Day 5 - The Loire

After 4 nights in the centre of Paris there’s one thing we learned after the first night, the French rarely sleep. Regardless of how late, or how early for that matter, there’s always someone awake and talking. At 4am in the morning when the rest of the world is asleep you can still here multiple voices down on the street below, talking about god knows what and not quietly but loud loud loud. If I knew French a bit better I’d probably enjoyed the conversations a bit more but they sure sound like they’re having a good time.

Anyway, after a good? night’s sleep we indulge in breakfast in our room for a change to save us some time. Suitcases needs to be packed again and all the rubbish we’ve managed to collect over the last couple of days needs to be collected and tidied up. A quick check under the beds reveals items we’ve been missing for days! We’re picking up our car on the other side of town so rather than having to lug our gear through the Metro again we opt for a cab this time. A 10km, 20 minute drive on Google maps is in reality a 10km 50 minute drive, thanks a lot Google. Our brand new dark blue Citroen C4 is ready waiting for us once we finally arrive at our destination and with all bags in the boot we head out to conquer the Paris traffic. With only half a dozen hair razing moments through the Paris traffic behind us we make our out on to the freeway heading southwest towards Orleans. Grey skies and at time heavy rain doesn’t slow us down as we power ahead. Our best friend for the day is TomTom, our GPS navigation gadget. The only “real” map we have is a map over Europe with does lack detail to say the least. According to this map the only place of significance between Paris and Amsterdam is Belgium…

After a quick stop for lunch we're off again. We turn of the freeway after Orleans and set our sights on the little country town of Chambord. One of the fairy-tale castles of the Loire Valley is residing just outside of the medial town of Blois. With 426 rooms, 282 fireplaces and 77 staircases it poses a magnificent building to any onlooker. The 5500 hectares! of manicured gardens and parklands will make your lawn mowing experience into a life time in case you’re looking for the gardener’s job.

Built in the 14th century several kings used this as their recreational residence but the Comte of Chambord who owned to the castle for some 60 years in from the early 19th century only stayed here for only 3 days. Maybe keeping all the 282 fireplaces going got to him after a few days…

A severe thunder storm ends or visit to Chambord and we set our sights again on our place of residence for the night. We drive along the Loire River south west towards the little village of Auberge de Laungy. The old city of Blois is a spectacular sight with its huge medieval cathedral and old city sights. We pass the more castles built on the banks of the river overlooking the valley, quite spectacular.

Our hotel for the next 2 nights is an old farm refurbished and rebuilt to accommodate guests. A lovely spot with a beautiful garden. It has it’s only highly regarded, according to the reviews on the net, restaurant and we had to book 4 months in advance to make sure we got a table for dinner the two days we’re spending here. Salme quickly discovers the garden has a vegetables, fruit and berry bushes and set a goal to try every species, obviously without the consent of the hotel a management. We fear the restaurant will definitely lack fresh produce over the next couple of months because of this.

The 3 course meal with some local wine settles our rumbling tummies down in an instant and with the help of local staff we make our way back the 20 metres to our rooms.

Tomorrow – More Castle, More Spectacular Views and more food and wine…