Under cloudy skies and intermittent rainfall, today we enjoyed a full-day, semi-guided tour of three famous châteaux in the Loire Valley. We met our driver/guide, a very pleasant and knowledgeable young French lady, and a retired couple from, Vancouver Canada, in front of the tourism office at 9:00AM. In a matter of 20 minutes or less, we'd reached our first destination, the Château de Villandry. The Loire Valley, often referred to as the "Garden of France”, is studded with over a thousand châteaux, each with distinct architectural embellishments, from the early medieval to the late Renaissance periods. The châteaux were originally created as feudal strongholds, over the course of centuries past, during the power struggle between southern and northern France. Initially built for defensive purposes during the upheavals of the Middle Ages, the Loire châteaux gradually
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