On our second day in the Loire we went to the Chateau de Langeais which was built right out of a cliff on the banks of the Loire River in the fifteenth century.  The interior rooms were beautifully decorated with tapestries and tiles.

In the Chateau

The most interesting part was the matchoulis, the exterior hallways where the soldiers threw down boiling oil or stones on the enemy.  It would have been very had to attack this castle.

This is Where the Boiling Oil Goes

We also saw the ruins of the original eleventh-century tower.  There was some medieval style scaffolding that we could climb up to see how the tower was built.

The Castle from the Tower

William found lots of tufts of Alpaca fluff in the yard and a spinning wheel in the loft of the farmhouse.  So Janet said she’d teach William how to spin.

The Spinning Team

First you have to card the wool so the fibers are all going in the same direction.  William makes an excellent carder.

William Tries the Treadle

The hardest part about spinning is getting just the right rhythm with the treadle without tiring out your foot.  It took a couple of days for William to get the hang of it, but he did.

Our Farmhouse in the Loire

This is our friends Janet and Tom’s farmhouse in the Loire.  We sleep in the loft.  We love being able to run right from the kitchen into the yard.   Our first day here we took a walk up the road through the hilly woods all around us.  We found lots of beautiful carmelly and red flint stones and some very large pinecones.

We collected so much flint that in the afternoon William and Tom took the old Renault 4TL back up the road to pick up the piles of flint we’d left along side the road.

William in "Titine"

We’re sad to say good-bye to our apartment at Namensestraat 37, Den Haag, but now we’re off to visit friends in France.  It was a long trip.  Our friends Rachel and Kate took us and all our luggage to the train station in Rotterdam.

At the Train Station in Rotterdam

First we took the high-speed train to Paris.   In Paris we had to transfer train stations and then take another train.  But our train from the Netherlands was more than half an hour late, so we missed our train.

High-speed Cheers

We had to wait quite some time at the Montparnasse station and then took another high-speed train to Angers.

Once we got to Angers we rented a car and drove along the Loire to a 15th century farmhouse in a little hamlet called La Vende.  We were so late our friends Janet and Tom had given up on us.  But it was still light when we got there so we could see our bedroom up in the loft.

Waiting at Gare Montparnasse

We’re sad to say that we have to leave the bakfiets behind.  We took a last ride in the dunes with our friends Roos and Fleur a few days ago.  And we took a last family ride alongside the dunes and through a beautiful forest to deliver the bakfiets to its new owners.   Good-bye Bakfiets, we’ll miss you.

Good-bye Bakfiets!

On a warm afternoon we went to the aquarium at the beach.  Henry had been before with Nana but he wanted to show William and Daddy.  There were lots of beautiful fish and you can walk through a tunnel to see turtles swimming past.

Shark Boys

After the aquarium we went down to the sea and built a sand castle.

our castle

William took us to Haarlem to see the architecture.  We were happy to find a market where we bought a picnic lunch and ate it by the fountain.

Lunch in the Markt in Haarlem

Then we walked around and visited a few museums.  The one we liked best was in the basement of a very old building.  It was the city archeology museum and had a dig all set up for us.  We found pottery shards, broken tiles and bones.

Junior Archeologists

Archeon also has a Roman section.   We tried on some Roman armor and then watched a gladiator fight.

Gladiator William

After our knight lessons we learned how to roll beeswax into candles.  And then it was time for the joust!  But first, all the knight candidates filed into the field and knelt before the Duke.  Then we were knighted in the name of St Peter and St Joris.  We swore to protect the weak and do the dishes.

The Knighting Ceremony

And then the knights demonstrated their skills.  They pulled rings off hooks with their lances and knocked over the “saracen”.  Then they jousted against each other and had a fight on horseback with clubs.  Our man, Ridder Joos, won.

At the Joust

The Knights

We arrived in the Middle Ages just in time for knight training.  First we had a lesson in sword fighting with swords that were so big we needed both hands to lift them up.  We started with some safety tips and then did a few exercises.  We did some exercises together where one guy held his sword steady and the other guy practiced hitting first the left and then the right.  Then we traded in the metal swords for foam ones and had a melee.

Sword Practice

Then we practiced shooting a bow and arrow.  After that we wrote our names on our knight diplomas with a real quill pen and ink.  Henry chose the name “Henry de Sterke” [Henry the Strong].

Bow and Arrow Lessons