So, May 8 is not really a big day for Americans but it apparently is a holiday for the French. Victory Day it seems. I had to check that on my google calendar where I had added French holidays. Why do I know this, you ask? Well, because after I got to the bus station and time for the bus to depart for Pierrefonds was overdue by about 45 minutes I started to wonder if I was going to be defeated yet again. I went back into the train part of the station and they were able to get across that, “today is a special day in France.” Special day indeed. The day that we had officially saved their bacon from having to speak German for the rest of their lives. The day the end of WWII on the European front was made official.
So the only way to not be defeated today was to bring to bear on it the one thing that will generally win. I threw money at the problem. This in the form of taking a taxi from Compiegne to Pierrefonds. Not going to get into the pricing but suffice it to say that this will be the most expensive single castle visit I ever make even counting for inflation in the future. Nonetheless I had to consider it the price of success over defeat. I was not up for a second total defeat and not so soon after the first.
Pierrefonds is a very small town whose dominant feature is the Chateaux. It rests on a hill overlooking the main square. There is an older church down by the main square as well. The Chateaux was originally very old however King Louis XIV didn’t like it for some reason and had it torn down. Well it wasn’t completely torn down but a large amount of stone were taken from it to use for other projects and the castle pretty much looked like a ruin for a long time. Some time after that the French set to restoring it to its former glory though since the restoration I do not believe it has been occupied. It is a very large and beautiful castle and they suggest it is the castle that Cinderella’s Castle for Disney is based upon. I am not sure if it is true but I certainly could believe it. The externals do show a bit of age and some preservation work really does appear to be in order but it is a pretty grand site.
When I got to the town I immediately headed up to the castle and it was dead quiet all around. Fortunately I wasn’t finding any gates blocked. I did have the basic fear that with the buses being shut down then there was a chance the monuments could be closed as well. Fortunately as I got to the main entrance after walking the path around and up to it I could hear voices, there was apparently a group tour of some sort there just ahead of me. I had received a discount card for entry from the Compiegne Palace visit I had made the day before and I presented that to at least save a couple Euro off the total price of this trip. There were no guided tours in the place but I was able to buy an English language guide book for a couple Euro. A lot of the place was open but a fair amount was closed to the public as well. Unfortunately there was no entry to any of the high towers to see out of or whatnot. I would really have liked to have been able to do that. In any event I scoured the entire area that was open and since I never found any signs that said no cameras or pictures I took as many as I could. I had to double back on a couple places because I was unsure if I should at first but decided what the heck, there wasn’t even a lot of employees there.
It is obvious that a lot of the building has been rebuilt, especially from the inside where the walls and floors are often in much better shape than you’d expect. Especially the stairwells are all a lot more even and easy to walk up and down even though they are spirals.
If I had to guess I spent over 2 hours up around and through the castle and after that I walked back into the town and then tried to find some vantage points for more pictures. There weren’t as many as I had hoped and I had no access to one whole side of the castle from as far as I could see (unless it would have been a very very long walk. After doing this for a bit I returned to town and found a place to have lunch called Le Commerce. The menu seemed to be mainly salads and a few seafood dishes. I was a bit nervous about how I was getting back so I opted just for a salad which I guessed on. It was Le Commerce also. It was a ham and cheese green salad with a hard boiled egg and a baked potato on the side. I skipped on the potato but ate most of the salad and all of the bread they gave me. The French are obviously very into their bread and if you do like bread this is definitely a great country to visit to experience great bread. I had always thought that the people walking or riding bicycles with their baguettes was a cliché and didn’t really happen at all. However I have been able to witness that it is for real. People will buy bread and walk around and munch on a giant loaf as well as apparently buying fresh bread to take home every day. Back to the story at hand, sorry. After the salad to buy some time I ordered a desert which was coffee ice cream (again with frozen coffee beans) with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. They put a little frou frou drink umbrella on it even. I think the French are also serious about their coffee ice cream and it is very good. I did actually get a picture of this dessert. After that I bought some more time with a coffee which actually wasn’t an espresso but was obviously made by that sort of coffee maker. Nonetheless it wasn’t bad at all.
