Loire Valley Tour (Day 3) - West of Tours

The morning favoured us again with glorious sunshine and a blue sky blemished only by a criss cross of aircraft vapour trails.  Mark took us to Villandry first so we could beat any crowds.  We spent the first part of our visit walking around the chateau.  Although built in the 16^th century, the interior reflects the style and tastes of the Carvallo family who bought and refurbished the chateau in 1906.  The chateau is still owned by the family and has the personal touches – portraits and photographs – of a home.

Chateau de Villandry

The true magnificence of Villandry however, and the main draw for me, lies in its gardens and these did not disappoint.  While the sky had rapidly clouded over, the brilliant geometry, sharp design and flawless planting produced a feast of colour and textures across the gardens.  It soothed the soul to see such beautiful symmetry and order achieved with nothing more than ornamentals, herbs, vegetables and fruits. Indulge me - there are a few photos here of the gardens but I couldn't help myself.  It was just so beautiful.  I could spend days of quiet contemplation here and still find new wonders.

Gardens of Villandry (in the foreground the ornamental garden portraying love in its four guises (clockwise from top left: 'Tender Love', 'Passionate Love', 'Fickle Love' and 'Tragic Love'), and vegetable garden behind)

The Vegetable Garden

Water gently cascading down from the Water Garden

Colours of Villandry

After stopping in Azay-le-Rideau for a sandwich by the river, Mark took us to the Troglodyte village in the Goupillieres Valley where we benefited again from a Mark-tour around some of the troglodyte dwellings.  

Azay-le-Rideau

A giant contrast from the clean white stone of Villandry castle, here we got to look inside some of the dark, damp, cold little 'rooms' cut into the rock where most peasant families spent their lives from the Middle Ages up to the last century.  Not only did they have to cut the rock for their masters but farm for their own survival.  All this in poor living conditions while fending off cold, disease, rats and violent raids by bandits.  It was very sobering.

“Many families have lived within these walls.  They are walls of poverty and walls of conviviality, where simplicity and spontaneity accompanied days of happiness and times of sorrow.  These walls have seen intense fatigue and backbreaking labour.  They are brimming with memories that can benefit each and every one of us.  Their memory will not be lost, since it has been handed down from person to person, and each of you will carry a little piece of it home to share with others.”

(Louis-Marie Chardon – site owner who discovered the troglodytic dwellings and has preserved and opened the site to the public)

Troglodyte dwellings

Mark then drove us through picturesque countryside for a quick view of the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ chateau at Rigny-Usse - so called because it inspired the author of the tale, Charles Perrault (not Walt Disney).

Chateau d'Usse

Our final stop was at the Royal Fortress of Chinon.  A medieval fortress, it is famous for its links with the Plantagenet kings (Henry II and Richard the Lionheart) as well as Joan of Arc who journeyed to the castle to meet Charles VII in 1429.  The castle also happened to be hosting an exhibition of dragons which added some whimsy to the visit.  And so it was that we got to see Smaug, Tolkien’s dragon atop the clock tower – famous in its own right for having chimed the hour since the 14^th century – the Jabberwocky and Harry Potter’s dragon. 

Fortress of Chinon - and that's Smaug perched on top of the clock tower

View from the top of the clocktower - looking down at the Vienne River and Chinon

We followed in the footsteps of Joan as we walked the steep cobbled path separating the fortress from the village of Chinon and indulged in a coffee by the little square. 

Chinon

It was our last stop before heading back to the B+B and our final outing to the local trattoria in St Nicolas de Bourgueil for dinner.  It was more simple fare but in fairness, nothing was really going to top yesterday’s meal at La Rose de Pindare – so the moral is: if you’re in the area and need a place to eat, this has got to be it! 

Loire Valley Tour (Day 2) - West of Tours

This morning a place that prides itself as being among the prettiest villages in France – Montsoreau.  A popular place for Parisian holiday homes, it’s also the site of another magnificent chateau with views over the confluence of the Loire and Vienne rivers, and situated at the meeting point of three provinces (Anjou, Touraine and Poitou).  

