Day 7 continued (Thursday, September 3, 2009) From Fougeres, we began the very long drive towards the Loire Valley. Throughout the nearly three hour journey, the sun was in a constant battle with the clouds, but it appeared as though the sun was going to win, or at least I hoped so. Seeing blue skies while in the Loire Valley was extremely important to me as visiting and photographing the many château was one of the things I was most looking forward to during our visit to France. Our first stop within the Loire Valley was Château d [View Full Entry]

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About two hours away from Paris, your young heroine found herself in the Loire Valley this past Saturday in the town of Amboise. Let's just all clear this up before I say anymore. Everytime I hear "amboise" (as in, the name of the town with castles) I think of "framboise" (the french word for raspberry). So, in all honesty, (and you're probably not at all surprised, I went to Framboise this weekend. Which is what I insisted on calling it and have been calling it for the past 2 weeks. I've called it Framboise so much that by the time we [View Full Entry]

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21st November - 23rd November Arcachon We drove from San Sebastian on Friday in the rain. Leaving behind the wonderful tapa bars. We were staying in a hotel with the Sally and Brian from Palmy. Down the road from Arcachon are the Dune de Pylon. But we did't visit them until we had the Quantock-Holmes with us. Our hotel was perfect. Kitchen and bathroom all separate from all the other rooms. Everyone had a bed with sheets and blankets. Blake The sand dunes were fast and cool. We jumped off the big cliffs. We ran down the big cliffs too. I [View Full Entry]

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Amboise - October 3 (Geoff) Today was C day. C is for Chateaux. When we arrived in Amboise, Sue contacted a little tour company by the name of Acco-Dispo who specialise in touring the area by minibus to arrange a tour of the outstanding Chateaux in the region. We enjoyed a leisurely start to the day and sauntered down to the Tourist Information office to meet our guide, one Pascal Accolay at 10:30. He was a youngish guy who spoke pretty good English, thankfully. We really appreciated not having to wait long as the air temperature here is pretty cold and [View Full Entry]

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Amboise, Loire Valley 1 October The trip to Paris on the night train was uneventful, but a disturbed night of sleep. The night trains are fast which means they rock from side to side and are noisy. Not the best conditions for sleep. We woke around 7.30am expecting to arrive at Paris by 9am. Somewhere in the night we had lost 2hrs and were informed we would arrive at 11am. Our next train from Paris to Amboise was at 11.40am. When we looked at our ticket we noticed it left from a different train station. As it was an open ticket [View Full Entry]

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Amboise - October 2 (Geoff) We explored the town this morning. Amboise is not a huge place and its city centre is about the size of Manuka. Still it was nice to start the day quietly and spend some time shopping and window shopping (more of the latter than the former). We finished our wander and then strolled along the banks of the Loire river - very peaceful, though the day was a little cool. It was then time to have a look at our first Chateau -the Chateau Royal in Amboise. This was the country retreat of the French Royal [View Full Entry]

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We started the day with our usual trip to the boulangerie, and then a tour of Chateau Clos Luce, where Leonardo da Vinci stayed his last years. Leonardo was everywhere, with drawings and images and quotes in every room. In the description of the place, they highlight the model machines made from the drawings, and I was very excited to see them. Sadly, none of the reproductions could be handled, and even some models seemed like lazy approximations of the drawings. In the park surrounding the chateau were a few large reproductions that could be operated, but again, I was disappointed [View Full Entry]

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