and for the records

i sit on a balcony overlooking the beautiful boulevard arago, and reflecting on the week that's just gone by. this is a city that i was never quite taken by, perhaps because i sensed some kind of an affectation that put me off in a way. but a quiet august, empty streets, a beautiful place to live in, a dear friend, and most certainly, velibs can change one's opinion about the city. working breaks are my favourite thing, albeit- the break is longer than the working, but one should always have the option.

apart from a few days, when one goes on a motorcycle trip through the stunning countryside.

the last weekend has already entered the list of prized memories. we started late in the morning, without any hurry or intensive planning, which is always a great thing since everything we managed to see was a bonus of some sort. and all we had was a book which we hardly ever looked into, a laptop that was running out of battery with a cached google map of france, and a general sense of direction. we chose the loir river.

for me, the main problem was that of the helmet. things such as these are meant to protect the head, but with the particular variation that i was using, i ran the risk of suffocating myself to death. so every 20minutes, we would have to take helmet breaks. the first of these was in versailles, which is so cliched a destination that i refrain from putting up a photo. soon after, we were in the beautiful cathedral town of chartres.

legend has it that the pope donated the veil of mother mary to this cathedral, which is its most prized relic. we walked into the church on a friday morning, and chanced upon a full congregation and some beautiful choral singing. the service ended with hundreds of people lining up to kiss the gold-framed holy veil.

by this time it was already quite late in the afternoon, and we realised that the headlights weren't working too well. not a good sign on the country roads - and we started looking for possible places to spend the night. chartres was fully booked out - every single hotel and hostel. and it was too late to buy a tent to use on a camping ground. so we went to le coudray, the nearest village - which has a rather disgusting set of prefabricated architecture that would be alright in certain other settings, but not quite in the middle of medieval french cities. thankfully none of these formulaic hotels had any spare beds, so we were in a situation with a setting sun on the horizon, no headlights, and miles and miles of farmland stretching on both sides. we started heading for every small village that we saw signs for. one such was ymonville, and after 15minutes of biking around the place, we could not see any proof of life other than some barking dogs. so we were back on the road. the next in this route was moronville - which by good fortune we did not have to experiment with. halfway through, we saw signs for santily, yet another village. and as the bike pulled into the village, it was one of my most memorable moments of the trip. there was a huge dinner going on outside a house, with a bbq grill, and drinks on the table. there were some twenty people, who started waving at us as we passed by and stopped, and then invited us to join them at the table. in k's broken french he explained that we were looking for a place to stay - and they were all too eager to show us that there was a farmhouse not too far from there where we could rent a room for the night. we received another set of extremely enthusiastic directions from the village pub, where a bunch of eighty-plus men sat drinking wine and smoking cigars - and all of whom came out of the pub to point us toward the farmhouse at chateau de gaillard.


we walked into the farmer's house to ask about the rooms- and thankfully there was one that was free. unfortunately though, there was no food available anywhere in the vicinity, so we had to drink tea and play a long game of scrabble to distract ourselves.


the next morning we set off for the primary (till now, implicit) destination, the loir valley. the loir (sometimes also spelt loire - from what i could see) is a beautiful river flowing right through the centre of the country, with innumerable chateaus on both sides of it. plus there are vineyards at regular intervals, which makes it a brilliant combination.

our first helmet-stop was at meung-sur-loir which is where we first met the river. from here onwards we would go along the river, with the hope of picking up a tent wherever we see civilisation, and then camping wherever we feel the river is nice. this took us to the chateau de chambord , which is a stunning royal resort in the middle of a forest that's still used for hunting game.

this reminded me a bit of the windsor castle, though if one were to compare trophees on display - the windsor castle specialises on human trophees (lands captured and kings killed), whereas the ones at chambord focus on animals. i am not sure i am a fan of either.


soon after, we found a sports shop, and a tent. this meant that we felt much more secure in driving along the river - and literally choosing a spot that looked appealing enough. from chambord to blois is one of the most scenic routes i have ever been on - with the loir on your right, and the medieval skyline at a distance. the sun was on its way down a little beyond blois, and we chose to settle by the river bank in another little town called the chateau de chaumbont.



this is k reading the instruction for how to set up a tent, after having set it up. i must admit our intuitive ways were not too different from what the manual suggested.



to watch evening descend, ever so slowly, by this old river was strangely calming after all the excitement of the journey.


among the memorable moments in the tent, was the realisation that we must have created a few difficulties for a rodent family, which provided constant proofs of life beneath. we woke up the next morning to the sound of untimely cocks, crowing to their heart's content.

it was time to head back.