A Tasty Three Days in Tours, France

We disembarked from the train, complete with our bags, at Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, and splurged on an Uber to the Tours Hilton Garden Inn, a newish property close to the Loire River, a 5-10 minute walk from Vieux Tours, the Old City.

The hotel itself was completely satisfactory for our three-night stay, especially after we prevailed on them to turn down the temperature slightly in our room.

It was too early in the season to sign up for a tour - palaces and wineries are featured destinations - but we managed nicely on our own.

The history of Tours is long and rich. Tours has been the capital of France once or twice and Joan of Arc supposedly had a suit of armor made here around 1500. As for us, we enjoyed just wandering around the old city and gawking at the half-timbered buildings.

A part of Place Plumereau, the large square where every evening people by the hundreds flock to outdoor restaurants to socialize…

One afternoon we crossed the street from our hotel and spent a pleasant hour strolling along the Loire River in the beautiful weather we encountered throughout our stay.

As to dining, we did fine. We enjoyed a first night’s dinner of tapas and wine at Chez Madie. The employees here and in every other restaurant were friendly and helpful, with a command of English fortunately superior to Brian’s French.

Their whimsical version of a Croque-Monsieur…

The bread in France is always marvelous.

Our second dinner was at La Deuvaliere, considered worth a mention, if not a star, in the Guide Michelin. The meal was terrific, starting with an amuse-bouche and a glass of sparkling Vouvray, the well-regarded Crémant or Bulles of the Loire Valley that some French prefer to Champagne.

We shared a large portion of foie gras.

At work in the kitchen…

Chicken for Kathy and cod for Brian…

We’d ordered a three-course meal and managed to find room for desserts, Kathy’s featuring mango and Brian’s Ganache…

Look what’s hidden under the chocolate wafer.

Yesterday we skipped the mediocre hotel breakfast (after all, breakfast here is le petit dejeuner or “little lunch”) and enjoyed dejeuner at The Old Mulberry Tree, a pub sort of place.

A lovely view of Place Plumereau from our table…

Kathy started with a mushroom velouté.

Brian’s choice was a salmon terrine.

Kathy’s “hamburger” consisted of chicken breast filet, goat cheese, and blueberry jam, a combination new to us.

Brian’s Chicken Cordon Bleu was equally unique.

Fun to try and plenty of food but not particularly memorable.

We unashamedly napped after lunch and enjoyed a light and late dinner at La Triptique, a tiny eatery with friendly employees, lovely Loire Cabernet Franc, and a shared platter of locally sourced rillettes, terrines, pork belly, and cheeses - delicious!

Their menu features QR codes with links to four different languages, including English, saving paper and confusion.

We never tire of the baguettes.

Or the wine…

Today, alas, we pack our rollaboards and wend our way by train to CDG, where we’re saying at the Courtyard by Marriott.

We’ll be holding our shoulder bags on our laps or squeezing them under our feet.

If you wonder why, you haven’t read our previous blog post.

A Surprising Theft on a French Train

We’re still shaking our heads at the skill and boldness of the thief who stole Kathy’s purse as we traveled on a TGV from Aéroport CDG to Tours.

Here is Kathy sitting across from Brian in our first-class car.

Here is Kathy a couple of hours later, sitting in a Tours police station as a policeman types a report.

We wrote up the following description of what happened for Google Translate to convert into French for the friendly policeman in Tours who took our report.

My purse was stolen today on the Train à Grande Vitesse #5224 between Charles de Gaulle Airport and Saint Pierre des Cours. The thief must have removed my shoulder bag from the rack above our heads while my husband and I were looking at our mobile phones. Train employees found the bag in the next car but the small purse labeled Oceania Cruises was missing. It contained my wallet with credit and debit cards, a phone battery, medical insurance cards, and a U.S. 20-dollar bill.

Fortunately the actual loss was small. The train conductor seemed to know what had happened as soon as Brian found him. He knew to search the next car, and returned with the missing shoulder bag, which had obviously been abandoned after the purse was removed.

Her Bose headphones and her passport were still inside.

The policeman told us such thefts are common. Do not store a smaller bag in the overhead rack. Keep it with you, under your feet or in your lap.

He indicated that crime is up in France, and implied that the statistics are massaged to make the situation appear better than it is.

He said there were 18,000 crime reports in Tours last year, and about 40 police officers to deal with them.

Other than not watching our bags carefully (who would have thought?), we did a few things right.

We keep separate credit and debit cards, and Kathy was able to cancel hers quickly because we both know what items are in our wallets.

Brian keeps separate “home” and “travel” wallets, both secured inside zippered pockets in the anti-pickpocket pants he bought online from Clothing Arts after being pickpocketed on the Paris Métro a few years ago.

