Breakfast at the manor (would that every day could start out with that phrase) included fresh croissants with home-made jam, and many other delights. We said our goodbyes and headed off for Trevieres in…you guessed it…the rain.
Jeanine from the church office met us inside the church. She had as little English as we have French, but she was very gracious. She turned on the lights so that I could shoot inside, then left us alone. We stopped at the church office across the street when we were done to give her some money for the church as well as copies of a few of the paintings and sketches.
Then we set out on our very long drive across France. Back to Paris, through the traffic there, and out east toward our destination, the small town of Ancemont, a few miles from Verdun. A little over 300 miles. We experienced the joys of rest stops on the Péage, and I write those words with no irony. Good coffee and snacks, clean bathrooms, decent restaurants…definitely a step up from the Mass Pike. BUT NOT CHEAP.
It was about 5:30 PM that the GPS led us to the Chateau Labessiere. A tiny gate barely large enough for the car to fit through led us onto the grounds of a beautiful old house. It was once the home of a Duke, but the family fell into hard times and sold it to a lumber company that used it for a dozen years or so to house its imported Turkish workers. Back in the 80’s, Rene Eichenaur bought it and set about refurbishing it. He has operated it as a B&B for more than 15 years. I found it on the internet and booked it by email. The deal was that we had to pay by cash.
What a character! Rene’s day job is at a local trade school. More than a bit deaf, he makes up for it by talking a lot. We were, once again, the only guests in the place. Dressed in jeans and a work shirt, he escorted us to our (huge) room and said he would meet us at 7 PM for a drink before dinner. We dressed up for dinner, but when we went down Rene was still there in the same jeans and work shirt. He had two glasses prepared of some local concoction ("from the region") and gave us the rundown on nearby attractions, told us about his family, (his daughter works in Luxembourg, where she can make “twice as much” as she would make in France), shared his love of big American cars, and showed us the scrapbooks of the house restoration with pride.
AT 7:30 he led us into the dining room, and transformed himself from host to waiter,outfit staying the same. He served us a dinner that was prepared by invisible people who we never saw. I might add that this four course dinner was probably the single best meal we had in Europe. The first course was a petit soufflé. Then came duck filled, absolutely exquisite. ("The best part of the duck," Rene told us, running his hands up and down his sides. Not sure what part that is.) This was followed by a cheese course, and finally, desert, a pear tart with home-made vanilla ice cream. All accompanied by a bottle of wine “from the region.” After dinner, Rene morphed again from waiter to host, and we had a glass of brandy “from the region” in the library. “We” in this case means Marilyn and I, because Réne made point of letting us know that he never drinks alcohol, and has never drunk alcohol in the past, not even a little. Nonetheless he was happy to ply us with the stuff.
The following morning we set out for a place that haunted by the ghosts of tens of thousands of dead soldiers: The World War One Battlefield of Verdun.
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