Lovely Loire Valley

This past April, after Sam and I visited a friend on the southern coast of England, we flew to Paris, rented a car, and drove through the French countryside to the town of Amboise, in the Loire Valley. 

(Click on pictures to view them enlarged.)

This shot was taken from a hilltop in Amboise, overlooking the Loire River.

Months earlier, I had read about a young couple, who purchased what is called a troglodyte (cave dwelling) from the local government for €1! Then after investing their savings, and lots of blood, sweat and tears, they turned it into a very comfortable bed and breakfast which they advertise on Airbnb. (Some of my readers may think the use of the word troglodyte is incorrect, since it is a term used to describe a cave dweller, but in the Loire Valley, troglodyte is what they actually call these dwellings.)

Alexis is a native of this part of France, and his beautiful partner, Lotte, is from Holland. They welcomed us warmly the evening we arrived, gave us lots of good advice about what to do and see in the area, and we ended up spending our last two evenings sharing wine and food with them, chatting until late. Probably my favorite part of traveling is making new friends in faraway places!

The Amboise Troglodyte – Chez Hélène, is built into a cave in the small town of Nazelles-Négron, just across the Loire River from Amboise. It has a cozy and charming double room for guests, with bathtub and sink, and a private water closet just a few steps down the hall.

The B&B is somewhat difficult to find, as there are no signs, but Alexis met us up the street where we had parked our car, and helped us carry our bags up the steep walkway that leads to the front door.

The troglodyte sits atop a couple of other occupied dwellings and some buildings, so it has a view over the rooftops.

The government had put this troglodyte up for auction, but apparently, the caves were in danger of collapsing and destroying the dwellings below, so the purchaser would be responsible for reinforcing the whole hillside, which turned out to be quite expensive, and consequently, they received no bids other than the €1 Alexis had offered. Here is an article with photos of the before and after. 

And here are pictures of Alexis and Lotte's living space. They also showed us their private bedroom/bathroom/laundry and a huge storage room (which I didn't shoot). They have plans to finish another guest room, and eventually, a separate apartment.

The door on the right opens to their bedroom/bathroom/laundry, and the white door with window above, is the entrance to a storage space that is bigger than this room.

This window looks out onto their patio and garden, where they grow vegetables and hang laundry.

Alexis carrying both of our bags down the walkway to our car when we reluctantly departed.

While we stayed at the troglodyte, we spent a good bit of time exploring the pretty town of Amboise. There were so many flowers everywhere, it almost looked like Disneyland!

Sam shooting close-up video of the flowers.

Just to the left of those two people walking, is the restaurant where we ate dinner, Le Patio, which I can recommend highly!

Loire River Bridge

In Amboise, we found delicious gelato, fashioned into ice cream roses!

Much of our exploration of Amboise was done on a Segway tour! If you've never tried it, believe me, it is so much fun and really easy! We signed up for a two hour tour, along with a French couple, that took us up and down the hilly streets, and even on some very narrow pathways, ending with a wine tasting at a winery built into another cave. The wine was delicious, and it made the ride back to our starting point just a little more interesting! If you'd like to see a short video Sam made of our Segway adventure, click here.

Near Amboise there are several castles worth visiting, but we only had time for one: the Château de Chenonceau on the River Cher.

It is a beautiful castle, filled with amazing floral arrangements. Apparently, there is a competition every couple of weeks where contestants create these gorgeous arrangements.

The grounds are also quite beautiful, and I especially liked the coach house covered in wisteria.

Any visit to the Loire River Valley should include a day spent exploring Château de Chenonceau and it's lovely gardens. But one thing I do regret not doing while we were in Amboise, was to visit the Château du Clos Lucé, where Leonardo DaVinci spent the last three years of his life. It now houses a museum and park displaying models of DaVinci's machine designs. Aahh, maybe next time!

If you would like to see more of the photos I took in the Loire Valley, check out my Flickr page.

California Coastal Road Trip

Having two weddings on the coast to attend last September – a week and 400 miles apart – Sam and I decided to turn it into a short road trip. 

