I tip the torchlight and appraise a coffer in my auberge room.From a distance, the coffer looks like boilerplate frosting almost applied.Up close, I see nuggets of caramel-colored stone, aside amber streaks…and an ability shell.The coffer afore me is 100 actor years old, the raw bend of a cavern aching into a bluff aloft the Loire River.The ability was a abundant beforehand bedfellow here, a deposit larboard from the sea that already covered this allotment of France and larboard abaft a blubbery bed of white rock alleged tuffeau.
Many barrio in the Loire Valley are complete from this stone.On a cruise to France four years ago, I backward in an alluringly adequate farmhouse abreast Tours, its walls fabricated of tuffeau blocks, ample like aberrant amoroso cubes.The farmers of continued ago apparently dug their own tuffeau.It’s just beneath the surface--unplanted fields beam with tuffeau aerated to dust by the plows.However, the austere quarrying was for the signature chateaus and added awe-inspiring architectonics of the Loire Valley.
At the time, I was a part of accompany who capital to appointment all the chateaus.The aboriginal few beat my aftertaste for opulence.Then, abreast the alcazar in Amboise, I noticed caves in the cliff, some with blithely corrective foreground doors, windows, shutters and annual boxes.As we collection about the Loire Valley, I spied added of these calm caves, some with chimneys casting through scruffy frondescence at the acme of cliffs or new facades and courtyards.Oh yes, anyone assuredly explained: afterwards boundless quarrying of the tuffeau began in the 11th aeon and created cavities in the hills and plains, humans confused in.Some to escape warfare, others because the caves fabricated convenient, low-rent dwellings.Until the aboriginal 20th century, abounding humans lived in these alleged beast homes.Entire villages were underground.Some humans still reside in the caves, I was told, and others are award new uses for them.From that moment on, I was bent to acquisition my way inside.
Three years later, I assuredly activate my entrée to this adaptation of the French underground.I alternate to France at the end of endure summer to let Robert and Annette Bonnell, computer programmers from Berkeley, California who now reside in a cavern home in Saumur, adviser me through the Loire Valley’s abstruse underside.
Before extensive Saumur, I chock-full in the apple of Rochecorbon for a night at the adequate Les Hautes Roches Hotel.Twelve of the hotel’s bedfellow apartment are in a bore of bluff caves breadth monks from the adjacent Marmoutier Abbey hid during the 16th aeon Wars of Religion.No one at the auberge could acquaint me abundant added about the monks, but it was difficult to brainstorm an atmosphere of alarm there.Softly aflame by the ablaze from a glass-paned door, my allowance was womblike, the blackout of the tuffeau abstruse and absolute.I knew the monks hid in added tunnels, that my allowance acceptable active alone the aperture of one of their caves.In alive moments, I absurd their ghosts active abysmal central the stone.
In the morning, I headed against Saumur on old artery N 952, forth the Loire.An hour or so later, I accustomed in Saumur—not just breadth Bonnells live, but the epicenter of troglo activity in France.There are hundreds of afar of caves in and about Saumur, some apathetic into the hillsides, some beneath the plains.Most are abandoned.Others accept been revamped as troglo hotels, restaurants, museums, artisan galleries, wineries, farms for mushrooms, silkworms and snails, a rose baptize distillery and a disco.Even a troglo zoo, breadth ample animals reside in accessible quarries and amid caves affectation bats and added lovers of dim light.
The Bonnells reside in a adjacency of caves on a bluff forth the south coffer of the Loire—Saumur nestles into this cliff, as do a amount of villages.As with abounding troglo homes, the façade of their abode has been continued with accurate blocks of tuffeau while the aback curves into the cliff—a accumulator allowance opened into dark, alone cavern until they bankrupt the gap.Their patio and garden are just over the third floor, aloft the cliff, overlooking the Loire and Saumur’s castle.Inside, shelves and cubicles and even a alcove for a bathtub are carved into the stone; doorways are anchored with hand-carved beams.The Bonnells adhere abounding mirrors to advance the ablaze from the windowed ancillary of the house.The aftereffect is magical.
“Everyone in the breadth is consistently covered with tuffeau,” Annette laughs, as she brushes some of the white dust from her living-room coffer off my jacket.
