at my brother's wedding in march andy and i got to talking to my uncle buz (my dad's brother) about the trip they were planning in the fall to italy. he and his wife terry asked if we'd like to meet up with them for a few days of their trip. of course, we said yes, can't pass up italy - especially since i've only been to sicily. as the months passed their plans changed and we ended up flying to the loire valley in france on friday to meet up with them on saturday.
andy and i had big plans for friday afternoon, we would land, get our rental car, make our way to the cottage, then head out wine tasting and exploring in general, finding a nice place to eat dinner then make our way back to the cottage that evening. these plans all fell apart after we landed. we flew to tours, which has the smallest airport i've ever been in. one room, barely a luggage carousel and very unconcerned customs agents. we made our way to the 'car rental trailer' which housed all 4 car rental companies that operated out of the airport, and waited for our agent to show up. in the meantime i sat down as andy waited in line. we were slightly concerned at this point that we'd rented our car through a dodgy company, even though it was avis, since there wasn't anyone working. but later learned that there's only one flight into the tours airport and one flight out a day, hence why the person was late - they clearly work a very short shift. as i waited i realized i'd forgotten my driver's license. it's not something i ever have on me here as we don't have a car and i've never driven over here. i mentioned this to andy, his response was "no worries, i don't have mine either", this did worry me. i asked him how he thought we'd be able to rent the car then, he wasn't concerned, but did start to look for his in his bag. after looking for a few minutes he realized what i had said and that we wouldn't be able to get a car, but still did ask the agent who had turned up for work by this point. she said no as well. we sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do now. the cottage we were staying in we knew wasn't really near anything, how were we going to get there, it was about 50km away.
after we got over our shock and stupidity we got a taxi to the tours train station. from there with some help of the station staff figured out which stop was the closest to where we were staying. we got the train to a town called montrichard which is about 10km from the cottage, we were making progress. from the train station there we walked to a little hotel and luckly the man working there could understand us enough to call us a taxi, while we waited we called the owners of the cottage who gave us better directions that we had and let us know we should get some food for the evening/morning because there wasn't anything within walking distance. they also spoke with the taxi driver and asked her to stop off at a market for us to get the food we needed. so, in the end, we made it to the cottage with food, wine, etc to get us through the afternoon/evening. we played scrabble, made great progress on a puzzle, cooked, ate, drank, etc. wasn't the day we planned for, but sometimes it's nice to be trapped somewhere with someone you love and that you enjoy spending time with.
the following day buz and terry turned up from paris, with a car and we were saved! we drove to the town of amboise and toured a chateau d'amboise as well as leonardo da vinci's last house - clos luce. that evening we had a nice bbq at the cottage with meat from a local butcher and corn from the fields across from the cottage. sunday morning we had to leave shortly after breakfast to make our flight. buz and terry were kind enough to give us a ride on their way to wine tasting that afternoon. they tried to convince us to skip out on work and stay a few more days, they are there all week. sadly, we couldn't. we never made it wine tasting, or as much exploring as we had intended, but it was a really lovely, relaxing weekend.
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