Hotel Arnaldo Aquila d'Oro

I wrote last Saturday about Rubiera, and mentioned I'd be writing about the hotel another day. This is that day.

I had booked a room at the Hotel Arnaldo Aquila d'Oro, via an online booking engine. The price (40€61) seemed so much of a bargain that certain people feared it was some sort of scam. It turned out not to be, just a combination of sheer good luck and doggedness on my behalf.

The exterior of the hotel makes promises the interior lives up to.

From their own website:

HOTEL ARNALDO AQUILA D'ORO

is located in an old 15th century building that once housed a post station with stables for horses and an inn to accommodate pilgrims passing through Rubiera.

The hotel is located in the same building as the Arnaldo Clinica Gastronomica restaurant, and both have been owned and managed by the same family for three generations. Since Arnaldo and Lina bought the inn in 1936, many changes, renovations and improvements have been made, while maintaining the same elegantly rustic flavour as in the past.

 And I couldn't have put it better myself.

Our room was large, comfortable, pleasantly cool, and nicely furnished with proper antiques (not just granny's old stuff). The bathroom was similar.

You will have noticed mention of the Arnaldo Clinica Gastronomica restaurant. That's the hotel's own 1* Michelin star restaurant. I suspect that the fact that the restaurant doesn't open on Sunday evenings is the reason the hotel was so amazingly priced for us. We ate out at a perfectly acceptable restaurant about 100 metres from the hotel.

Breakfast was an entirely different matter. Our booking included breakfast at the hotel, and I had checked by email that we had enough time for a relaxed breakfast before departing for the parmesan farm. They assured us we did, so as soon as we felt it was polite we went downstairs, grabbed a table under the arcade, and wandered in to check out our options.

Man looking overwhelmed by what he saw in the breakfast room.

The breakfast buffet was probably the most comprehensive I have seen in Europe. There were the staples of multiple varieties of breads, jams and pastries, cheese and meat (presumably for any Dutch clients) dairy, cereals, a vast range of fruit juices and teas, fresh and stewed fruit. Coffee was ordered from the nice waitress at the tea and coffee bar and delivered to the table. I could have spent another hour being stylish and elegant, but parmesan was calling.

More food than you can shake a stick at

 The Hotel Arnaldo Aquila d'Oro's website is here.

New in the Orchard This Year

The results of neglect are clear to see in the orchard, and one of those results is several species new to the place in April. None of them are rare, but I haven't recorded them in the orchard before. Neglect, with nothing more than the vegetation being slashed by Sylviane early in the year, and one of her horses being put to pasture in the potager for a few days, is so far delivering excellent biodiversity observations.

 

Golden Ground Beetle Carabus auratus (Fr. Carabe doré), not uncommon, but increasingly threatened by pesticides.

Green-winged Orchid Anacamptis morio (Fr. Orchis buffon) is abundant locally, and can form large colonies, but has never before popped up in the orchard.

Monkey Orchid Orchis simia (Fr. Orchis singe) can also form large colonies, but has never appeared in the orchard before.

One of the leaf beetles, Chrysolina bankii (Fr. Chrysomèle de Banks), a species which is localised, but can be abundant where it occurs. Its favourite food plant is ribwort plantain, which the orchard has in abundance.

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi (Fr. Thècle de la ronce) butterfly, a species that eats such a wide range of plants as a caterpillar that you could see it in almost any habitat in the Touraine Loire Valley.

Look Out for Dog Rose in the Touraine Loire Valley

Dog Rose Rosa canina (Fr. Rosier des chiens).

This is an abundant species in hedges and woodlands, especially in the lowlands. It has several ecotypes, or subspecies that have evolved to grow in different habitats or conditions. Many pink flowering cultivated rose varieties have R. canina somewhere in their ancestry. The species always has single (or simple) flowers.

 

The name Dog Rose comes from the ancient belief that the root could be used to cure the bite of a rabid dog. The rosehips are called grattes-culs ('scratch arses') in French because the hairs inside could cause itchiness around the anus if you consumed badly prepared rosehip tea, jelly or syrup, once important tonics and sources of Vitamin C when other things were scarce.

 

The plant can grow up to 5 metres, in long arching canes with very prickly back curving thorns. They produce pale pink or white flowers in May and June and are pollinated by insects. The seeds are dispersed by birds.

 

One of the reasons Roe Deer are attracted to your garden and will eat your rose shoots and buds is because they grow up eating the wild Dog Roses in the forest and they are a favourite food.

 

The species is native to all the temperate zones of the Old World and naturalised in the New. Globally it is abundant, up to 1600 metres above sea level. 

 

 

It is heat (but not dry) loving and grows in a range of neutral to calcareous soil, tolerating lightly acid soil, but not waterlogged soil.

 

Both flowers and leaves are scented, especially if crushed. It is one of the species used in the perfume industry and in North Africa especially, for making simple culinary rosewater.

 

The plants are fairly disease resistant, but often have strange growths called bedeguar galls caused by a tiny wasp.

 

 

 

The old name for this rose is eglantine. You will still sometimes hear it called that, especially in France, but today the name is more properly given to Rosa rubiginosa.

