Chateaux abound in the Loir-et-Cher. The chateaux of which I speak are large, stately palaces and castles that date from as early as the 11th century. Most have played major roles in French and European history. (As recently as World War II, Chenonceau served as an escape route between occupied and controlled but free France, and Chambord held many of the Louvre's masterpieces safe from Nazi pilfering.) This week we have skittered about several of them, but by ...

In America, if you ask for directions to the town's railway station, most likely you will hear one of two answers: (1) a possible route to get there, or (2) an indication that it closed decades ago, and why would you want to go to that part of town, anyway. In Europe, when you ask the same question, you are more likely to be greeted with another question: "Which one?" Americans are spoiled by our cars, but we are comparatively deprived in our rail service. For ...