Visiting Blois, France's Loire Valley Chateau Made Famous by Catherine de Medici with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Blois, France’s Loire Valley Château Made Famous by Catherine de Medici with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

To celebrate my finding a part-time job as an English teacher, my husband Laurent, baby Florence, and I went to visit France’s Loire Valley Château at Blois.

Blois was more interesting than other châteaux in the Loire Valley where the life of the châteaux seemed to revolve around hunting and dining.  Blois had conspiracy associated with it like murder and poison.

In 1415, Charles d’Orléans was taken prisoner at Azincourt by the English.  He remained in captivity for 25 years.  In 1440, he was allowed to return home and ran a cultivated court at Blois.  When he was 71, be became the father of a son, the future Louis XII.

Louis XII succeeded King Charles VII in 1498 and lived at Blois happily with his wife Anne de Bretagne just like in the fairy tales. 

Francis 1^st, the next king, was happily married to his wife Claude de France, too, but she died in childbirth after her seventh child was born.

The history of Blois becomes bloodier with King Henri II, who organized the assassination of his rival Henri de Guise in 1558.

After the Duke of Guise was murdered, his body was burned in a chimney at Blois.  The Duke’s ashes were spread on the Loire River.  Eight months later, King Henri II was murdered by Jacques Clémant in Paris.

Queen Catherine de Medici had a roomful of small, wooden cabinets at Blois, but I think she kept Florentine stationery and pens in the cabinets not vials of poison.

Blois has a great double staircase, which allows people to go up and down without seeing people on the other staircase.

The rumor is that Leonardo da Vinci designed the staircase when he lived at the Clos Lucé by Amboise Château.

Blois is a defensive château that sits high above the Loire River guarding the entrance to the pleasure châteaux downriver on the Loire.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Chania and the Samaria Gorge in Greece with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Chania and the Samaria Gorge in Greece with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I visited the town of Chania on the Greek Island of Crete on one of our Greek vacation days.

The seafront at Chania is set up so you can walk along comfortably without motorbikes or scooters zooming beside you.

We went to the Historical Museum in Chania, which was very well documented in the Greek language. 

We were the only tourists there.  Most of the museum was devoted to the Resistance Movement during World War II in photos.

“That was a great visit for not being able to read anything in Greek,” I said to Laurent as we left.

He laughed.  We both wished we had a Greek friend to translate for us.  The same was true when we went to the Maritime Museum.

Natural wonders not cultural wonders were on our agenda the following day as we planned to go to the Samaria Gorge.

I was wearing heels and not hiking boots, so I kept slipping in the Gorge on the way down.

I went topside to a café and read while my husband Laurent continued down six kilometers to the bottom of the Gorge.

I read the Greek history book I bought while sipping lemon soda.  When Laurent returned, he had some soda in the air-conditioned café, too. 

Our last place to visit was the Monastery at Moni Prevelli, which was another Resistance movement refuge during World War II.

We toured the site and admired the mountain scenery before getting ready for our flights to Athens and Paris the next day.

Our beach holiday turned out to be cultural and educational as well as a much needed rest from long hours at our Parisian jobs.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Knossos (Greece - Isle of Crete) to see the Minoan Palace with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Knossos (Greece – Island of Crete):  Visiting the Minoan Palace and the Toplou Monastery with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We set out for the Minoan Palace ruins, Heraklion Archaeological Museum, and the Toplou Monastery on the weekend.  Even my husband Laurent was getting tired of going to the beach all the time now.

You could walk around the Minoan Palace at Knossos unlike the Acropolis and Erectheon in Athens.  Knossos with its vermillion red painting was beautiful and maybe too well preserved.

Knossos was an ancient civilization that existed between 1700 BC and 1400 BC.  The society was said to be matriarchal.

The paintings of soaring blue dolphins and dancers jumping over charging bulls delighted me.  (These paintings are copies.  The real ones are in the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion.)

Our next stop was the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, the most famous work of art in the museum in addition to the dolphin paintings and bull dancer paintings is a statuette of a goddess wielding coiling snakes in both of her hands.

The next day was beach filled and palm tree filled.  We went to the beach at Vai and admired the largest grove of palm trees in Europe. Was this a permanent coconut milk source for cocktails I wondered.

I read books under a beach parasol on a comfy chaise lounge until my husband Laurent got his chestnut-colored suntan.  He put on his Ray-Bans, and we walked back to the car to do some cultural tourism.

We stopped at the Toplou Monastery on the way home.  It was built of stone, had yellow doorframes, and planters full of what seemed to be lemon trees.

Very few tourists were there.  I felt privileged to see the interior courtyard of a monastery, view the dining area and kitchen, and visit the chapel and library.

