When you go on a Loire
Valley walking holiday in the early spring, you have to be prepared to check
into hotels rain-soaked, mud-covered, and, sometimes, with shoes dipped in
dung. The awkwardness is usually
ephemeral and easily suppressed.
But if you are trudging
your wet, muddy, smelly body up the steps of the palatial Château d’Artigny, a
castle-like hotel and spa near Montbazon, it’s hard not to feel a little hesitant
and gauche.
We did. But we also
felt tired and ready to get into a bath and a bed, and any anxiety turned out
to be unfounded.
The people on the front
desk greeted us as if we were visiting royalty, and they checked us in to the
hotel early and smoothly. Soon, we were
recuperating in our roomy suite overlooking the front lawns.
“They make you feel
like you are the most important guest in the hotel,” I said.
“Yeah, like they had no
other concern, but your comfort,” Michele observed.
Later in the day, we
realized that our observations were more astute than we might have guessed. It
turns out that the late spring is a slow time of year for the hotel, and we
were, in fact, almost the only concern.
We didn’t see any other guests all day.
This was great at the
spa.
The hotel has a tunnel
from the castle so you can get to the spa in any weather in just shorts and
sandals. It has a Turkish bath-style steam room, a sauna, and a jacuzzi-equipped
pool. All good stuff if you have been
walking through forests and over hills in the rain all day. Not so good, if the sauna, steam room, and
pool are crammed.
They weren’t.
We stayed in the spa
for an hour or two with all the rooms and facilities to ourselves. We used two or three towels each; we steamed
and swam until we could do it no more. Later
that evening, three waiters fussed around us as we worked our way through the
multiple-course dinner and multi-form beverages in the elegant dining
room. We had been warned that the
Chateau insisted on semi-formal dress and no-dung footwear for dinner so we
were relieved to have such a positive reception.
But, then again, we
were alone.
Our solitary status at
dinner was, in part, due to our Canadian dining habits that induce hunger well before
9 PM when the European-sounding guests arrived to share the room with us. Not
many though, and the next morning as we headed down to check out I thought that
the Château d’Artigny was kind of lucky to have had us.
“I mean, after all, it’s
not a real Chateau in the 16TH century Chenonceau and Amboise sense,”
I said. “It was built about a century ago by a perfume maker who liked to party
and cover his ceilings in tacky art.”
“So, why didn’t you
study perfume making in school?” Michele said.
Despite her insolence
and with the previous day’s odors sweated and jacuzzied away, I felt smug
heading to the front desk for check out.
This did not last.
The machine rejected my
credit card. Same on the second try - and the third. The other card was
rejected as well. We did not have Château
d’Artigny levels of cash and learned that the closest ATM was in town, about an
hour’s walk away. We sweated, we
smelled.
Then, suddenly, one of
the hotel staff in the back announced that the problem was with their system. The front desk woman apologized, and her boss
came out and apologized profusely offering to help with arrangements to our
next stop. Happy that they took the
credit card in a manual, written-number fashion, we smiled and headed out the
door.
Later in the day, we
agreed that the Château d’Artigny was a great experience and that everyone
coming to the Loire for a walking holiday should consider doing it in the early
spring too. Though they should be prepared for rain, mud, dung, and the ever-present
possibility of embarrassment.
