A Few Days of Chateau Hopping

So after a flat out week in France's capital, we jumped on a train to the sleepy Loire Valley for some R&R and of course, a taste of the beautiful French country lifestyle. So after travelling to our base of Tours, we headed to the little town of Blois (pronounced Blwah). We arrived in the town rather unprepared, with no map and no idea what there was to see in this little town. So after hopping off the train, we did the only thing we could do....picked a road and went with it! We find the best method is to find the biggest church spire and head towards it! But luckily after a few minutes of wandering, we stumbled across the sign towards the towns Chateau, The Royal Chateax de Blois.

The Chateaux was lovely from the outside, with a lovely exterior staircase in the courtyard, but we decided to bypass the 10 Euro entrance fee, because we get a bit bored looking at period furniture and portraits!

Seeing the chateau appear almost magically out of the mist was a truly breathtaking sight

The town itself was absolutely beautiful, the cutest little medieval village with lots of small town charm. We even found ourselves glancing at the real estate boards and picking the holiday house we would buy when we are millionaires! And as if we werent already loving the little town, we turned a corner a stumbled upon the cutest little outdoor market selling all sorts including wine, cheese, meat, jam, honey, and our favourite...a big cookup of paela and casserole! So we bought some cutlery from a nearby stall and tuckered into the beautiful food on a stool in the sun nearby.....just perfect!!!

After a beautiful day exploring Blois, it was time to head home. Being in the spirit of the Loire Valley, we bought some cheese, dips, crackers, meat and of course, WINE and had a feast of French nibblies for dinner. Does it get any better than this???

So the next day, we decided to explore some of the infamous wine regions of the Loire Valley. After devouring several brochures, we managed to find a few towns that had wineries in our area. So we jumped on the automatic ticket machine at the train station and tried to work out which of these towns we could reach by train. After about 20 minutes of trying, we were reduced to just one town.....Montrichard! So that decided it, we were off to Montrichard. Now, if it is a sleepy town you are after, Montrichard is the town for you. Arriving on a Sunday, we expected things to be a bit quieter than usual, but there was hardly a soul about and almost every single store was closed, and to make matters worse, we forgot to bring the brochure which told us where the wineries were so we were just hoping beyond hope that there would be a sign or that some frenchman would take pity on us!

Alas, no signs seemed to indicate where we might find a winery in Montrichard, so we headed across the bridge and out of town hoping that we might find some wine in the next town along. Just out of town, we stumbled upon a few signs with grapes on them and so we continued our trek in search of wine! After an hour or so walking through beautiful french countryside, we still had not found a single winery, but we did stumble upon the gorgeous little town of Faverolles Sur Cher complete with a lovely little picnic area. Although we were wineless and we walked about 10kms in total, we had such a lovely day exploring this beautiful area.

The one thing that I absolutely positively HAD to see when travelling to Europe was CASTLES! I have always been fascinated by the beauty and grandeur of European castles, so I was obviously excited when I found out about the hundreds of chateaux surrounding Tours! So we did a bit of research and worked out that the cheapest and best way to see the best ones was to jump on an organised bus tour. So we researched the ones we really wanted to see (there are over 100 in the area) and organised a tour!

The first chateau on the tour was the lovely Chenenceau. For its fairytale like quality, this has to be my favourite chateau in France. Walking towards the chateau down an aisle of big tall trees and seeing the chateau appear almost magically out of the mist was a truly breathtaking sight. And as you got closer, the chateau retained its mystical qualities as it stood perched majestically across the entire river. The gardens were amazing as well, but my favourite part had to be the maze! Mike and I raced each other to the centre of a garden maze, and Mike beat me by just seconds! But it was such fun!

The next chateau on the list was the lovely Royal Chateau of Amboise. Firstly, the town of Amboise is so lovely and retains so much medieval charm. The chateau itself doesnt look much from the ground, but as you ascend the rampart you begin to see how large and grand this chateaux really is. This chateaux was home to several kings and it is also the resting place of Leonardo Da Vinci. The height of the chateaux also gives it beautiful views over Amboise and the Loire river. We made a quick stop at a chateau down the road where Leonard da Vinci spent the last three years of his life. The gardens of both chateaux were just lovely with funny little round plants and the former.

The next chateau was Chambord....the biggest chateau in the Loire valley and is tying for the spot of my favourite chateau. Its charm lies not in its mystical feel, but in its granduer and the unique design of its interior. The chateau is HUGE...I think it has over 400 rooms, 77 staircases and 227 fireplaces, just to name a few of the features. It is completely symetrical all the way around which made it really spectactular, but the best part had to be the double spiral staircase which is thought to have been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci. The idea is that one person can ascend the stairs and another can descend without ever meeting each other. Apparently this helped the king to smuggle his mistresses out when his wife was on the way up.

The last chateau was Cheverny, the most modern of all the chateaux in the classical style. While this one was lovely, it was a bit of a let down after Chambord. This was the only chateau on our tour that the descendants of the original owners still live in...so part of the chateau was obviously not open to the public. The gardens were absolutely lovely though and it was a good ending to an amazing day of chateaux hopping!