When I finished the meal completely I asked the waiter that showed he could speak English if he could help me get a taxi in as many words. They were very pleasant and called me the cab without making me dial and try to express myself over the phone. I left a bit bigger tip than I am sure they usually get since their prices were service included according to the bill. It wasn’t a very long wait until the taxi arrived and I had him drive me back to the hotel rather than the center of town which yielded no savings. It was still relatively early in the day but I needed to relax a bit and I figured I could get this much written anyway.
I was then faced with the fact that the cleaning people still hadn’t gotten to my room and I was waffling on what to do when the lady pushed the cart in front of my window. So I decided to head back into Compiegne center and see if maybe any souvenir shops were open. Of course, it being a holiday and all we wouldn’t have any of that. I did a few laps of all the major areas and there wasn’t a souvenir except postcards to be had. I ended up walking back to the gardens of the palace and then out beyond them where there are some very significant walking and biking paths. I walked pretty deep out through some of the wooded area then came back in through the main open area that I have several pictures of from the palace’s back door basically. When I had gotten back in front of the palace I decided that I had been walking for some two hours already and I should head back to the room. I mulled the idea of sitting at a café and having a beer but decided against it because I was afraid to lose the momentum I had walking and lock up. I got back to the room a bit after 5pm and decided to use the tub to soak my feet in hot water and watch the Easter episode of Dr Who I had yet to watch. It being an hour long I paused when the water got to be only tepid and finished in the main room. Since I was now very far from town and unlikely to walk back I would have dinner at the hotel again. The service was very nice but not a one of them spoke any English. Nonetheless at least I knew they would serve food and I could have a couple beers.
I ended up ordering the Pavé du boeuf with pomme frites mainly because I was uncertain if the turbot which caught my eye would be fresh enough, after all I’m not really near the ocean in Compiegne. After ordering the beef and getting it truly rare I am sorry I didn’t try for the turbot after all. The beef was really good and chef cooked it to an almost uncooked state for me. One of the best representations of rare I have had in a very long time. Don’t get me wrong this wasn’t the Kobe beef from Japan but it was a very satisfying piece of rib steak nonetheless. I would guess if they could provide beef that good I would have enjoyed the turbot. I wish I’d tried the beef yesterday, then I definitely would have had the turbot today. I accompanied the beef with eventually 3 bottles of Affligem Blonde. After that I headed back to the room to finish out the night and prepare for more travel on Saturday.
I figure I will give you another couple France tidbits because I have a few minutes. One, there was a mantle in Pierrefonds that had two reliefs of squirrels on it. It made me notice that I have not seen one squirrel of any sort since I have been in France aside from fake ones. Even when I was walking through the woods today I was on the lookout for any but there was not a one to be found. I find it a bit strange since the other European countries I’ve visited had squirrels of some form or another. Two, when you are walking in the cities or towns always keep an eye out where you step because the people that walk their dogs do almost nothing to pick up after their droppings. It seems sort of fortunate that I have not seen a very large number of people who own dogs but those people obviously don’t care about keeping the sidewalks clean for other pedestrians. I find it almost as disappointing as the graffiti near all the train tracks and even in a few other places but at least dog dropping wash away after time. They don’t seem to be doing anything to get rid of the graffiti. So far the cleanliness of France is in very stark contrast to the cleanliness of Sweden and even in all the grim overcast and rain that I saw there I felt their cities were more tidy. Of course I’ve mostly seen Paris through grim overcast but I don’t think it’ll change my opinion much on the cleanliness to have some sun on it. You’d think for a country with so much pride in itself that they would have more pride in the way they keep things. I will say at least they clean up most of the trash on the streets and garbage removal looks prompt.
I fear I may have to go to Paris Gare du Nord then on to Caen to get to my next stop but I am hoping I can sort it out pretty quickly and be on my way early in the morning on Saturday. Hopefully the Friday holiday does not spill over to Saturday or I may cause an international incident. If you see me on the news, that’s why…
As with the issue last night, no pictures posted unless Caen has a reasonable connection speed.
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