We got a wheelchair loaner and headed for the International Garden Festival that runs from April until November. It is a yearly event and this year’s theme is “The Life-Source Garden.” Twenty-five different participants from eleven different countries created gardens around the theme. We missed a couple of them because not all of them were wheelchair accessible.
This garden was about pollination. The short houses were for butterflies. The ones that are just poles had small holes for bees. The houses on tall poles were for birds.
Not sure what this one had to do with the theme but it was supposed to look like a Persian carpet.
I liked this one with a sculpture of a large strand of DNA among the plants, illustrating that DNA is the basic structure behind every living being.
This garden was named “Carcasse” with a sculpture of a carcass decaying into the soil to show the cyclical nature of matter.
I couldn’t follow the theme thread in every garden but I loved the beauty,
the flowers
and the quiet places to rest.
We circled through this massive garden festival, up and down hills. Gayle told me she could hear me huffing and puffing. I was. It was a good work out. Gayle ain’t heavy, she’s my sister. Since we were already there I wanted to head over and at least see the Chateau Chaumont.
It is right about the Loire River.
The trees all around it are massive and have branches that touch the ground. This would have been a fun place to climb trees.
Gayle and I didn’t have time to explore the Chateau Chaumont because we had told our AirBnB host, Autrimo, for tonight that we planned to arrive at 3 p.m. He said he needed to know because someone would meet us at the rental and walk us through he place and give us the keys. But we thought we had time to go into the courtyard of the Chateau. Dozens and dozens of swallows flew over our heads to the nests they had created near the roof.
Gayle humored me as I slipped inside to check out the chateau’s chapel. I am mystified why they decided to decorate it with dried branches.
By the time we got to our car we realized that we had stayed longer than we should have to get to Chartres this afternoon by 3 p.m. and still get lunch. We ate bananas and cherries in the car as we drove. We passed the city of Blois. Every place along the Loire Valley is worth a visit.
Once we got a ticket on the autoroute, we were very intentional about where we placed it. We have learned our lesson. The last bit of our drive through the countryside to Chartres was picturesque.
We knew we were close when we could see Chartres’ impressive cathedral on the skyline. We received a message from Autrimo that he needed to amend his previous message to us. No one would meet us at the AirBnB. We needed to come to his “agency” and get the key out of box. (He didn’t give us the address of his agency. I had to message him and request it.) He also informed us that we would not have a designated parking place as previously promised. He suggested we find street parking near our AirBnB, which is steps from the cathedral or pay for public parking. We weren’t happy about this change but we opted for street parking. If you have ever been to Chartres, you will laugh at the suggestion that we could find street parking near the cathedral. Being troglodytes (deliberately ignorant) we tried. After about a half hour of winding down unbelievably narrow streets and dead end roads we opted to pay for parking, which was also difficult. We unloaded our luggage and found the elevator in the parking garage. We thought we were home free. We discovered that the elevator doesn’t go all the way to ground level. So we hauled our luggage up the last flight of stairs and trudged toward the AirBnB.
Gayle waited with our luggage next to this street art. In English it says, “Uber equals fatality.”
I set off to walk to the agency and get our keys. But I couldn’t get any cellular service so, of course, I couldn’t look up the address he gave me. I wandered the streets for 15 minutes until I found a sweet spot for cellular, uploaded a map to the agency and took off. On the wall outside the agency were 8 locked key boxes. I located the one we needed, put in the code, and just as promised found a set of keys. I hurried back to Gayle but the key to unlock the outer door to the vestibule did not work. Gayle called Autrimo who suggested we were in the wrong location. I asked a nearby waiter to help us make sure we were in the right location. He was extremely kind and assured us we were in the right place. Gayle called Autrimo again and described our set of keys. “Oops ,” he admitted he had given us the wrong keys and would text us how to correct the situation. He texted us to go back to the agency and get keys out of a different lock box. When Gayle suggested he bring them to us, he didn’t respond. I went back to the agency a second time and exchanged keys. I was hangry! It was now 4:30 p.m. and we had only a banana and cherries for lunch assuming we would arrive at 3 p.m., drive into a designated parking spot and be met by a helpful host. I returned with the new set of keys, we got into the lobby only to discover that the elevator was broken. An elevator had been our number one requirement for an AirBnB when we started our search for this place. I told Gayle to wait with the luggage and I would hike up the two flights of stairs to make sure this was the right key. I couldn’t get the key to work. A sweet neighbor stopped and jiggled the key just right and the door opened. Phew! When I went inside I found that the apartment had not been cleaned and there were no sheets on the bed. When I returned to Gayle I said, in the most sniffly and pathetic voice, “I have bad news and I think I’m going to cry.”
What should we do? Should we ditch this place and try to find a hotel? That would be difficult without any cellular connection. We finally decided to drag our luggage up two flights of stairs to this rental, text Autrimo that the rental had not been cleaned and then go and get some food. We would think better with some food in us. It is amazing how restoring food is, not only for the body but for the soul. All during our meal Autrimo was messaging us. “Yes. You are right. It turns out the apartment was not cleaned. Someone will be there in 30 minutes.” Then a few minutes later he started with his offers to compensate us financially for the terrible check-in process. Gayle, wisely, did not respond. Let him stew in his possible poor review for a time.
We took our time eating an early dinner and when we returned to our rental it appeared that the woman who was to clean it had arrived only minutes before us. We sat in the living room and waited. By the time she left Autrimo was begging for us to decide how he could compensate us. We came up with a much higher counter offer which also included the cost of our parking for two nights. He accepted immediately.
From10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. every night from April to January, Chartres has a “lumieres” display on 20 of their buildings. We are literally steps from the cathedral, which has a 30 minute light show. At 11 p.m. we headed out in the dark to enjoy it.
A lot of history was included in this cathedral light show. Had we been French or done more research we might have understood more.
The map of Chartres en Lumieres shows several other lumieres that are close to the cathedral, so we set off to see more. One display was on the north portal of the cathedral.
This was on the justice building.
We got a bit lost, walked down hundreds of steps and ended up next to the canal where we watched another lumiere. This one was on a bridge.
By this time it was midnight and we were whipped. We hiked up the hill on the other side of the cathedral. You can use it like a North Star. It is visible from almost anywhere in the city. We ended up at the south portal of the cathedral which had a lumiere.
By the time we got back to our apartment we were just grateful it was there, bad check in process or not.
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