He also carries an accessible “dummy” wallet that contains a bit of cash and expired credit cards.

For years, we’ve each stored our passports in our shoulder bags, but no more. We’ll be carrying them behind zippers on our persons, whether in travel jackets, vests, or pants.

Finally, we’ll redouble our efforts to be vigilant.

We realize we’ve been victims of thefts five times (!) within the past decade, once in India and twice each in Italy and France.

Is crime abroad getting worse? We strongly suspect so, especially after our lengthy conversation with the Tours policier.

Do two slow-moving elderly tourists like us make tempting victims? Definitely.

In any event, we’ll continue to take reasonable precautions, as we continue to enjoy our travels.

Last night we enjoyed tapas in a charming bistro. This afternoon we strolled for an hour along the banks of the Loire River in gorgeous weather.

Tonight we dine in one of the most popular restaurants in Tours, an eatery that gets a favorable mention, if not quite a star, in the Michelin Guide. 

Why would we let petty thieves spoil our fun?

Travel clothing companies we patronize:

https://www.clothingarts.com/

https://www.scottevest.com/

A Bargain Week in France

Kathy happened to notice a bargain business class fare to Paris during her morning scan of travel websites awhile back.

Aer Lingus is the flag carrier of Ireland, although it was privatized some years ago. More significant for us, it’s an Alaska partner and we plan on earning about 25,000 elite qualifying miles (EQMs that earn status by flying from Seattle to Dublin to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and back.

We flew from Bellingham to Seattle, overnighted at the SEA Doubletree, and took the 4:00 am shuttle back to SEA Saturday morning with a quiet group.

We certainly beat the rush. The airport and Alaska’s lovely lounge in the N satellite were deserted.

Our Alaska flight to Toronto (YYZ) left punctually, and before long we were enjoying decent breakfasts, pancakes for Kathy and Shakshuka for Brian.

Once through security at YYZ, our EI business class boarding passes gave us access to a pleasant KLM lounge.

The lounge included a display of the KLM Delft pottery canal houses, handed out as presents to their business class passengers. We’d picked up enough for each of our grandchildren when flying in KLM business back when they were Alaska partners.

It was an easy boarding process and soon we were in our business class in an Airbus A321 NEO narrow body plane. How do they configure flatbeds? 

Like this…

They aren’t the most luxurious suites, but they’re certainly adequate.

We still have the same complaint about six-hour transatlantic flights. Even skipping dinner and breakfast, there was no way we had enough time to sleep more than a very few hours.

Even though we got lost a couple of times, we arrived at the Aer Lingus DUB Lounge in ample time to relax and maybe even take a shower.

One problem: The employee denied us entry, telling us we were only allowed to enter two hours before our ongoing flight. We slunk out and retreated to a food court upstairs to buy a couple of rounds of milky Cappuccinos.

Brian posted a query about this particular rules in Flyertalk’s Aer Lingus forum and got a response a few hours later. The FT member posted that he’d been admitted the very same day under the same circumstances. 

We did return to the lounge a little less than two hours before our flight. It’s an attractive facility, and was largely deserted at 7:30 on a Sunday morning.

The food and even the coffee were below par, but maybe we were influenced by the almost universally poor reviews on Trip Advisor.

With the taste of sour grapes in our mouths, we flew the short DUB-CDG hop, feeling tired and sleepy at this point.

We navigated our way through immigration and found the VAL train to take us to Terminal 2, where a room was ready for us as promised at 1:00 pm, exactly 24 after we’d departed the SeaTac Doubletreee.

We’d cancelled our stay at the CDG Hilton, a property we’ve used several times over the years. We read comments and reviews both in Flyertalk and Trip Advisor complaining about an infestation of rats inhabiting the walkway between the airy and the hotel entrance. 

One FT member described taking considerable time to remove rodent droppings from his family’s rollaboard wheels. Too graphic? Sorry, but it was for us too, and we quite enjoyed the Sheraton.

After a much-needed nap, we had a glass of wine in the cozy (sounds better than cramped) lounge before a quite enjoyable dinner in the hotel restaurant.

We shared a generous foie gras appetizer.

Kathy savored her pasta topped with truffles.

Brian’s pot au feu was just the comfort food he was seeking.

After a night’s sleep, we took the escalators down the train station and are currently en route to Tours in the Loure Valley.

We’re looking to our first visit to this small city. We were notified this morning that our navette (shuttle bus) from the train station to downtown was cancelled, so we’ll be looking for an Uber or taxi to take us the last four kilometers to the Hilton Garden Inn, our home for the next three nights.

It’s all part of the travel experience.