May 26 - Tours and a note on cars in France
Today we arrived via early TGV in Tours, a city in the Loire which is relatively close to many of the chateaux of the Loire valley. There's really not much to see in Tours, although it's a very pretty city. We saw the Eglise St. Martin, which has a crypt with (presumably) St. Martin's remains in it. I can't remember exactly what St. Martin did - per Lonely Planet, he "was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity after meeting a begger who inspired him to slash his cloak with his sword and give half to the poor man". There's also some very cute streets in Tours and some fantastic restaurants. Finally it was getting warm enough that we could eat on the terrasse (patio)!
We also found a little convenience store to buy water bottles and snacks for our country drives. Minora said the owners were speaking Tamil (and French) and they were avidly wondering whether Min was Tamil, too! Some things never change. (Ironically - side story - our last day there was Friday and we arrived back in Tours really late, like 8 pm, when everything else was closed. But we wanted to get some water. Min was positive that store run by Tamil people would still be open - and it was! The only store in France probably still open at 8 pm on Friday.)
Our hotel was this adorable little place called Hotel Vendome with the nicest couple ever. We were luckily only on the 2nd floor and the gentleman helped carry our bags (even though he was like 60 years old) and were so sweet and chatted with us. The room itself was really clean and comfy - such a relief after that Paris love dungeon! They even gave us encouragement on our driving - which brings me to our key adventure in Tours.
Before getting there, Min and I had many a debate about the rental car. We really wanted to get a car to drive around the Loire and see the chateaux on our own, not to mention drive around other parts of France afterwards. Of course, we had not booked anything and were struggling to find an automatic car. A few notes on rental car agencies in France:
1. They have about 3 automatic transmission cars available in all of France, and these cost at least 3 times the amount as for a manual transmission car.
2. Europcar sucks. They don't have a central reservation agency, they make you call the agency in each city that you want to reserve in to find out if they have any cars available. Then they say they can't tell you and have to call you back. And then they don't call you back. And their rates are inconsistent between agencies without being able to explain why. And they give crappy service. Of course, it's France, but still. And they have crappy cars! WE HATE THE RENAULT CLIO!!!!! Down with Renault!!!! The only thing worse than the Clio is the Twingo. I think the names say it all.
3. Avis is better, but they still fall under the overall problems with rental car agencies in France.
4. Fords are actually really good cars in Europe. I never thought I'd say that I want to get a Ford as a rental car, but hey, compared to the Clio....
5. WHY would a country with so many uphill and downhill roads, roundabouts, tiny parallel parking spots and constant stop-and-go traffic in the cities want to have manual cars? Do they want to revert back to medieval times? It makes no sense! WE HATE MANUAL CARS!!! The only thing going for them is that they're way easier on gas. And in a country where gas costs 1.20 EURO per LITRE, that means a lot.
6. Gas is a lot cheaper at the Walmarts and Costcos of France (i.e. Leclerc or grocery stores). If you've only got a cheap Ford rental car and you're ruining it by stalling every 5 seconds anyway, may as will fill up at the cheapo 1.09 E gas station. Of course, the cheapo station does not have windshield washer wipers to clean all the bug carcasses off your windshield - something that bugged Min to no end. Hahaha - unintentional pun but a tribute to Minora all the same.
So the bottom line being - even though Minora's friends were all terrified of her manual car driving - we decided to bite the bullet and get a manual rental car (we saved about 400 E by doing that). We actually tried to find a driving school for Min to take a refresher course while we were waiting for the car to be available but that didn't work, so we just practiced on the roads.
Hats off to Minora for pulling it off! Having only one terrible manual car driving experience myself, I can only begin to appreciate her ability to drive manual - and in France, no less. Luckily we stuck to smaller cities and the countryside but still. Mastering parking was a little more difficult - as shown below - but by the end Min was an old pro. We only had to back in and out of parallel spots about 4 times before we could decently leave the car. :) That poor car though - the sounds it would make sometimes when we were going 40 kmph in 2nd gear - or 40 kmph in 5th gear - oops - Min affectionately named it Tin-Tin [the little car that could] and we were quite sad to see it go by the end of the trip. I'm sure it was glad to get away from us though!!!
Before:
After:
That night Minora drove all the way to Blois, about 50 minutes away on the autoroute, to see a "Son et lumiere" (sound and light show) at the Chateau Blois. We thought it would be a pretty light show set to music, but actually it was the story of the history of the Chateau Blois with lights. We were engulfed by American teenage students and had to listen to cheesy French accented actors speaking English. Min, remember that stupid story about the Duke who was assasinated by 40 of the King's soldiers? Narrator - "Could the Duke have known that these men lay in wait only to kill him? As he passed by the first guard, the guard stepped on his foot." "OW! Why did you do that?" "He said. He continued on, closer to his death. Did he now suspect that something was amiss? Onwards into the interior chamber he went. Was this the moment when he began to feel uneasy?" ON AND ON AND ON. What a waste. The chateau itself was very pretty though.
