Europe travel

Marseille wasn’t on my original itinerary. After touring chateau of the Loire Valley and exploring Bordeaux I planned to visit Toulouse and St. Girons in the French Pyrenees, but there was a problem. Bad weather had been following me around France. I’d had one lovely sunny day in Mont Saint Michel and another one in Tours, but the rest of the time it either was gray and chilly or it rained. The foul weather had been bearable in October, but by November the temps had dropped and rain that had been an inconvenience turned bone-chilling.

The beauty of traveling nomadically is that I have no fixed schedule and can change my plans on a whim. I whipped out the laptop and Googled a map of France, looking for warmer destinations. Far south, in the heart of the French Riviera, Marseille stood out like a beacon.

I’d been introduced to French cheeses some weeks earlier by my friends, Jean-Luc and Sabine Perrotin. We were enjoying dinner at their home near Paris one evening when Jean-Luc told me about a friend who had been visiting the department of Haute-Savoie in the Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France, where an especially stinky variety of cheese known as Reblochon is produced. Upon returning from his travels, the friend stopped by Jean-Luc’s office with a gift of Reblochon. Not thinking, he dropped the package into his desk drawer. As the day progressed, the smell of the cheese penetrated it’s wrapping and began to seep into the room; by the end of the day his co-workers were wrinkling up their noses and commenting on the strange smell. Guesses as to its source ranged from clogged sewers to a dead rat in the vents.

The arrow on my discomfort meter didn’t move up much in Paris. True, Parisienne women were exquisitely dressed and coiffed, but there were enough tourists around that I didn’t feel too out of place in my khakis and hiking boots. My spartan traveling wardrobe raised no eyebrows when paying my respects at the Normandy beaches, touring Mont Saint Michel abbey, or visiting chateaux in the Loire Valley, but when I stepped off the train in Bordeaux I became painfully aware that France had succeeded where all other countries had failed; I officially felt like a slob.

I rode the tramway four stops to Place de Bourgougne and walked half a block to The HomeAway holiday rental apartment that would be my home for the next week. The property manager, Charlotte, peered down the stairwell as I wrangled my luggage to the third floor.

“Do you need help?” she offered.

I shook my head and plodded on, thinking that the day I can’t handle my own luggage is the day I need to stop traveling. I struggled up the last few steps, gratefully shed the heavy backpack that holds all my camera and computer equipment in the front hall, and followed Charlotte into the living room. The apartment was drop-dead gorgeous!

In the latter half of the 15th century, events conspired to create a perfect storm in France. The Hundred Years War with England drew to a close and, in 1494, King Charles VIII returned victorious from his invasion of Italy, bringing with him the Italian Renaissance. which valued cultural achievement above all. The mighty Medieval fortresses of the Loire Valley, no longer required for defense, were converted into stunning chateau designed for recreation and pleasure. Embracing the Renaissance philosophy that valued culture above all, monarchs and noble families filled these palaces with stunning artworks and furnishings and threw lavish parties that spared no expense.

Hundreds of these chateau still dot the Loire Valley, many of which are open to the public. With only three days in Tours, I opted for back-to-back morning and afternoon van tours that would allow me to see four of the most famous. We began at the smallest, Chateau de Clos Luce. Though not stunning in the manner of grandiose, multi-turreted chateau, this castle is notable as the place where Leonardo da Vinci, who had been induced to leave Italy by King Francis I, spent the last three years of his life. It was the perfect setting for da Vinci, who wanted to be away from people, in a peaceful atmosphere that allowed him to pursue his scientific work. Today, the low buildings surrounding the gardens contain reproductions of da Vinci’s inventions and his Mona Lisa, one of three painting he carried upon leaving Italy for France, hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Macarons. I first saw them in Paris, but it wasn’t long before I realized these small round, garishly colored cookies were available in every French gift store, bakery and cafe. The problem was, my brain immediately confused them with the American macaroon, which is a dollop of baked coconut. Since I had no interest in coconut confections, I kept passing them by. Until I landed in Saint Malo, that is. This small village on the Brittany coast had not been on my itinerary but when I decided to take a bit of a break at Au Bon Accueil Bed and Breakfast, the owners, Jane and Paul Cunnison, convinced me to set one day aside to explore the charming town.

Braving chilly late October temperatures, I bundled up and hopped on the train for the 15-minute ride to Saint Malo. Another quarter-hour walk brought me to the gates of the the old walled city known as the Intra-Muros. For hours I wandered around the cobblestone streets, following round brass markers embedded into the streets and sidewalks that led me on a historic walking tour. When my fingers finally turned numb from the cold I stumbled into the nearest place where I could get a hot cup of coffee, Macarons Chocolats de Luxe Philippe Bouvier. Wouldn’t you know it, I had landed in the shop of one of the most famous macaron makers in all of France.