If that's another chateau this must be the Loire

Saturday 20th May

Before we left Beaune I just had to do a quick roam around the fabulous market. The streets are filled with bustling people and every car park is filled with cars as people come from miles around to wander through a huge range of stalls selling produce, artisan food, clothes, antiques (and unfortunately some trinkets straight off the container from China).

All I bought was a loaf of bread which caused white flour to be spread all over my black jacket by the time I reached the car. It's tricky being almost French!

Then it was a few hours on some back roads, and a bit of the freeways, to get to the Loire,

We stopped along the way at a very pretty town called Souvigny en Sologne, to stretch our legs. The decorative brickwork, wooden beams, and the maroon paintwork  was quite different to elsewhere, and was the start of the Loire style I think.

Our self-contained apartment is in the attic over the garage

We had booked an attic apartment 'in the middle of nowhere'. It turned out to be right in the centre of lots of the Chateaux for which the Loire is famous. Mont- Pres Chambord is a small town amidst lots of forests. Paule and Alain's house sits in the middle of three forests so when I stood outside our door at the edges of the forest, looking at the thick green forest, the air is completely still and the only sounds are birds.
For future reference: Airbnb - L'Embellie - host is Paule
After we settled in we drove through a number of the small towns in the area to get our bearings and find the bike shop and dinner. Paule had supplied us with a list of restaurants to go to ,and those to avoid, which was very helpful. Dinner at the one of the preferred ones - Au relais d'Artemis - was lovely.
The bike shop fiasco has been annoying however. there are chateaus that are within cycling range and a very detailed cycling map for making sure you get there. Procuring a bike however is a challenge. The closest bike shop is not open on Sundays and Mondays, the two days we are here, and the other closed at lunchtime today an hour before we arrived. Despite that there seems to be lots of cyclists pedaling around which is very annoying as it is flat and I think I could cope ! Oh well, can't say we didn't try!

This morning we headed off early to see the Chateau that is first on everyone's list - Chateau de Chambord - in attempt to miss the bus crowds....and we did.

It is truly magnificent, although the architecture is somewhat weird. Built by Francis 1 who started it in 1519 it has taken some centuries to complete with Louis XIV responsible for it being completed based on the original plans. It was built as a hunting Lodge, not as a palace, and hunting in the huge forests has continued to this day. I'm not sure why anyone needs a 400 room hunting lodge but who am I to question that?  It's a UNESCO site of course, and is set in 5,440 hectares with a 32 kilometre wall so, needless to say, we didn't see all of it!

The pictures tell the story really: it's stunning! But if you look closely at the collection of towers they are all different and there isn't a symmetry about the building. The towers range from ornate and elaborate and round to box-like structures to grey domes all stuck together. What do you think?

We hired the latest thing in audio guides called a 'histopad' which is basically an iPad with lots of sensors so it knows where you are and provides lots of information and pictures. It took us a while to understand everything it could do (me and technology!!) but without doubt the best thing it did was to to provide a view of the room from centuries ago as if it was a virtual reality screen ie you held the screen up and moved around the room and it showed you how they  think it would have looked when it was first completed and used as a hunting lodge centuries ago. Very clever. Most of the rooms were furnished in the style of more recent centuries but not in the style that would have been there when it was first built . Just fascinating.

In search of a bike shop (not open) we stopped to have lunch at a restaurant where the service was appalling but the food fabulous (and of course we weren't surprised to see it on Paule's 'Restaurants to Avoid' list later in the day!)

Fortified for another Chateau, this time we went to Chateau de Cheverny, a more modest but equally beautiful chalet that has been owned by the same family foe six generations and is still occupied by them. The  decor was very ornate and the furniture and paintings opulent.

The birthing chamber!

NOT a dinner set I wish to own!

Then as we were having an ice cream enjoying the sunshine in the gardens Ewan mentioned an aspect of Cheverny that that I was unaware of: they breed hunting dogs and there are a 100 of them! We could hear them howling as we got closer. We expected Gracie 'look-alikes' ( but slimmer!). But these were massive hunting hounds, the like of which I had never seen before, and all jammed into a very small space it seemed to me. Then we discovered that there were huge runs for them out the back.

The kitchen gardens were also beautiful including some wonderful roses.

We decided we had reached the limit for Chateaus for the day and returned home. I decided to go for a walk as I needed to stretch my legs - literally as Ewan walks slowly because of his knees so I needed to do some fast walking. I managed to almost get lost in the middle of a Forest park close to the house but the 'blue dot' helped until it got very lost!

After a 'make-do' dinner  it will be an early night to prepare us for more Chateaux tomorrow

Your historically up-to-date correspondent

Dianne