The castle of Guedelon and Bourges

Today we bid au revoir to Paris. We'd miss our little apartment, and le Marais, a new part of town for us! We've enjoyed our time here greatly. There were a few funny things about our place in Paris though. There were 5 bedrooms on the main floor, as advertised, but one of them was barely big enough for the bed. There was no place to put luggage, no closet, no outside window. This bedroom had access to the toilet room down the hall, but that really went with another of the bedrooms. So Caterina and Marco slept in the downstairs bedroom, billed as a game room with a foosball table. It had twin beds and a bathroom of its own, but the stairs going down to it were treacherously steep. Dangerous after Happy Hour, let's say! There was also an interesting large hole in the stone wall that was deep and dark. Who knows where it went? It was kind of creepy. I think they expected an animal the size of a raccoon to come out of it in the night. 

The other thing we dealt with was that the door handles on a few of the doors came off. The old stone doorways had been retrofitted with custom metal doors and frames. So, a few times we had people stuck in their room or bathroom because the door handle had shaken loose and fallen off, dislodging the handle on the other side of the door too. Marchesa suffered a black-and-blue toe after her door handle fell on her foot. We contacted the landlord, and he promised to send a handyman to fix the handles. We thought he'd arrive during regular business hours, so we made sure we were there in the late afternoon one day to let him in. He finally arrived at 8:00 p.m. He was a nice guy, and friendly, and spoke good English even though it was his 3rd or 4th language. It sounded like he worked 18 hours a day, responding to emergency fix-it calls around Paris. He said he worked pretty much constantly for 10 months of the year, and then took a few months off. His schedule would have killed us off, but he was much younger. I was chatting with him as he worked, and asked how he was planning to secure the door handles. He said he was using "call", and I could see that he was using a caulking gun. So I said, it's called "caulk", and I emphasized the L. I think he was hesitant to vocalize what he knew to be an offensive slang word in English for part of the male anatomy. Such is the challenge of learning another language! Who knows what I've called someone, or something, in my effort to speak French!

Our Paris apartment with metal doors needing some caulk

We had taxis pick us up at 8:30 a.m. at the corner of our street, and deliver us to the Gare de Lyon to catch the train to Melun, where we'd pick up our rental cars.

The crowd at Paris Gare de Lyon

When the train stopped in Melun, we assumed this was the end of the line, based on the map inside the train car. It seemed like a commuter line since Melun isn't far outside of Paris. The guys in our group - Marco, Ricardo and Il Padrino (and Giovanni before he and Principessa headed back to Seattle) - had a pretty good bucket-brigade-type plan figured out to get all of the suitcases on and off the trains. On this occasion, Laura, Il Padrino and I were on the platform, along with all the luggage, when the doors started to close. There was no conductor on the platform, as there usually would be. No amount of pulling, pushing or banging on the doors from either side would open them. Our group had been so considerate as to let other people, who appeared to be in a hurry, off first. All we could do was looked shocked as the rest of our people, palms and noses pressed against the glass in disbelief, felt the train start rolling down the track.

Well, I do know one appropriately bad word in French, and I think I know how to pronounce it - Merde!

What to do. What to do. Three of us couldn't possibly get the luggage for 8 over to the car rental office, 5 blocks away. And the drivers of both cars, Ricardo and Il Padrino, needed to be there to pick up the 2 rental cars. So we moved the bags out of the way and tried to imagine a solution. For all we knew, the train would head down the track for 2 more hours before stopping. And alas, there was a big line at the ticket window, where I'm sure the kindly agent would have loved talking to a panicked American tourist about our dilemma.

After 30 minutes or so, Ricardo called me on my cell phone. He and the others had gotten off at the next stop, not far down the line. They checked the reader board at the station, and realized they could catch another train back to Melun shortly. The whole fiasco probably took an hour or so. All we could think was, thank heaven for our cell phones.

