Visiting Orleans, France: Where Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget Rode Ponies with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
A
town my husband Laurent and I passed by often on the way to other towns in the
Loire Valley was Orléans.
We
finally visited Orléans one weekend when Laurent’s uncle and aunt invited us
for lunch, so we could meet their little son.
When we arrived, Florence played with her
cousin on the piano while we ate lunch.
The children had a table next to the adults’ table with appetizers and
smaller portions of the adults’ meal.
Laurent’s
aunt was fluent in German (Hochdeutsch not dialect) and had all kinds of German
books in the library along with German-language magazines like Der Spiegel. I busied myself looking at tomes of Goethe,
Heine, and Grasse.
I
wanted to read German one day like I was able to in French and Spanish, but
Italian was the next language in line for me to learn.
After
lunch, we took the children out for pony rides.
The children were adorable. I
loved riding ponies as a child on Belle Isle in Detroit (Michigan).
On
the way home, we stopped in the city of Orléans to see where Joan of Arc made
her way into Orléans on April 29, 1429.
She
told the English forces gathered in town that she was sent by God to run the
English out of France. On May 8, 1429,
the English left.
The
Cathedral in Orléans was badly damaged during the French Revolution and never
repaired, so people go there just for mass not art appreciation.
Our
outing with the family in Orléans was fun, especially for the pony riding.
By
Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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