On our way to Montsoreau 

Chateau de Montsoreau

Mark recommended the chateau as somewhere a little bit different and not your standard castle interior with tapestries and furniture.  Instead we found a very innovative use of audio-visual displays, music, dioramas and exhibits giving a unique snapshot of life in the region over time.  This ranged from the castle’s history and life and trade along the river, to the fiction of Alexandre Dumas and The Lady of Montsoreau.

The reward for climbing the stairs to the towers were stunning views of the river(s) and surrounding landscape.  These included three white steam plumes on the horizon (slightly visible in the photo below) from the region’s nuclear power station.  Bit of an anomaly in a World Heritage area perhaps but apparently close to being decommissioned for a bigger/better model.  The views over the village also highlighted some troglodyte houses cut into the rock.  The soft light coloured tufo limestone that the area is renowned for has been quarried for centuries to build the area’s chateaux and grand buildings.  In contrast the remaining pockmarked and hollowed out hillsides often served as dwellings for the poor serfs who did all the hard labour.

Meeting point of the Loire and Vienne rivers

Village of Montsoreau including some troglodyte houses in the hillside

Various uses for the subterranean network have evolved over time.  The cool interior temperatures (12-13 degrees) and constant humidity have made the caves perfect for mushroom growing and (as we soon observed for ourselves) wine storage.

Next stop was Veuve Amiot and a guided tour of the underground tunnels by our own maestro, Mark.  We were given a tutorial on the production of sparkling wine from first fermentation to bottling, packaging and shipping.  We were shown a little of the cool/dark underground network of tunnels that are now used to store bottles for ageing.  Back into the light and Ross got to sample some more fine sparkling wines.

In nearby Saumur we grabbed some lunch before a quick photo op near the chateau.

Chateau de Saumur

Me and the maestro

I really must say here that Mark’s knowledge of the local area, its geography, wines, history and businesses (restaurateurs, winery and chateau staff among others) is absolutely astounding.  He really is a maestro.  We were taken on another Mark-tour around the outside of Chateau de Breze, which has the distinction of having the deepest dry moat of any castle in France.  And deep it is – plunging to 18m, it has reputedly never been breached.  The moat even boasted its own inbuilt bakery/cold room to help the castle occupants withstand lengthy sieges.

Chateau de Breze

Looking down at the dry moat

Our last stop was Fontevraud Abbey – really an extensive monastic complex comprising a number of separate buildings.  Its fame during medieval times no doubt boosted when it became the resting place of two English Kings - King Henry II and his son Richard the Lionheart, their equally infamous wife/mother, Eleanor of Aquitane and her daughter-in-law, Isabelle of Angouleme.

Reclining figures of Plantagenet royalty - Fontevraud Abbey

Fontevraud Abbey

Fontevraud has achieved further notoriety since Napoleonic times following its conversion to a state penitentiary and its resident miseries of hunger, maltreatment, even torture.  The site served as a prison until the 1960s with the last prisoners only leaving as recently as 1985.  Needless to say extensive renovations have been conducted and still continue to  this day to return the abbey to its former glory.

Fontevraud Abbey - restored

To close another fabulous day, Mark organised a table for us at La Rose de Pindare, another local restaurant in St Nicolas de Bourgueil and the Mark-Debbie tag team kindly delivered us there and back.  The set menu was absolutely exquisite.  We enjoyed the fine evening by sitting outside on the restaurant terrace indulging in pan fried salmon with courgette mousse and red wine sauce, and beautifully presented fresh strawberries for dessert.  Without a doubt, it was the finest meal we have enjoyed on our entire trip and a fitting almost-end to our holiday.

The strawberry dessert

Loire Valley Tour (Day 1) – East of Tours

A new adventure began today.  We checked out of our hotel to be met by our host, Mark from Loire Valley Breaks.  Usually a small-group tour, it turns out we are the only ones to have signed on this week to what is the first tour of the season and as such we basically have a guided tour to ourselves for the next three days. It is a real privilege!

