And the troglodytes outlasted the kings; cave-dwelling continued well into the second half of this century. At Le Manoir des Basses-Rivieres in Rochecorbon I bought a ticket to visit an old wine-making cave behind a handsome riverfront house; from the vineyards on the cliff top above, grapes were dumped into a chute leading down to the cave and the press, a great wooden machine with a giant screw. Chef Pascal Favre d'Anne shut a Michelin-starred restaurant in order to travel around Asia for a year – he's a Lonely Planet fan, by the way – and then opened this place. From the tower at Amboise I first glimpsed them -- behind the houses below, dug into the white cliffs along the Loire. Everything I'd seen so far was strange and electrifying -- all that I had hoped for. Today La Deviniere is beautifully kept, with a museum and a garden where plants mentioned in the five books of ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'' are carefully cultivated and labeled. And what writers! The foods of the valley are products of its rivers and farms, forests and caves, including fish and crayfish, snails, goat cheeses, plums and prunes, melons, asparagus, walnut oil, mushrooms, cabbage and wild game.

Another small cave was recently discovered at Basses-Rivieres (often they're located by their chimneys); a peculiar basin carved into the wall was identified as a benitier, or ritual font, used by monks of the 10th century. Unlike the caves at Lascaux, these are man-made, carved out of the tufa, limestone deposited by the receded ocean. As you cross the Loire Angers Touraine Regional Nature Park between Tours and Angers, you will be fascinated by the troglodyte villages with their underground caves which are typical of the Loire Valley, and if you want to discover the landscape in a different way, take to … The Loire Valley is always stunning, 365 days a year! This […], At the confluence of the Loiret and the Loire, a wide variety of natural habitats, 500 species of plant. Balzac, who was born in Tours, lived and wrote for many years in the chateau of his mother's lover at Sache, near Chinon, setting five of his novels in his beloved Loire Valley.

Its terrace is sunny and flowered, the dining room plush. Double with bath, $170 to $210. From the church facade, battered saints guard the little square, as children pass on their way down to the boat landing where the Vienne meets the Loire, and lovers climb toward the panoramic lookout high behind the church. In a suspended glow of blue and red stretching more than a hundred yards into the dark corridor, 70 panels, double-hung, illustrate the visions of the saint. I want emails from Lonely Planet with travel and product information, promotions, advertisements, third-party offers, and surveys. One bedroom window exactly frames the chateau, a view that Leonardo sketched. From the grottoes -- implying an otherworldly strangeness. Inhabited as early as the Gallo-Roman era, the caves of the troglodytes are slighted in guidebooks, naturally overshadowed by the chateaus of the kings. Better to eat in French than in English: tasty rillettes and anguilles and fleurs des courgettes instead of potted pork, eels and squash blossoms. Mme. There's a wicker bust of Prince Eugene, a giant silk scallop shell, a sugar chateau. Thousands of caves are in use as dwellings, summer homes, tourist lodgings, wine cellars, mushroom farms, museums, restaurants, chapels, toolsheds. It's the medieval equivalent of an epic movie, based on the Book of Revelation and starring the author himself, St. John. But what exactly is that essential strangeness, and why does it so attract us, Balzac and me? Sandrier serves home-cooked dinners for about $30 each, including regional wines. As the family grew, new rooms could be carved out.

St. Martin died here in 397; medieval pilgrims traveled through on the Route d'Or toward Compostela in Spain. Particularly I loved Rabelais's bedroom. In the chapel are deposited a number of bone fragments found in the ashes of the destroyed church. It is a place of serene delight, a farmstead on a sun-bathed hill, with garden, stable, pigeonnier and caves. Still ambiguous, each scene mystifying -- St. John Eats the Book, The Woman Is Given Wings, The Wine Press Overflows -- but clearly these are chapters in a tale of struggle, through adversity and despair toward revelation. With only a week's advance notice in high season, I was able to reserve rooms in the three places listed below. Anne Dubarry's vine-covered 300-year-old cottage in the Vallee des Grottes, St.-Germain-sur-Vienne, south of Candes (2 47-95-96-45). Villon, Ronsard, Rabelais, Descartes, Balzac, du Bellay, Peguy ... Of these, it is hard to say who best personifies the spirit of the valley -- but in honor of Pantagruel's hangout, the Painted Caves, I'll choose Rabelais. © 2020 Lonely Planet. I hadn't anticipated their strangeness - architecture bizarre and gorgeous as the human imagination can make it, history that reads like a novel out of control. Around midnight, a thunderstorm ripped through the valley, and I stood at the open casement while lightning flashed and rain blew across the balustrade and terrace below. Studio Photo : ID, VISA, Passeport, Portrait, etc. They were new to me.