When the rest of the group returned to Melun, we all dragged our luggage to the Hertz office to pick up the rental cars. Service was the absolute slowest it could possibly be, but finally we were on the road. Next stop - the castle of Guédelon.

The drive between Melun and the castle was about 2 hours. I was using the Google Maps program on my phone to direct Ricardo, and we were in the lead car. Because of our delay with the train, we felt the need to stop and eat before we got to the castle, which was where I envisioned having lunch in the planning stages of this day's itinerary. Ricardo swore I must have requested directions on all the tiny back-roads, which I absolutely did not! Lots of windy roads and turns and driving through deep woods later, we saw a sign along the road for a restaurant. It was in the little village of Mezilles, with a stream running across main street - not under main street - there was no bridge. The water, luckily shallow, was running over the street. So both cars drove through the water and followed the sign to the restaurant.

In looking back at this day, Il Padrino said that this little restaurant was the most fun surprise of the trip. We didn't know where we were, we had no idea what this restaurant would be, we just drove down the country lane, and viola, a wonderful place awaited.

Le Moulin de Corneil, in Mezilles, a wonderful surprise in the countryside

Marchesa and Giuliana in front of the restaurant

We asked the waitress to translate some of the menu items for us, and she brought her laptop out to our table to help figure it out.

One of the fabulous lunches we had at Le Moulin de Corneil

We ate outside on a lovely terrace looking out at farm fields and a little stream. The food was very good, and the non-drivers had some nice wine. Marchesa had beef tartare, which she said was delicious. 

The interior was charming too

From there, we headed to the Chateau de Guédelon, following the directions on Google Maps, and still on lots of little backroads. In reality, the castle is out in the countryside. I'd been seeing articles about this place for the last few years, and it was fascinating to me. A private landowner had discovered evidence of a ruined castle underneath his chateau, and rather than raze his home to excavate it, he financed construction of a new castle on property nearby. He added an interesting twist to the project. The methods used to construct the castle would be authentic to the 13th century. It was started in 1997, and is expected to be completed in 10 years, or so. 

Chateau de Guédelon under construction

Volunteers and craftsman, wearing clothing made from fabric woven on the property of homespun wool and flax, were demonstrating all kinds of crafts from the 13th century - basket-weaving, coin minting, making dye for fabric from plants, shaping stone for the buildings. The roof tiles were made from clay mined on the property, shaped into tiles, and baked in a huge wood-burning kiln.

One of my favorite features is a man-sized hamster wheel, which was how the huge blocks of stone were hoisted to the top of the tower walls

Basket-weaving is only one of the crafts demonstrated at the Chateau

I've seen some fun videos on YouTube of different things going on here. On a certain day of the week they have fresh bread baked from wheat harvested on the property, for instance. I'm sure the whole project is a delight for teachers and school children of nearby schools. We enjoyed it too, and marveled at how difficult some of the necessary chores would have been 700 years ago.

The most modern bathroom fixture available in the 13th century

Although it's not the closest town to the chateau - it's about 45 minutes away - Rick Steves recommends staying in the town of Bourges if you're in the area. That's where his tour groups stay, and we were glad we followed his advice. The town is charming, and filled with half-timbered buildings. The cathedral is huge and ornate, and our little hotel - the Best Western Hotel d'Angleterre - was great.

We got the car unloaded, checked in, and the two drivers headed out to find parking for the night. The cobblestone streets near the hotel were narrow, and had no place to park a car.

The Best Western Hotel d-Angleterre in Bourges

The hotel was much older than it's Best Western affiliation, and was nicely quaint.

After a suitable pause in our hectic day, we ventured out to find dinner. The desk clerk at our hotel directed us to a little square with a fountain, and the restaurant La Comptoir de Paris, where we enjoyed dining outside in the pleasant evening air. I can't remember for sure, but I'm thinking we ordered the biggest glasses of wine available. It had been an exhausting day!

A nice dinner before collapsing into our beds