Troglodyte: It's in the hole.

Hundreds of years ago, troglodytic peasants, using simple
tools and sweat, cut stones to make an attractive
backdrop for this sign.

As it turns out, "troglodyte" doesn't only refer to pale, warty trolls with bad teeth and few brain cells. According to our household expert, the word comes from Greek, meaning, "get inside a hole." And this is what we did. For the final excursion with the AHA program (which also included Château de Brissac in the afternoon) we got on the big bus and went 25 miles southwest and 25 feet deep to the village troglodytique Rochemenier (rosh-men-yay). While much of Rochemenier is at "top-soil level," the local farmers of yester-century, 13th for starters, dug out big pits and then tunneled laterally under their fields. The relatively soft tufa and fulan limestone they were cutting into is the bulk of most Loire Valley châteaux. But, unlike larger regional caves and quarries, the Rochemenier folks maintained a hole-istic perspective--staying focused on their farming, using the stone and resulting caverns for their own homes and structures. They also crushed up some tufa for soil enhancer.

We all live in a fulan sub-terrain, a fulan sub-terrain, a fulan
sub-terrain... (Ivy under ivy in the shadowy tunnel -- this
photo-shoot was not in her contract).

After ten minutes in trogo-land, I began to wonder (as I assume anyone just like me would have) if I could live there. It's surprisingly comforting space. After hundreds of years, the landscaping has matured nicely. And, despite below-grade elevation, drainage issues are minimal. But, in the end, there just aren't enough outlets and counter-space is scarce.

Bread ovens though -- they keep following me. As it is with a cave house, built in appliances are standard. And as for the built-in bread ovens of troglo-town... I am totally down with it. It was bad enough when I just wanted the simple, free-standing, masonry patio model. But now I've made the mental upgrade to the cave-man edition.

Next stop for the big bus was our troglodytic lunch restaurant, Le Clos de Roches. While Google translates the name as "the enclosed rocks," I'm guessing it's closer to "the place where we are being inside of the rocks around us." As you might guess, the staff was very down to earth, encouraging us to explore the space and even get up close to the bread oven. The oven was fired up and soon producing baskets of fouaces -- rectangular puffy bread which break open like pita, steaming and ready for troweling on rillettes (ree-yets) -- a rough mix of shredded meat (chicken, pork, whatever's around) and lard. Rillettes is the ubiquitous, always at-hand, hors d'oeuvre (a term never used here in France). It's like the mortar between square meals. It shouldn't shock you to hear that connoisseurs insist rillettes is improved with butter. The traditional fare kept coming along with the vin, as if dripping straight into our stoneware pitchers from the grapevines growing overhead.
More photos troglodytique and of Château de Brissac HERE.

Back above ground, life as seen from the balcony of our third floor (second étage) apartment continues to be full of bustle and moderate hustle. Staying with the story of stones, "our" boulangerie finally got new bricks laid where work related to the big Tramway project had left a conspicuous patch of asphalt under their outside seating area.

As an energetic crew of four 20-somethings got to work busting up pavement and heaving buckets of rubble into the back of their truck, I was about to tell Ella, Ivy, and Jack to take note of this living illustration of why it's important to stay in school--lest life's options be reduced to a short list including picking up and putting down rocks. But then I remembered we're in Europe where it would be perfectly normal for a college graduate to take a hard-labor job. Because, Europeans unlike Americans, understand that education isn't just about hooking up with a better job than you could get otherwise, it's about intellectual growth and quality living, about preparing citizens for democracy, about making sure you know you're just a speck in history and only slightly more in life, and of course, preparing you for that standardized test that will determine at age 16 if you switch from holding a pen to holding a shovel. And since I don't know if any of that is true, it just proves my point. Stay in school, kids (otherwise you might find yourself in a foreign country, unable to speak the language, cruising for cheap laughs on a blog).

When you fix the bricks in front of the boulangarie/patisserie you get
your just desserts.

But wait, maybe all the boulangeries are re-tooling. Up the rue at the center of centre ville, Place du Ralliement, our boulanger/crepe maker/assault-victim friend totally remodeled -- and even changed the name of the place from Le Grain de Malice (ironic given the recent sandwich-throwing face-punching incident?) to an understated printing of the owners' names: "Alexandra et Denis CANTON." Can you do that? It seems like now I'd have to make an appointment to buy a brioche. What are we supposed to call it--the whole name? "Alexendra and Denis's?" No because the French don't have apostrophe's. Maybe just "CANTON?" Maybe "the old Malice."

Boulangerie goes monochrome. 

And now that the whole Place du Ralliement, along with the Tramway project in general, is finishing up the final touches (planters, fountains, lights, etc.) the event schedule is stacking up. Saturday before last -- and here comes the transportation segue -- was the Fête de Velo (bike party). Despite a lot of promotion, it wasn't well attended. Maybe it's because bikes are already such a common mode of transportation here or maybe it's just because it just wasn't attendance-worthy. Wanting to see if any French tricks they might have up their sleeve for promoting "alternative" transportation, I stuck around about 95 percent longer than I would have otherwise. That actually wasn't very long since, despite being a one-day, Saturday public event, it started at 10:00 AM but then shut down from 12:00 to 2:00 for lunch. One noticeable difference though is basic investment in production. The City of Angers is a big promoter of biking, walking, and transit. Hoping the crowds would be on hand, they hired a medium production-value educational act -- a staged game show emceed by a TV personality of some renown. Our family was exactly half of the total audience. Despite this, when it came time to grab someone "off the street," they actually ran over to the side and snared a woman who was walking by (not in too much of a hurry apparently).

It was time to play... Suer Contre Essence (Sweat Against Gasoline).
1) Vincent Chapel opens to an invisible throng. 2) The guest hair-dresser/
professional cyclist is interviewed. 3) They tag team the woman off the
street about her transportation habits. 4) Her weight in carbon
emissions is pulled on a bike-powered sled into a leaf-blower (solar
powered, I'm sure).

1

Angers Tram as seen from: 1) Place du Ralliement, 2) our
balcony, & 3) the Maine River (while rowing).

Transportation and folk-art?
Everyone loves the Tramway. The run-up to the June 25 start of service (which we'll miss) is a blur of activity. More fixtures are being installed and adjusted everywhere: ticket machines, railing, street signs, yada, yada, yada. Of course the trams themselves are running up and down our street all day, training drivers, testing systems. It's crazy busy. Crazy mostly because, on our Rue de la Roë section of the route, the large rail cars run on what's otherwise a bustling pedestrian corridor. Look out peeps! The many temporary signs that have put up around the cross streets remind people of their new responsibilities: Use prudence! Have good reflexes!

The Tram was actually as much the star at the bike party as bikes -- because it's all part of the same big plan. At the City of Angers' Velo Cite table they were handing out as much Tram schwag as bike schwag. We loaded up on pop-out card-stock models of the Tram which "we" were quick to convert into -- what else -- a Tram mobile.

Constructed of heavy-duty button thread,
shish kebab skewers, and Loire Valley wine
corks, the Tram Mobile is now permanently
installed at 33 Rue de la Roë and available
for viewing by appointment. 

The other piece of schwag, just about gone by the time we walked by, was the Tram-kini. Apparently, the Tramway was partially funded by the IMF. But either way, France just knows how stay on message.

Tram-kini®

And this is probably a good transition to the next blog-post (since I've obviously hit bottom). Yes, please tune in next time when I'll report on our trip to the beach in, Cinq à l'île or No Sand in my Cheese Sil Vous Plaît.