Blogs from Centre, France, Europe - page 20

Phillipe very kindly offered to be tour guide again today which was fantastic. We wouldn't find half the places without him. We went along the Loir valley. The Loir which is the river flowing in front of our house is a tributary to the Loire. Phillipe makes leadlight windows and is involved with a charitable organisation that helps restore and maintain old buildings and churches. He took us to a barn from the 14th century that their group has been given to restore. Once restored, they plan to hold exhibitions and concerts in it to further help with their fundraising efforts. It’s a three year restoration process as they only gather once a week for half a day to work on it, and it seems to be more of a social gathering than a highly productive ... read more

After a morning shopping in Blois we got to Cheverney chateaux in time to see the feeding of the dogs. They keep around 100 french hounds there (for hunting). They were cute dogs and certainly seemed to have a sense of smell. About 10 minutes before the keeper turned up with the food they all got excited with their noses in the air. Their food got laid out while they were locked in a different area. They were near hysterical by that point jamming each other up against the gate, and climbing on top of each other to be the first closest to the food. It reminded me of crowd riots at soccer games where people get crushed. Cheverny was a lovely homely castle. It was very well furnished with everyday living items from centuries gone ... read more

Today we got up early to go to another castle. It was called the Villandry but it was known for its gardens more than its castle. Phillipe came to pick us up to drive us to the castle at 9am. It was the first time we had seen him since he was living with us in New Zealand. The drive took about an hour and a half as the castle is one of the furtherest away. Once we arrived we went and brought our tickets which where only for the garden as we didn’t feel we needed to see the castle. The gardens where huge! They were so well kept for such a big area. The first part we went into was filled with bright colourful vegetables. The section was divided into 6 smaller sections. On ... read more

Castle number two - tick. Although it was castle number one on our list. This is the supersized most extravagant and most visited of them all. And it did take our breath away from our first glimpse of it during one of our many u-turn manoeuvers on narrow country roads. It really is impressive with it's size and whole cityscape of turrets domes and sculptures on top. We were pleased our early morning start got us half way up the number one carpark rather than the other parks a couple of kilometers away. This place certainly was geared up for the tourists with markets restaurants and souvenir shops forming a little village within the grounds. The grounds were very unimpressive. Little more than badly kept paddocks. Although the large forest surrounding the castle is of note ... read more

Today we went to chambord. It's a fancy castle. It's one of the biggest ones in France. It is known for it's staircase when two people can go on it. They can see each other but they won't pass each other. As we went in all the rooms there wasn't much in it compared to the one we went to before.  After we had lunch we went to hudins magic house. The first floor was pretty cool. We went into this coffin shaped hallway that had mirrors on all it's sides and it looked like it when on forever. As we went onto the last level a man us some kind of like glasses but they've got a mirror by your nose so that you can see what is above you. Then you walk down a ... read more