Chorizo takes in the symmetrical harmony of Serrant
We are one week into our trip and Chorizo is happy to report he has visited almost enough chateaus to at least temporarily satisfy his culture-vulture needs. So far his hands down favourite is one called Serrant. France is one of the world’s most dog friendly destinations, but Serrant outdid itself in the canine hospitality department by even granting Chorizo access to the inside for a glimpse at what it was like to be French upper crust in the early 20th century.
Does this rug bring out the colour of my eyes?
Serrant was our favourite too, since we were welcomed to bring our picnic into the chateau’s park and enjoy our lunch with a million Euro view.
Before I post too many more photos and anecdotes from our week in the Loire valley, I should back up and report on our trip here, which was mercifully uneventful. Thumbs up again to Air Transat for handling us and our precious cargo with care (and for filling his water bowl at some point on the trip). And the journey was made even breezier by the complete lack of control over the importation of my beloved wiener.
As has been the case on two of the three previous occasions when we brought Chorizo to France, absolutely no one took any interest whatsoever in him when we walked through customs at Charles de Gaulle airport. Last year a woman demanded to see Chorizo’s documents, but then didn’t bother looking into the kennel to see if I had a chimpanzee in there. This time around there were two customs officials standing in a position that made an unseen wiener exit impossible, but they were clearly more interested in what I imagine was a conversation about what they were going to eat for déjeuner than whether a Canadian dog had his rabies vaccination and papers in order. They didn’t even give us a Gallic grunt.
Happy reunion after a dark ten hours in cargo
We have discovered an excellent arrival strategy for France. There is a quiet little hotel near Versailles which welcomes dogs, and which, for the guarantee of two nights’ payment of a room (our first and last nights in Europe), happily stores our dog carrier, which we use only for the flying – and barely fits into the typical micro-mobile that passes for a car rental in this part of the world. Having spent our first night there last week, I can answer an age-old question with confidence: dogs do suffer from jet lag. Not only that, they seem to have the same pattern of time-change disturbance as humans. Here is what Chorizo was up to at around 6 pm, when Jan was already sawing logs and I was about to drop off:
And here’s a clip of the activities at 1:30 am, when we were all wide awake:
We are about to shift gear as we make the move tomorrow from Chateau Central to the wild shores of Brittany. I’m hoping the next digs will have a wifi connection. I have a growing stack of EC-related topics to share with you before they become old news. In the meantime, Chorizo says à bientôt.