We also found a little convenience store to buy water bottles and snacks for our country drives. Minora said the owners were speaking Tamil (and French) and they were avidly wondering whether Min was Tamil, too! Some things never change. (Ironically - side story - our last day there was Friday and we arrived back in Tours really late, like 8 pm, when everything else was closed. But we wanted to get some water. Min was positive that store run by Tamil people would still be open - and it was! The only store in France probably still open at 8 pm on Friday.)
Our hotel was this adorable little place called Hotel Vendome with the nicest couple ever. We were luckily only on the 2nd floor and the gentleman helped carry our bags (even though he was like 60 years old) and were so sweet and chatted with us. The room itself was really clean and comfy - such a relief after that Paris love dungeon! They even gave us encouragement on our driving - which brings me to our key adventure in Tours.
Before getting there, Min and I had many a debate about the rental car. We really wanted to get a car to drive around the Loire and see the chateaux on our own, not to mention drive around other parts of France afterwards. Of course, we had not booked anything and were struggling to find an automatic car. A few notes on rental car agencies in France:
1. They have about 3 automatic transmission cars available in all of France, and these cost at least 3 times the amount as for a manual transmission car.
2. Europcar sucks. They don't have a central reservation agency, they make you call the agency in each city that you want to reserve in to find out if they have any cars available. Then they say they can't tell you and have to call you back. And then they don't call you back. And their rates are inconsistent between agencies without being able to explain why. And they give crappy service. Of course, it's France, but still. And they have crappy cars! WE HATE THE RENAULT CLIO!!!!! Down with Renault!!!! The only thing worse than the Clio is the Twingo. I think the names say it all.
3. Avis is better, but they still fall under the overall problems with rental car agencies in France.
4. Fords are actually really good cars in Europe. I never thought I'd say that I want to get a Ford as a rental car, but hey, compared to the Clio....
5. WHY would a country with so many uphill and downhill roads, roundabouts, tiny parallel parking spots and constant stop-and-go traffic in the cities want to have manual cars? Do they want to revert back to medieval times? It makes no sense! WE HATE MANUAL CARS!!! The only thing going for them is that they're way easier on gas. And in a country where gas costs 1.20 EURO per LITRE, that means a lot.
6. Gas is a lot cheaper at the Walmarts and Costcos of France (i.e. Leclerc or grocery stores). If you've only got a cheap Ford rental car and you're ruining it by stalling every 5 seconds anyway, may as will fill up at the cheapo 1.09 E gas station. Of course, the cheapo station does not have windshield washer wipers to clean all the bug carcasses off your windshield - something that bugged Min to no end. Hahaha - unintentional pun but a tribute to Minora all the same.
So the bottom line being - even though Minora's friends were all terrified of her manual car driving - we decided to bite the bullet and get a manual rental car (we saved about 400 E by doing that). We actually tried to find a driving school for Min to take a refresher course while we were waiting for the car to be available but that didn't work, so we just practiced on the roads.
Hats off to Minora for pulling it off! Having only one terrible manual car driving experience myself, I can only begin to appreciate her ability to drive manual - and in France, no less. Luckily we stuck to smaller cities and the countryside but still. Mastering parking was a little more difficult - as shown below - but by the end Min was an old pro. We only had to back in and out of parallel spots about 4 times before we could decently leave the car. :) That poor car though - the sounds it would make sometimes when we were going 40 kmph in 2nd gear - or 40 kmph in 5th gear - oops - Min affectionately named it Tin-Tin [the little car that could] and we were quite sad to see it go by the end of the trip. I'm sure it was glad to get away from us though!!!
Before:
After:
That night Minora drove all the way to Blois, about 50 minutes away on the autoroute, to see a "Son et lumiere" (sound and light show) at the Chateau Blois. We thought it would be a pretty light show set to music, but actually it was the story of the history of the Chateau Blois with lights. We were engulfed by American teenage students and had to listen to cheesy French accented actors speaking English. Min, remember that stupid story about the Duke who was assasinated by 40 of the King's soldiers? Narrator - "Could the Duke have known that these men lay in wait only to kill him? As he passed by the first guard, the guard stepped on his foot." "OW! Why did you do that?" "He said. He continued on, closer to his death. Did he now suspect that something was amiss? Onwards into the interior chamber he went. Was this the moment when he began to feel uneasy?" ON AND ON AND ON. What a waste. The chateau itself was very pretty though.
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