 

There are two other peskily similar species of wild rose you may encounter. 

 

Field Rose Rosa arvensis (Fr. Rosier rampant) only has white flowers and the centre of the flower (the stigmae) are some bobbles on a 'column' (Dog Rose has the bobbles but not the 'column'). It's a bit smaller than Dog Rose and flowers at the same time. It is more shade tolerant and more lime loving than Dog Rose, and not quite so frequently encountered in the Touraine. Both species have abundant yellow pollen on anthers, but Dog Rose anthers turn brown.

Sweet Briar Rosa rubiginosa has bright pink flowers and is even more sun loving and much more lime loving than Dog Rose. The stigmae are bobbles in the middle of the flower, and it is much less abundant than the other two species. It is also smaller than Dog Rose and flowers a bit later (although the two species flowering season overlaps in June and July).

Further reading at Loire Valley Nature:

Galls https://loirenature.blogspot.com/2012/03/galls.html

It May Be "Too Old", but it Suits Me

Back in 2011 I bought a camera, and wrote about it here.

About two years ago I began to have problems with the on/off button being very sensitive - all I had to do was move the camera and it would turn itself off and on again. I tried to get it fixed, but it was "too old". I really like the camera so I have persevered with it - on and off (as it were)

And then last week on Leboncoin I saw someone advertising an identical camera in perfect condition. 

So for 45€ I now have a new (old) camera. 

Yay!

Out and About in the Claise Valley in Early April

My friend Ingrid and I took ourselves on a little nature outing to check on the state of the orchids in the Claise Valley around Chaumussay on 7 April. She wanted to practice with a new macro lens, so she took most of the photos. And we saw a lot of wildlife apart from just orchids. So here is a selection.

 

A Red-tailed Bumble Bee Bombus lapidarius (Fr. Bourdon des pierres) queen looking for a suitable place to set up her new colony.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Lady Orchid Orchis purpurea (Fr. Orchis pourpre) bud.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Male Green Fairy Longhorn moths Adela reaumurella (Fr. Adèle verdoyante) displaying on a Wayfaring Tree Viburnum lantana (Fr. Viorne lantane), waiting for females to appear.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Apple Blossom Beetle Tropinota hirta (Fr. Cétoine hérissée) on, you guessed it, apple blossom. The tree is a naturalised domestic apple I assume.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Lady Orchid.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

The remarkarble shared tower entries to a sweat bee Lasioglossum marginatum colony. One of the little bees who occupy these tiny tunnels is centre bottom.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi (Fr. Thècle de la ronce) on apple blossom. This lovely butterfly has a very short flight season, but the numbers appear to be increasing. These days I see it every year, which was not the case in the past.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

The rare parasitic fly Gonia vacua. This one is male and covered in pollen.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

The Second World War Demarcation line memorial at Chaumussay, on the D42 between Preuilly sur Claise and le Grand Pressigny. Conveniently, one can park there, and there is a colony of Early Purple Orchids.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Early Purple Orchid Orchis mascula (Fr. Orchis male) and Blue Sedge Carex flacca (Fr. Laîche glauque).

Cowslips Primula veris (Fr. Coucou) on the roadside at Humeau.

Drinking Chocolate in a French Supermarket

There is a range of drinking chocolate  powders available in my local SuperU supermarket. They do their own brand, and there are the two French classic brands, Poulain and Banania. Plus a few other multinational brands, but no Cadbury's in sight.

The Poulain product is called 'Grand Arome' ('big scent') and is manufactured in the Touraine Loire Valley, where the company began, in the mid-19th century. The standard product is 32% cacao, made with cocoa sourced in Africa, and the rest is sugar from beets grown and processed in Europe. There are a few variations, with less sugar and more cocoa. It costs around €12 a kilo.

Chocolat Poulain was created in 1848 by Victor-Auguste Poulain, a confectionary maker from Blois. Since 2017, the company has been owned by Carambar, a French company specialising in confectionary that also owns the brands Terry's, Kréma, pastilles Vichy and Suchard, with five factories in France. The emblem of Poulain is a foal, as the word 'poulain' means 'foal'. The first Poulain boutique was in the former family home in Blois of the magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, now open to the public as the Museum of Magic.

Along with Suchard (1826) and Menier (1836), Poulain is amongst the oldest chocolate brands in France and the first to engage in widespread image rich publicity campaigns. They also printed educational images which were offered free with their products, and introduced the idea of random half price vouchers which were distributed amongst their packaging for some lucky consumer to find by chance.

Banania was created in 1914 by journalist Pierre-Francois Lardet after a trip to South America where he encountered indigenous women making a drink from banana flour, cacao, cereal and sugar. It quickly became the market leader, largely thanks to generous donations of the product to the soldiers on the front line, and the use of a Senegalese sharpshooter as the brand emblem. After the Second World War though this overt association with colonialism became controversial and Poulain and Nesquik were the market leaders. Banania has struggled ever since to maintain its market share and in 2019 it closed its last factory in France. The product is now made in Germany.