We bid the city farewell as our Citroen wound its way out of Tours and headed east to the grandest of the Loire Valley’s chateaux, Chenonceau.  The big tour buses from Paris hadn’t yet arrived so we were blessed with smaller crowds than usual, just as well as the chateau and gardens were beautiful and it was a pleasure to have the time and space to enjoy them.  Once he’d helped us secure our tickets and advised us on the best route around the grounds, Mark left us to explore on our own.

Chenonceau is uniquely beautiful as it was constructed over the River Cher in the 16^th Century.  Gifted to his ‘favourite lady’, Diane de Poitiers in 1547 by King Henri II, she enhanced the castle by building a bridge over the river and adding stunning formal gardens.  The King’s wife (and later widow), Catherine de Medici ‘removed’ Diane (tempting her away with a castle swap) and added her own touches with additional architectural works and gardens. 

Chateau Chenonceau

View of Diane de Poitiers' Garden

The interior is simple but refined and decorated in the Renaissance style with tapestries, decorative tiles, coffered ceilings and fireplaces. 

Gallery

Ross is horrified to discover the evil aubergine in the castle kitchens

Chenonceau is as much about its setting as anything else for which there simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe it.

Chateau Chenonceau from the garden

The castle has had a rich history up to more recent times with its use as a hospital during the First World War and its pivotal location during the Second World War.  As the River Cher corresponded to the line of demarcation between occupied and free (Vichy) France, it was an important point for activities by the French Resistance.  Hard as it may be to believe, the Germans kept an artillery unit trained on the castle during the war ready to destroy it if necessary. 

Our next stop was the picturesque village of Amboise where Mark joined us for lunch at a local bistro and talked strategy in terms of places we’d like to see over the next few days. 

Amboise

After a quick drive along the riverbank to view the local castle, we were escorted to our next stop, the ‘chateau’ of Clos Luce.  Not really a castle but a grand manor house, this place came as a totally unexpected and pleasant surprise. 

Chateau Clos Luce

Not far from the Chateau Amboise, Clos Luce was a royal residence which King Francois I made available to Leonardo da Vinci in 1516.  The French King held da Vinci in such high regard that he not only made available the house and a princely allowance but also financed much of da Vinci’s work, asking only the pleasure of his company in return.  Da Vinci lived here for the last three years of his life and took his last breath in the bedroom of the house at the age of 67 in 1519. 

The house and gardens preserve da Vinci’s brilliance with recreations of many of his drawings and models of his machines.  The man truly was a genius with ideas spanning engineering, art, anatomy, architecture and botany.

The gardens of Clos Luce

Once out of Amboise, there was a short stop for some wine tasting where Ross got to sample a number of sparkling/still Chenin Blanc wines.  The most incredible revelation perhaps was the quality of the wines for absurdly low prices – only 5 euros a bottle in many cases for wines that had already been aged for a few years.

It was then a pleasant drive along the River Loire through a number of villages and past vines and fields of sunflowers – some still with their bright yellow halos but mostly with heavy drooping brown heads. Mark entertained us with local tales and history all along the way.  Shortly before 6pm we arrived at our lodgings for the next 3 nights – the B+B at St Nicolas de Bourgueil which represents another labour of love on the part of Mark and his wife Debbie.  We were shown to our room, part of a beautifully restored farm building from the early 19^th century.  The complex comprises four B+B rooms, a barn and the house Mark and his family live in. 

The B+B at St Nicolas de Bourgueil

Idyllic outlook over the vines in the afternoon sun

Dinner in the evening was a table at the local village restaurant for a three course meal which Mark had recommended, organised the table for, and chauffeured us to. And afterwards Debbie interrupted her own meal with family and friends to collect us and drive us back for the night.  We really are being exceptionally well looked after.

Is this heaven? A new shirt, a French restaurant and a glass of wine