A good nights sleep until I woke up with a headache around 5 am. Some painkillers and an hour or so of mindfulness talks via my wireless sleep mask allowed me to snooze a little longer, and we finally checked out around 10am.
There was intermittent heavy rain all morning but temperatures in the low 20s is far more pleasant than the heat domes earlier in the summer.
It was a simple walk to the Europcar office where we picked up our electric Skoda. The man tried to persuade us to upgrade to an electric Mercedes but when he worked out the extra cost – about double what we were paying – even he didn’t seem to expect us to go for it. We also got the usual spiel about upgrading the insurance to reduce the excess, which we never go for, because it’s covered by our insurance already, according to Simon, but we didn’t hold that against him.
The car is just your typical SUV. It took 15 minutes and a bit of googling to work out how to change the language to English, but otherwise it was fairly simple to drive. Having said that, Simon is doing all the driving as usual because I hate driving on the right and wouldn’t back myself not to revert to the left side of the road in a crisis. My forte is in navigation, as an assistant to google maps.
The first stop on our road trip is Fontainebleau, which is around 85k from the airport. The drive took about an hour and a half, mostly made up of very busy multi lane highways. We arrived just after midday, which was early – check ins and check outs are later in Europe than in NZ – but luckily our room was already ready for us. We ditched our bags and then walked to the local castle which was less than a kilometre away. Simon had thought the one English language tour of the day was at 1:15 but in fact was at 2:15, which allowed us to get lunch first, which was great as we had skipped breakfast. Lunch was a special sort of buffet that I’ve never seen before. You choose one hot main that comes in its own little covered casserole dish, and then your choice of 4 cold accompaniments – a range of cold cuts, cheese, salad and/or dessert. It was perfect for the location.
Time for a very quick look at the pond before our tour. The fish – koi carp I’m thinking? – were the biggest I’ve ever seen.
There were only four people on our English language tour, us and an American couple. I’d originally thought they were in their forties but on closer inspection they were probably our age or older. Both were wrinkle free but had taut expressionless faces, and the man had a suspiciously dark dome of hair on his head. Nevertheless they were lovely. They were from New Jersey and were not fans of Trump, from a couple of comments they made. The tour guide was a tiny loud older French woman, who had a disconcerting habit of staring you in the face while talking. It quite distracted you from what she was saying. The history of Fontainebleau is long and complicated. It’s been the hunting lodge of French kings for a thousand years. There was François the first; two King Henry’s, 2 and 4; King Louis 13, 14,15 and 16; and Napoleons 1 and 3. As you can imagine, it was very hard keeping track of everyone. It’s huge and has been remodeled many times over the centuries.
Of particular note to a Kiwi, the library gallery has an enormous globe commissioned by Napoleon (the first) and it’s got NZ on it!
The tour was ninety minutes long, and by the end we were getting tired. The sun had come out while we were inside. It was hot and stuffy, particularly in the upper floors, it must have been hideous in Summer. Only a few weeks ago they had terrible wildfires in the forest nearby, and they had to close the castle in the afternoons due to the heat and the smoke. Apparently they had helicopters scooping water out of the pond to help put the fires out, I wonder if any of the fish went for an unexpected and very exciting final trip?
Back to the hotel for a nap and then we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. On Fridays they have a buffet and a life band. The food was incredible as always in France, and the band was good, doing all the usual covers that you’d expect anywhere in the world – A horse with no name, the Beatles, Bowie – but with a heavy French accent. Everyone has understood my French so far which has been gratifying. I love the simplicity of just ordering “a glass of white wine” and just trusting that it’ll be good.
After dinner it was too early to go to bed, and as it was still light at 8:30 we decided to explore the town centre a little. It was great! There were many restaurants with tables out on the wide footpaths or in little squares and people eating out in the open air, under big red umbrellas. It was perfect.
Home to bed. I’ve never had such a painless adaptation to a new time zone – so far. I’ve felt great all day.