Back in Heraklion, I went out shopping for books.  I just bought one, but it was a great geeky read called Modern Greece:  A Short History by C. M. Wodehouse.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Driving Around Crete: Exploring Greece's Largest Island with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Driving Around Crete:  Exploring Greece’s Largest Island with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We set out for Pirgos in southern Crete through the Psiloritis Mountains.  We took the wrong road, which turned out to be a mule path for about three kilometers.  The mountains were covered with olive trees and white houses.

We drove all around the eastern side of the island to get back to Heraklion, so we could avoid the mule path back.  Southern Crete was not tourist territory at the time.

One man saw our rental car and shook his fist at rich tourists.  Back in Heraklion, we spent 45-minutes looking for a parking spot, because there are so many tourists there.

We ate the first of many meals at the Ionia Restaurant.  What I liked about the Ionia Restaurant was that you could look at the food in the kitchen before ordering it.

Laurent said he wanted to be on a beach vacation without too many museum visits - like none.  So, we began our tour of bathing spots in Crete outside the town of Rethymno.

Driving was tough, because we had to work out the Greek alphabet.  I busied myself with reading art books at the beach until we could go to town.

Rethymno has many restaurants and a nice pedestrian walkway along the port we discovered.  We ate lunch outside at a spot that had a great view of waves crashing against rocks.  The schnitzel and beer were good and reasonably priced.

On the way back to Heraklion, we discovered a beach called Lythagoia, which seemed to have only Greeks on it.  We drove down the steep road that led to the beach and decided to stay.  The water was clear, clean, and crystalline blue.

The next day, we drove to the pretty beach called Agios Nikolaeus.  I loved this spot, but wanted to get away from tourists despite being one myself.

From Agios Nikolaeus, we went to Elouda where we enjoyed more scenery.  We ate at another restaurant by the sea and thought the schnitzel and beer were delicious and reasonably priced.  The Greeks like those German dishes, too, when they go out.

I bought a book of Greek recipes in English.  As I looked over the recipes, I thought of how tourism had had a negative impact on the culture of the area.  I could not believe that no one sought out more cultural things to do in this ancient place.

As the French would say, I was augmenting “my cultural baggage.”  I wanted to know more about ancient, medieval, and modern Greece to share with my little daughter Florence one day.

My griping about tourists prompted me to ask Laurent to take us to the Lasthiti Plateau in the hope of eating a real Greek meal.

As we drove into Lasthiti, people approached us with lace and raki – homemade anise-flavored liqueur like ouzo – for sale.  The women here wore black outfits.

There were some windmills about, but these were being replaced with electric generators.

We ate lunch on the Lasthiti Plateau – delicious stuffed grape leaves made with rice and lemon sauce followed by thick, Greek yogurt with honey drizzled over it.

Wineries are supposed to be self-sustaining, because you can stir-fry grape leaves to eat along with wild boar sausage and a reasonable amount of wine. 

Wild boars seem to breed in vineyards. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Walking around Athens: Greece's Capital with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Walking around Athens: Greece’s Capital with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I took an afternoon flight to Athens from Paris and arrived at night in Athens.

We slept in and walked to the Acropolis through the Plaka quarter, which was full of restaurants serving Greek omelets with feta cheese and pan-baked potatoes.  I knew where I would be eating after climbing the Acropolis.

There were no crosswalks in Athens.  Walking can be hazardous downtown.  The air was polluted, too.  I knew why people were worried about the Parthenon being eaten down by pollution and being turned black like many of the monuments were in Rome (Italy).

Once we arrived at the foot of the Acropolis Hill, we climbed it to see the temples that governed life in ancient Greece.

At the top, we visited the Parthenon devoted to the Goddess Athena, who was worshiped for weaving and wisdom.  The Erectheon Temple with its caryiatids (columns in the form of women) was more beautiful than the Parthenon I thought.

I wanted to go inside these places and let the magic of their perfect proportions work on me.  However, most of the buildings were closed off to tourists.

After our visit to the Acropolis, we set out to purchase our plane ticket to Heraklion, the capital of the island of Crete where we were going to spend a two-week vacation.  With our tickets in hand, we went to the Plaka for breakfast. 

(I still want to build a shrine to the Agora Restaurant in Hyde Park, Chicago for keeping me healthy and strong on 3-egg, Greek omelets with feta cheese and pan-baked potatoes with a ton of café au lait and grapefruit juice when I was in college at the University of Chicago.)

At the airport the next day, we were the only non-German tourists in the terminal.

“Did we book a flight to Heraklion or Berlin?” I asked Laurent.

Laurent smiled at me as we got our affairs ready to board the plane.  It took about half an hour to fly from Athens to Crete.

Our travel agent was waiting for us at the airport.  She drove us to the rental car agency and helped us fill out our paperwork.

We checked in to our hotel and went to eat downtown.  I ate moussaka (a lamb casserole with béchamel and cheese sauce on top) and pastitio (macaroni with tomato sauce and béchamel sauce topping), I drank a Greek iced coffee with thick, real cream and no sugar.

We watched the sun go down and thought we had a pretty nice first day on the island of Crete.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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