Blogs from Chinon, Centre, France, Europe

A Day in Chinon So the day starts with a visit to the boulangerie in town. Surprisingly, the campsite doesn’t offer a bread/croissant service. Wouldn’t happen on my marketing/business opportunity watch I can assure you. Well couldn’t beat the taste of the croissants first thing. Then we decided to have a day in Chinon as it is a lovely town and go up to the castle. We get to the castle and guess what it is not a castle at all it is a fortress. The fortress is absolutely amazing and in really good condition. The views were stunning. My only one down side was although you could go into the fortress there was not a lot inside apart from film memorabilia for films such as Game of Thrones, Zena the warrior, the Hobbit, Malificiant etc ... read more

An absolutely excellent idea to visit Chinon, too delightful a town to be missed and really surprised that we have managed to miss it out up to now, given the many weeks, months even we have spent in France over the years. The sky was cornflower blue when we woke and stayed that way all day. Summer has arrived with a vengeance. No hesitation risking suntop on a day like this. We took the road north of the Loire to Saumur, the way we came back yesterday so we got a good view across the river to the castle and then a little further along crossed the Loire and came to the River Vienne which Chinon sits on. The drive was about an hour but so pleasant and such lovely weather. We had to cross the ... read more

Geo: 47.1661, 0.238081We were out of the hotel at 8:30 this morning, and Virginie started things off by giving us Mentchikoffs. Chartres is famous for two treats: macarons and Mentchikoffs. We had macarons yesterday (and they were gooood!). Mentchikoffs were created during a craze for all things Russian and named after a Russian general. They consist of ground almonds in chocolate, which are then baked into a meringue. They are super tasty. Unfortunately, Virginie says that she's never seen them outside of Chartres, so I won't be able to bring a sample back for anyone. You'll just have to imagine how chocolaty and creamy they are. ;)Somewhere along the road we passed a small farm. There was a small doghouse under what was probably the kitchen window. On top of the doghouse was a small goat, ... read more

We left Tours at 8.30am with nice cool temperatures - cool enough to wear a top with sleeves. We were happy. And, there was a tail wind. It was a nice easy bike ride along the river Cher, mostly along the stop bank. We went through the usual grain fields and lovely small and very old hamlets. Our objective was Villandry where we were keen to visit the gardens. Since the others wanted to visit the chateau at the same time, we figured it best for us to continue on for the day on our own. Linds wanted me to complete the 60kms and not take the shorter distance by cutting out some of the route. I wasn't keen to do the distance if the high temps continued. However, it was a lot cooler and the ... read more

Thursday, 30/08/12 Loire/Crouzilles Lynette figured out a different way of adding to my blog so that the last entry appears first, so it will take some getting used to finding my way around. Anyway, we were too lazy to do something today so we did the cleaning, washing and writing most of the day. We did go in to Chinon to join a guided tour of the castle but it turned out quite weird as the group pretty much sat down and litened to a history lesson from the guide. She went through all those who had lived in the castle and who killed who and who were the cousin or brother of whom and how the castle had played its role in the history of Europe. After almost an hour she took us to one ... read more