Joan of Arc in the Loire Valley in 2010

My intent in traveling to France was to visit the sites where my beloved heroine, Joan of Arc, traveled. I felt richly rewarded and awed by the love and reverence the French had for her.  I find it poetically ironic that the very institution which put her to death, honors her so in all of its churches and mighty cathedrals.

I drove 2,000 kilometers along roads and highways lined with acres of sunflower farms, to Orleans, Tours, Blois, Ambois, St. Catherine de Fierbois and Chinon.  My favorite drive was the back road which followed the Loire River from Blois to Tours.  With the river on my right and fields of varying shades on my left stretching southward and the endless blue sky, I could almost hear the rapid cadence of the horses hooves galloping along the same road nearly 600 years before.

The land felt gentle and the picaresque towns serene compared with life in New England, USA. I fell in love with the high puffy lavender clouds and expansive sky, the rolling fields, the limestone architecture and the modeled trunks of the Sycamore trees. A part of me felt at home and at peace.

Here are a great number of photos of the numerous and varied statues erected in her honor.