Our fourth day, we went to Parc Astérix. This is a Six-Flags/Lagoon-style amusement park based on the famous French cartoon character and his gang of Gallic upstarts. P knew all the books by heart as a child, and our kids love both those and the hilarious (though highly politically incorrect) Tintin series. The Parc was crowded and very pricey, but worth it. We chatted as we stood in long lines, and the rides were so fun that we kept going back for more. We stayed until closing time; we wanted to get our money's worth.
Every day in the car on the way home, I'd hand out Prince cookies. These are gaufrette wafers with thick chocolate cream sandwiched between. By day three, this was an inviolable tradition, and after that, I made sure we always had a packet of them in the glove box.
The French family had left their keys with a friend who lives in the village. When we arrived our first day, we called her; she came over, let us in, and showed us around. She then invited us (all eight of us, mind you) over for dinner for Thursday night (day four). We demurred, but eventually said yes after she insisted. So after Parc Astérix, we showered and got ready to go to dinner at the neighbors' house. We were nervous: these were total strangers.
We had the time of our lives. The neighbors have three kids who are basically the same age as James, Hope, and Tess (and the same age as our house exchange family's kids). The kids surmounted the language barrier by playing an extended and enthusiastic game of Cache-Cache (Hide and Seek) in the gardens. They played for HOURS, resuming the game between each course of dinner.
Dinner was magnificent after we got over the social hurdle of refusing champagne. Elizabeth and Jean-Michel made us juice cocktails instead (which were delicious). We also had fresh melon (have you ever had a French cantaloupe? They make ours taste like pablum). Next came fresh foie gras, which, as you know, is about my favorite food of all time. The main course was duck breast, potatoes, and sautéed apples. The cheeses were fabulous, and then we had ice cream topped with fresh peaches from their garden. They also had a plum tree loaded down with almost-ripe fruit; they told us that they were leaving for Turkey for three weeks that weekend and begged us to come pick plums while they were away. More on that later.
We stayed for hours; Anne fell asleep early on, so we put her on a cushion on the grass (we were eating on their terrace), covered her with a blanket, and let her lie while we talked and ate and laughed. It was a magical evening, and we marveled at the miracle of it as we walked home through the dark village streets at midnight. That's right: we spent four hours with people we've never met before; we now consider them friends.
Day Five = Chartres of the glowing, jewel-like windows. The city of Chartres is built in a bowl-like valley. This means that as you approach the city on the autoroute, only the cathedral (built on the highest hill within the valley) is visible in the distance as you look out over the farms and fields. It looks completely isolated until you get right into town. It's astonishing.
We went on a Friday, because on Fridays they clear the cathedral floor so that people can walk the stone labyrinth. We went there early in our trip because we wanted to hear Malcolm Miller lecture. Mr. Miller is an Englishman who moved to Chartres as a young man fresh out of Cambridge. He taught English at a French high school, but almost immediately began giving lectures in English to tourists on the history and symbology of Chartres Cathedral. He's just completed his 50th year lecturing there, and he's still going strong. Patrick heard him there when he was on Study Abroad in 1986; the two of us heard him when we went there 16 years ago. Before we left, I emailed Mr. Miller to find out whether a) he was still alive; and b) he was still lecturing. Sure enough, he is, but was leaving for vacation after our first week in France. We adjusted our schedule accordingly.
As we met him in the nave, I was a bit nervous. Would the kids be bored and make a scene? My fears were soon laid to rest; Mr. Miller's lectures (he boasts that he's never given the same one twice) are so riveting that the children sat through the entire 75 minutes transfixed. He taught his audience how to read a stained glass window and talked a lot about the symbols, which the kids loved. ("Why are Melchizedek and Peter holding keys?" Mr. Miller asked, I'm sure not really expecting an answer. Yet four young hands shot up immediately.) Our time with him was fabulous.
We walked the labyrinth and climbed to the top of the bell tower (oy, the stairs). All the kids basically wanted to move in, and their enthusiasm for religious edifices miraculously held throughout the entire trip. They positively lit up any time we were inside a church or cathedral. Even now, if Daniel sees a photo of a cathedral, he starts jumping up and down with joy.
I haven't mentioned many food specifics yet. Here's what we did almost every day for breakfast and lunch. Patrick would get up early and go to the boulangerie. He'd get croissants, brioche, or pains au chocolat for breakfast and baguettes for our lunch. Our breakfasts were invariably: plain yogurt with turbinado sugar mixed in; a boulangerie treat; and juice (they had all kinds of exciting juice mixes in the supermarkets). Our lunches were almost always bottled water and sandwiches made from baguettes, fresh Normandy butter, some sort of ham or roast beef, and some sort of delectable cheese. I packed a picnic lunch almost every day, no matter where we were going; we never got tired of this routine.
For dinner, I'd make something simple (chicken or grilled sausage or roast beef) with lots of vegetables. We followed this with a large salad, then a course of cheeses. Ahh, the French cheeses that are completely unavailable here due to import restrictions: all the tommes (from the Pyrenées, Auvergne, or l'Ile de France); the double- and triple-crèmes; the little goat crottins; and my favorite new discovery, the curé nantais. The kids' favorite was hands down the morbier, a firm cows' milk cheese that has a distinctive layer of ash in the middle. After the cheeses, we'd each have a pot de crème for dessert: either chocolate, caramel, or vanilla. I bought these pre-made: mouthwateringly delicious.
Stay tuned for Part III: the catacombs and cemeteries of Paris, Mont Saint-Michel, and Normandy!