Purse Panic in Angers

The Moulin Geant

It was a troublesome first half of the day. The biking from the Cheateaux de Noirieux to Angers was tricky because it ended up being half on a very busy road and half on a trail that was technically labeled as a bike trail, but consisted of a narrow muddy track. Lots of fish tailing ensued, which was fun, but not great for Catherine's shoulder.

When we arrived in downtown Angers, it was a madhouse. There was a big festival going on about the British of all things. Union Jacks were everywhere. The Beatles were blaring from speakers. There were double decker buses floating around. We found out later that every year, there's a big festival in Angers about some foreign place and this year, it was Britain. A little surreal.

It was tricky to find a place to eat because it was Sunday and thus many restaurants were closed, and there were tons of people around for the festival. However, we did find a place right near the train station that had space and we could get some buckwheat gallettes. They weren't nearly as good as the ones near Villandry, but it was a solid meal.

The castle at Angers near
where Catherine lost her purse

After lunch, we headed by the castle and out of town down river. Right after we crossed over the bridge, I heard somebody yelling at me from a passing car. I stopped and a young couple who were drying by were hailing me. They said that Catherine's purse had fallen off her bike at the previous intersection. It had all her money, her phone and her passport. Catherine went back to try and find it, while I talked to them more and they said that a woman on the street had picked it up and said that she was taking it to the gendarmerie. I wish I had gotten a little more details from them, but my first reaction was to go back and try to find it quickly. So we looked around the intersection and the bridge and there was no sign of the purse or somebody trying to get our attention to give it back. So, we tried to go to the police station, but the closest one was closed. Our next try, we figured that there would be officers at the festival so we went back there. We didn't see any officers, but the tourist information center was there and they phoned the two precincts to report that it was lost and left our contact info. We couldn't think of anything else to do, so we continued on towards our hotel.

Savennières

Before getting to the hotel, we went through Savennières and stopped at Chateaux de Veaux for a tasting. The hostess spoke excellent English, so we were about to learn a lot more about the super small AOC. It's one of the few wine regions on the north side of the Loire because the aspect isn't as good. However, the soild is excellent for minerally white wines. Some of the micro spots are on old lava flows and those are the best wines. They are allowed to make both a dry and sweet style whites, but these days, are mostly known for the dry whites. We ended up tasting a number of the wines and bought a bottle.

From the tasting, we went to the gite (the Moulin Geant), which is an old wind mill at the top of the hill just outside Rocherfort-sur-Loire. Our hostess helped us phone the police in Angers again, but Catherine's purse hadn't turned up. So, we had a quick shower and took a taxi through the rain (which we had missed again!!!) to a small, cozy restaurant in Behouard, an island in the Loire that floods easily. It was a great meal that started with some escargot in their shells. We had to use these special spring loaded shell holders to hold the shells and pick out the snails with a long fork. Then we had steak and fries where the steak was deglazed using vinegar. It's not something we think of doing usually, but we really should do it more often! It's delicious. Desert for me was a chocolate lava cake with an orange sorbet that was probably the best I've ever had. It was intensely orange and even filled with small pieces of orange rind.

After dinner, we rolled out of the restaurant and back to the hotel to hit the sack.