The valley of the Loire today [antikvár]

) France's most glamorous avenue was designed by a royal river! The luminous Valley ofthe Loire is much more than just a valley, yet it fails to form a historical and geographical region in the same way as Brittany and Languedoc : gently weaving the rnotley weft of today's patterns through the textured warp of yesteryear, stamping its imprint on subregions that remain independent among interdependence, and annexing the small valleys of the river's tributaries, it emerges as an eminently touristic entity (the "Chateau Country") which geologists, historians, ecologists, and economists are hard put to define. The French government itself has never exactly pinned it down while slashing out with its great shears the patterns of official regions in France's fabric : the Loire Valley, a shining example of unión amid diversity, has been ruthlessly divided up between the "Center" (the area largely influenced by Orléans) and the "Loire Country" (including, oddly enough, Mayenne and the Vendée, which practically turn their backs on the river). Geography according to the poets If it could satisfy our souls, we might content ourselves with the matter-of-fact definition of "Val de Loire" found in French dictionaries : "That part of the Loire Valley between the point at which it emerges from the Massif Central and the point marking the limits of the Massif Armoricain." But this would strip the Valley of the Loire of Montreuil-Bellay, Loches, Chenonceau, Cheverny, Sologne, and Talcy, of a splendiferous necklace of castles, churches, and landscapes. It's better to hobnob with poets and writers who have sung the praises of the Val de Loire, attaching themselves to places and times without reshaping the bewildering geography of France's hexagon : Rabelais, La Fontaine, and Balzac cared not a whit about frontiers that were hazy to the point of being nonexistent, and Descartes himself gave up being Cartesian. However, since the loose tapestry embroidered by Mother Nature and men must be delineated by a guidebook, lefs say that the Val de Loire, basking in its lavish array of monuments and scenery, brings together regions that bear a "family resemblance," located in between the Sancerre area and the part of Brittany in which the Muscadet grapes grow. The definition of this family resemblance is based on plain common sense and an almost poetic intuition... A sense of proportion without monotony Disregarding the fact that the middle Loire country areas form part and parcel of the Parisian basin on the maps of all proper, right-thinking geographers, we shall open fire with a volley of self-evident truths. The Loire Valley regions, bound together by the vast link of the Loire River and an originál canal network, which accentuates the left bank along a distance of one hundred and fifty kilometers, form a craftily contrived puzzle boasting skilfully interlocked pieces, for all of them are regions with a sense of proportion. First and foremost, there is the proportion of the ground relief, which looks more hand-carved than etched by erosion : away from the heights, mounds of calcareous tufa stone loom up like cliffs, and a butte has a fling at being a small mountain. There's a sense of proportion in the climate : prime fruits and vegetables ripen earlier in Anjou than in the Blésois; the Orléanais weather is harsher, but the sky blithely shifts its moods, and temperature changes are not extreme. The climate is temperate... like the dispositions of the people : it's best to avoid the clichés concerning the good nature and easy-going temperament of the natives of Touraine and Anjou, and point out that their racial characteristics and local customs are no more marked or typed than their linguistic accents. Other common features include flowers that delight