Early start today as I joined a tour of the gorgeous Loire Valley, famous for castles and wineries..... Morning tea was an excellent chocolate croissant along the way to Chambord, a sixteenth century castle built as a very fancy hunting lodge. Amazing architecture and huge rooms, it was impossible to keep warm despite the hundreds of fire places. Lunch was at a boutique winery, we were served a home style chicken and veges lunch, with tarte tatin (apple) to finish, along with some excellent goat's cheese. Feeling merry we were quickly deposited at our final destination, Chateau de Chenonceau. Inhabited by the king's mistress, it had a cosy, female atmosphere complete with lots of furnished bed chambers, huge tapestries and giant vases of flowers from the amazing gardens outside. Apparently the king fell in love with
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