the abbey complex at Fontevraud in the form of a very strange-looking building which has many small chimneys protruding from its cone-shaped, stone roof. The building was for a long time referred to as the “kitchen” of the abbey, but archeologists have recently concluded that it was more likely to have been a smokehouse for fish. Otherwise there seems to be no good explanation for why there are so many fireplaces, many more than would have been needed to prepare the meals for the nuns and monks. Our guide challenges us to come up with a better explanation for the building, because in fact no fully satisfactory explanation has been offered. With this mystery to ponder, Zoe leaves us with the thanks of our travelers for such an entertaining and informative visit. Part of the joy of a journey through France is the food and wine. After our return to Saumur and some time to relax at the hotel, our Study Leader gives us a lecture about the French Revolution and Napoleon, which intersects nicely with the history we were exposed to earlier in the day at Fontevraud. After a lively discussion period, we walk together across the hotel’s courtyard to a beautiful restaurant that will serve us one of the finest meals we have had on the tour. It is true that, as we walk back to our rooms at the hotel, we are still debating exactly which one has been our best meal on the trip, and will it be possible to top the one we have just enjoyed! Click here for more on and traveleing with him, and here for our. What's the most beautiful day you've had while traveling? We enjoyed a beautiful day in the champagne region with Christine, our tour guide in late July. We signed up for The Bubbles Day for 98euro which included a trip to Epernay, a stop in the countryside to catch some beautiful views, a tour of Moet and Chandon's caves and tasting, a tour of the cathedral in Reims, and a tour and tasting at Pommery. Christine was very sweet, knowledgeable, and took extra time with us during the day. She recommended a place for our group to have lunch (it was really nice that we all chose to eat together, as it's always fun to meet people from all over the world) and she gave us a ride back into Reims to purchase some champagne after the tour was over (our train didn't leave until later in the evening). We have done a lot of wine tasting and tours in CA and so we know a lot about the making of wine and champagne. The tour at Moet and Chandon was pretty basic and didn't offer us much 'off script'. It felt like a very commercial tour (beginning with the commercial you get to watch in the beginning of the tour). The Pommery tour was more enjoyable because it mixed art along the tour, which made it unique. Both tours ended with a glass of champagne. There were other tour groups on our tours and they had purchased a different level of tour that gave them the opportunity to taste more than one type of champagne. With our tour, we were given the standard champagne. This was a little disappointing because my husband and I were already familiar with both house champagnes and would have loved the opportunity to try things that are not sold in stores in the US. If you are a lover of champagne, I would consider doing one of France Bubbles other tours or maybe ask if you can upgrade your tastings at your own expense. We were definitely glad we went with France Bubbles! They were prompt, reliable, knowledgeable and clearly enjoy champagne! We spent a few days in Reims and this tour was the highlight of our trip. Our guide Amanda was fantastic and very friendly. The tour was in english but she took time to explain things in french if we didn't understand. We took the bubbles tour and had a 1 hour visit to Moet and Chandon, which was very informative. A great way to learn about the process to make champagne. Then we had lunch at a boutique champagne shop/cafe in the town where champagne was first created. Food was local and delicious as was the tasting. And the ambience was perfect. We then saw the abbey where Dom Perignon the monk was from and lastly visited Pommery. A great day with good photo opportunities from a top the mountain and in a vineyard. Christine was our guide and she was great! The van had 3 couples including my wife and I so the group was pretty small. We were able to get to know the couples and enjoy the day together. Christine explained the landscape and the various aspects of the wine production very well and we were able to see the beautiful countryside, not to mention drink some great Champagne and have a delicious lunch with a great spread. The tour of Moet and Chandon was also very interesting as were the smaller wineries. Definitely would recommend! We were staying in Paris and caught a train to Reims just for the day and then returned to our hotel in Paris that evening on another train but in retrospect I might have tried to stay the night in Reims because it was so beautiful.
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