The first wedding was in the hills above Santa Cruz, about 12 miles outside of the laid back college town, in an area called Bonny Doon. The day after the wedding, we headed down one of the most beautiful highways in the world, Highway 1, also known as Pacific Coast Highway. Our first stop was the 17 Mile Drive around Pebble Beach. The views from some of those incredibly expensive homes and gorgeous golf courses, are jaw-dropping!

One of the most popular photo-ops on the 17 Mile Drive is the "Lone Cypress," a western icon, which is believed to be as much as 250 years old. Scarred by fire, it has been held in place with cables for the last 65 years.

We continued our serpentine route along PCH, past Big Sur and the rugged California coastline, which sometimes reminds me of the Amalfi Coast in Italy.

Along the way, we saw several large pods of grey whales romping and feeding in the distance. They were pretty far out, so we couldn't get any really good shots. One whale watching boat got right up next a very active group of whales, and although I was envious of the people on board, it looked just a wee bit scary, too! Those gentle giants are so HUGE!

Our second night was spent high on a cliff overlooking the ocean, in a quaint little place called the Lucia Lodge, which was built in the 1930s, and is still run by the fifth generation of the Harlan family. The photo below is taken from the top of the hill up behind the cabins.

The office, gift shop/grocery store, and restaurant for the lodge are right on the highway, a few hundred feet from the cabins, and you would never guess from its exterior just how good that restaurant is! We had a truly amazing dinner that evening! 

The Lucia Lodge is near a couple of coves known for jade hunting. After breakfast, we drove south a few miles and found Willow Creek Cove. We walked around the beach, looking for rocks that looked like they might be jade. Although none of the rocks I picked up were obviously jade, I did bring a few home. Anyone out there an expert on jade?

As we continued down the coast, stopping occasionally to take photos or videos, we came across the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery. About seven miles north of San Simeon on the central coast, and it is home to about 17,000 elephant seals for birthing, breeding, molting and rest from their long migrations. An organization called Friends of the Elephant Seal are dedicated to protecting the seals and educating the public about them. They even have a webcam where you can watch what's going on: EsealCam

Eventually, we made our way to the city where Sam finished his education at Brooks Institute, and where we spent our first couple years of married life together: Santa Barbara. Such a beautiful city, and one that holds a very special place in our hearts. 

Acting as tourists, we visited Santa Barbara's gorgeous, Spanish-style courthouse. We learned it was dedicated in 1929, with a ceremony where a bronze medallion, from the "Native Sons of the Golden West", was set in the floor with a mixture of water from each of the California missions, sand and gravel from each California county, and cement from local resources. The building has an observation tower, where visitors can get a bird's eye view of the whole city, the mountains behind it and the ocean below. What was most amazing to me, was that we had never visited the courthouse while we were residents there. Of course, we also didn't go to the beach as often as you might think you would, living almost within walking distance of it!

Bronze medallion at the bottom of the spiral staircase.

We spent a couple of nights in Santa Barbara, and took a trip down memory lane, checking out the building where our first apartment was...

... and the cute little cottage on a court on Garden Street, where we lived the second year we were married.

We even found the boarding house that Sam lived in for two years while he was a student. It was being renovated, and looked much better than it did back in 1969-71!

Finally, our last overnight stop, before reaching the site of the second wedding, was Venice Beach. Surprisingly, even having grown up in southern California and spending so much of our youth at various SoCal beaches, neither or us had ever been to this unique destination. Back then, it wasn't considered a desirable place to visit. I remember hearing that it was just a very old, run-down beach town near LA, known for drug activity and violence. Today, Venice Beach is full of surfers, skaters, body builders, artists, performers of all kinds, old hippies and assorted weirdos.

There are surf and curio shops, lots of restaurants, and there seemed to be a medical marijuana dispensary or doctor selling "recommendation cards" on every other corner! Probably the most interesting thing about Venice though is the reason for its name: the canals. Although most of the original canals have been filled in and paved over as streets, a few of them still exist, with multimillion dollar homes adjacent to them.

Here is an interesting article I found online, about the history of the development called "Venice of America", with pictures and photographs from the time, along with the original plans for the creation of the attraction over 100 years ago.

If you would like to see more of the photos I took on this trip, click on my Flickr album.