Vendome - another favourite floral town

We first visited Vendome, a small regional town about 15kms from our farm cottage at Prunay, on a wet dreary afternoon, soon after we arrived in the Loire Valley. We came in on the main road and found the Tourist office in an old grey building and all we saw were drab grey buildings, rain and no people. When we mentioned the town to our hosts Didier & Veronique they said yes it was a dead town and the young people don't go there - confirming our first impressions.
But first impressions can be wrong and in this case they were. When we went on the local randonee through the vineyards (see a very early blog entry) we mentioned Vendome, and some of the participants, around our age, said we were wrong, they lived there and it was a very pretty town. So we chose a lovely sunny day and revisited the town to discover one of the prettiest towns we saw throughout the whole of France!
The other main road into the city has a lovely, big Medieval gate and beyond that a collection of historic buildings from the 14th - 17th century placed in beautiful gardens and set amongst the Loir River and various canal like tributaries, lots of little bridges, all decorated with flowers and lots of lovely floral arrangements. One of the buildings houses the tourist office, another the library and another the town hall. One of the gardens even has a floral stamp - when France celebrated the a big philatelic anniversary, Vendome was featured on one of the stamps, so instead of the standard floral clock, the town built a floral replica of the stamp!
After wandering through the gardens and along the river, past old medieval riverside wash houses, we hit the main street of town, a genuine pedestrian mall and full of a good selection of shops (that do close for a two hour lunch and most on Monday as well!!). We strolled up the street, tried out a bakery that became one of our favourites for the rest of our stay in France. We also discovered down the track that it is actually a bakery chain that originated in Brittany but now has branches throughout central France. For a chain bakery, they made fantastic bread, and a fabulous baguette with brie, walnuts and lettuce.
Anyway we wandered past the shops, hit the city square with a full on bell tower and statue and thinking that was it, turned round to see a huge cathedral spire poking above the medieval timbered buildings. More exploration followed, and sure enough around the corner was a huge gothic cathedral with flying buttresses, fantastic carving and beautiful wood carvings inside. Vendome was originally a much bigger and more important town than it is now. Mind you there are photos at the railway station of Hitler visiting Vendome during the WW2 occupation.
After spending hours in the cathedral, we wandered back through the gardens to our car, having completely revised our opinion of the town.
We revisited several times and took our friend Denise there as it is truly a very attractive small regional town.


















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