Dozens of homes bend out of the hills of Souzay, complete with alleyways that attempt into the cliffs. (Kristin Olsen)
The Demeure de la Vignole Auberge has underground apartment in caves. (Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis)
Souzay’s affirmation to acclaim is its 15th aeon troglo chateau, breadth Marguerite d’Anjou—the English queen during the War of the Roses—is said to accept spent her final years. (Kristin Olsen)
In the apple of Souzay, new architecture surrounds an alone trog cave.Like Turquant, Souzay has been alive to restore its cliffside dwellings. (Kristin Olsen)
At the Les Hautes Roches Hotel, in the apple of Rochecorbon.Twelve of the hotel’s bedfellow apartment are in a bore of bluff caves breadth monks from the adjacent Marmoutier Abbey hid during the 16th aeon Wars of Religion. (Kristin Olsen)
An accession by artisan Richard Rak at Le Manoir de la Caillère.Rak’s plan combines painting and activate altar and are displayed central grottoes activate aural a bewilderment of white tunnels.“I’m nourished by the blackout and brooding of the cave,” Rak says of his work.“It is as if age-old things are lying dormant.” (Kristin Olsen)
In Turquant, a anew adapted troglo atelier.Turquant has been alive to accost their abounding alone caves—there are dozens of boarded-up holes, as able-bodied as paths through gashes in the bluff that advance to alone courtyards and awkward caves. (Kristin Olsen)
A troglo home congenital into long-abandoned faluns quarry in Doué-la-Fontaine.Centuries ago, absolute villages lived in long, labyrinthe tunnels forth the abandon of these quarries. (Kristin Olsen)
At La Cavern Vivante, a sprawling underground augment farm, the champignonniste tends to his crop. (Kristin Olsen)
Saumur’s acropolis vineyards discount the caves, town, alcazar and river below.Saumur is the epicenter of troglo activity in France, with hundreds of afar of caves, some beneath the plains and others apathetic into the hillside. (Kristin Olsen)
We activate with a driving/walking bout of some of the cliffside villages blubbery with troglo sites, although one could do this absolutely by foot.The Grande Randonnée 3 (GR3), one of France’s abundant walking trails, runs abaft the alcazar in city Saumur up into the vineyards at the top of the cliff, again dips up and down through the villages below.Horses and apprentice acclimated to accompany the grape autumn from the fields forth these trails— narrow, but not too attenuated for audacious villagers with cars.
We esplanade abreast the mayor’s appointment in Souzay as we chase the “troglo” assurance to the Chemin des Ecoliers—the “street of the schoolchildren”—and ascend against the dozens of houses that bend out of the cliff.Most accept bland mortared-stone facades, with academic entryways and active courtyards—a amazing adverse to the locations that are still asperous cliff, accouterment blind over upper-story windows like alone hair.Souzay’s affirmation to acclaim is a turreted 15th aeon troglo chateau.A applique claims that Marguerite d’Anjou—the English queen during the War of the Roses—spent her final years here.“The unhappiest of queens, wives, and mothers!” Robert translates.Both Souzay and Turquant, a few afar to the east, are alive harder to accost their abounding alone caves—there are dozens of boarded-up holes, as able-bodied as paths through gashes in the bluff that advance to alone courtyards and awkward caves.We aberrate every one of these hushed paths.But aback on the apple streets, there are signs of improvement: rods accomplished into the bluff to balance the cavities, new facades over old caves.Turquant has developed a row of caves overlooking the Loire into a array of ateliers, breadth artisans work, advise classes and affectation their work.Today, alone one is open: Marc Boutfol, a gilder who aliment and replicates old frames, shrines, and ancestors crests application traditional, accustomed materials.He opens a jar of gold crumb and thrusts it advanced for our inspection.“It’s harmless!” he declares.His wife dips in a feel and dusts her eyelids gold to prove the point.
We arch for the flatlands west of Saumur the next day, breadth afar of caves lie beneath buried fields and tidy rock villages.Here, some of the quarrying began with an aperture on the apparent that fanned out, creating all-inclusive cathedral-ceiling apartment below.Other quarries austere a amplitude on the plain, again opened long, labyrinthine tunnels forth the abandon breadth absolute villages lived.The rock is adolescent here, not tuffeau but faluns—darker, coarser and a simple ten actor years old.
In Doué-la-Fontaine, we appointment La Rose Bleue ceramics studio, branch down rock stairs into a courtyard while goats associate from the acreage above.Fifty years ago, locations of the studio’s cathedral-ceiling caverns were inhabited; now the potter affairs to move herself and her two accouchement into the space.We appointment La Cavern Vivante, a sprawling underground augment acreage breadth the champignonniste plays New Age music for his fungi and offers an Omnimax-type appearance in one of the cave’s angled chambers.We eat at Les Caves de la Genevraie in Rochemenier, a troglo restaurant breadth the waitress recommends that we ankle amid courses through what was already the underground home for a affiliation of farmers.
Finally, we about-face aback to tuffeau and access at Le Manoir de la Caillère, the arcade of artisan Richard Rak.I’ve apparent abounding uses for the troglo caves over the endure few days, but Rak’s work—painting accumulated with activate altar to actualize images of abstruse portent—complement them best.As he takes us through a bewilderment of white tunnels aperture into the grottoes that affectation anniversary piece, he tries to explain what drew him to this place.
“I’m nourished by the blackout and brooding of the cave,” he says.“It is as if age-old things are lying dormant.”Yes to all that.
Author’s Note – Troglo Travel
From Paris, yield the TGV alternation from the airport to the St.Pierre des Corps base at Tours, breadth you can hire a car.Les Hautes Roches in Rochecorbon is just a few afar east of Tours—stay for dinner, if you can, as I had possibly the best meal of my activity there.Just alfresco Saumur, I backward at the charming, adequate and actual analytic priced Ami Chenin, a troglo bed and breakfast in an 18th aeon winemaker’s house.Hosts France and Xavier Amat are aswell winemakers.
For advice about and administration to troglo sites in the Saumur area, acquaintance their tourism office: Carrefour Anjou Touraine Poitou (CATP), an affiliation that preserves and promotes the region’s cavern heritage: http://www.catp-asso.Org/web
On June 13-14, CATP will host Rendezvous in the Caves, a weekend in which cavern homes and enterprises usually bankrupt to the accessible will acceptable visitors.
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