Angers, Brissac, and the vinyards

Wednesday we headed into Angers, primarily to visit museums.

Our first stop was the museum of contemporary tapestry.  This had a lot more meaning to us after seeing so many traditional tapestries.   The Loire valley, and Angers in particular, was a center of tapestry in the middle ages.   Jean Lurcat was a 20th century artist who started with painting, but then moved to tapestries.   The museum had a gigantic series of tapestries of his called the Song of the World.  Like the Apocalypse tapestry at the chateau of Angers, it had a theme of the end of the world, in this case resulting from the atomic bomb.  We also saw the work of another artist, with a unicorn theme.  This was more than worth our time.

We walked into the center of town.  Our first stop was at a "Fry Chicken" restaurant run by a young Pakistani.  He was playing Bollywood music videos in Hindi, really it was quite amusing.  He explained to us that India and Pakistan are really one country, one culture, even the people look the same.  We had chopped chicken pita, pretty good, lots of it, and perhaps the cheapest meal that we have eaten in France, 5 euros including a coke.

We stopped in a few stores, including a cooking store.  Cynthia was looking for a suitably French gift, and found a unique versatile can/bottle opener, labelled in French.  Most of the products in the store were the same as you would see in a cooking store in the USA.  Richard picked up a music CD.

Our next stop was the very impressive museum of David d'Angers, with monumental sculptures in an old church with a glass roof.

We then went to the train station, where we bought our tickets to Paris.

We took the tram home, just in time to have dinner with Jean-Marie, Marie-Helene, their grandchild Axelle, and their friends Julian and Mimi.  This was called a simple meal, but it had five courses!

During dinner, we had asked additional questions about the vineyards.  We were especially curious to see the perfectly trimmed rows of grapevines.  Jean-Marie was in the business of agriculture before he retired, so he was the perfect person to take us around and answer our questions.

New tractor with cutting attachment

Tractor at work, simultaneously cutting both sides and the top of  two rows of grapevine "hedges", as well as cutting the grass between the rows.

On Thursday morning, Jean-Marie took us on a tour of the vineyards.  We started at a farm equipment dealer, where we could see the various machines used for trimming the rows of grapes, and also for harvesting.   They also had power limb trimmers, with safety features so that one would not cut off their finger.  The electric trimmers have greatly reduced hand injuries.  The trimmers are used in winter to cut the plants way back before spring.

After that, we visited the Duke's hunting dogs, around 90 in number, as well as driving around some vineyards, including one in which we saw the tractor mounted trimmer at work.  Many of the vineyards are quite large, as much as 100 acres or more.  Vineyards are the primary business in this area.

We stopped at the local wine co-op, where all the local wine is pressed, and sampled a Rose wine there.

Our next stop was the market, where we saw folkloric dancing.

We also visited the "Boule de Fort" club, where they play a game with heavy balls on a convex indoor court.  This game is very local, played only in the Loire valley.  In the past, even very small villages would have their own outdoor court for this game.  Note that the name of the club is St. Vincent;  St. Vincent is the patron saint of winegrowers, and the name of the church and private school.

We then had wine with Julian and Mimi at their very nice home, with a huge yard.

After a busy morning, we went home and watched the Tour de France, the climb of Alpe d'Huez.