So…we’re driving Picassotron through most of France, and to get to our next destination: Le Beguinage bed-and-breakfast in Cours-Cheverny, Loir-et-Cher, France. Home of the hyphens.
Let me paint you a picture: it’s about 7pm, there have been varying levels of rain over the past 9 hours you’ve spent on the road, but it has finally relented. You squeeze your minivan down one alley after another, past the cutest houses in a small French village, when you arrive at a gate with a small sign reading “Le Beguinage.” After asking the gate to open, it obliges. You park, get out of your Citroen, and are greeting by Patricia the proprietress. She is adorable and French, though she speaks English to you. She leads you up the path, followed by two adorable dogs that look like Schnauzer-Dachshund mixes (with awesome names like Napoleon and Cowboy), to the most adorable house you’ve ever seen in your whole entire life, in an adorable courtyard appropriate for a country lord.
Most adorable house ever
Proper courtyard
She says, “Zeess ees whare you will bee staying for szthree nights. C’est bon?” She opens the door to the house, you follow her in and immediately pass out from the overload of adorability. There’s a little French kitchen with little French appliances. There’s a fireplace. There’s an arched window with no screen that opens onto the courtyard, where other travelers are relaxing after dinner and playing with Cowboy. There’s a secluded terrace, “Whare you can take yore breakfast, non?” If you were conscious, your eyes might–as mine did–well up with tears of joy and you might need to hold your hand over your mouth–as I did–to stop the first song from Beauty and the Beast from exploding out of your chest.
Arched window in living room
I was sufficiently pleased with our accommodations for the Loire Valley leg of our journey, is the point, I guess. I liked it so much it’s sometimes my banner–^
In the adorable town of Cour-Cheverny (at the base of castle Cheverny, which unfortunately we never saw) we found a proper hunting lodge of a restaurant, complete with only French menus and waiters, crossbows on the wall, and tripe sausage. It was heaven.
Restaurant. Can't you just see Gaston grabbing that crossbow on his way out to the hunt?
The next morning we went shopping among the little French ladies with baskets of baguettes. Literally. We did take our breakfast on the terrace and it was lovely. I wanted to scream, “Ok, COME ON. That’s enough cuteness, little French town with your little French houses and your happy and kind French countrymen with your darling French wolf-hunting wiener dogs. YOU’RE KILLING ME!!!!”
Breakfast on the terrace of adorable doom
And then we went to see some castles ‘n stuff.
Little town, it’s a quiet village…
…every day like the one before!
Little town full of little people,
waking up to say…
… …
… … …
BONJOUR! Bonjour! Bonjour. BONJOUR! bOnJOur!
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