Good afternoon from partly, sunny, partly cloudy and partly rainy France. Joan and I are sitting here in the Loire Valley trying to decide if it is summer or winter. Actually it is the middle of September but depending on how you feel it can seem like both. This is not a complaint since you would be a complete jerk to complain about anything if you are sitting in one of the most beautiful places on earth!
We left last Thursday, September 10th for a month here in the Loire Valley , a trip in the planning for many many months. Joan spotted our small chateau on the Internet and in a moment of haste we committed to it. After just a day and a half we are very happy we did. There will be detail and description of our abode to come in future posts.
Our flights out of Phoenix were on time and uneventful. A three hour layover in the Delta Sky Room was quite nice with the usual free food and drink. The second flight, from Atlanta to Paris was, as mentioned, on time and ok as we were seated in Premium Econony, giving us about four more inches in leg room and, supposedly, more degrees of tilt in our back rests. This was actually on Air France, a partner of Delta. Their idea of "more tilt, is to have the entire seat move forward with the back rest staying in place. In other words your head stays in the same place while your legs move forward. Oops, instantly there goes all the extra leg space. Completely defeated the purpose. Needless to say we didn't slide the seat forward. Really not a big issue! What was a big issue was the fact that the seats were, it seemed, made out of granite rock!! By the time we hit the runway in Paris my rear end was screaming. Who was the rocket scientist who designed these seats. Apparently some guy who has never been on an airplane. It never felt so good to get off a plane. My tailbone will take a week to heal.
Clearing Customs and grabbing our bags was a breeze and the car rental office was nearby. We piled our bags in the car and started our drive, about 120 miles to city of Tours. With the added benefit of GPS in the car this was going to be an easy, no brainer drive. We should be at our hotel in a couple of hours. Ah ha, not so fast. The car, an Volkswagen Golf, is equipped with an advanced GPS system that has access to real time traffic data and updates directions every few moments and " compensates" by figuring out alternative routes based on said traffic. Sounds good but in its haste to get you to your destination it quickly becomes apparent it outsmarts itself because the alternative route then becomes congested so it sets you out in another "quicker" direction. The end result? We soon found ourselves, rather than staying on the freeway for the direct route, on very small side streets in an industrial area of Paris. I knew this wasn't right but kept following the directions until we were in the worst gridlock traffic known to mankind. Of course there were no terse words exchanged between Joan and me. Of course not, never!! I finally said we were getting back on the next freeway no matter where it led to. Even if it was going to Germany!! We drove in silence, found a freeway and jumped on it. Fortunately it was going in the correct direction and away we went turning a two hour drive into three. But surely I was enjoying every minute of it, after all we were in France!! Surely you believe this.
The hotel showed mercy on us and allowed us an early check in. After a very short walk to loosen up our legs we returned to the hotel, fell into bed and slept for 14 hours.
More adventures to come.
