We dined at Restaurant Diane de Meridor, I’ll let the pictures tell the story. At the table behind us, a small dog lay at her owners feet, quiet and content. I love that a dog is allowed in a dining room in France, it seems meant to be.
We visited the exterior of Chateau de la Dame de Montsoreau with a history dating back to 11th century. Some of its architecture took us back to the traboules in Lyon.
We had a quick snoop around the village, all was quiet until a bikie gang rolled through town. They rode pillion and otherwise atop 100+ gleaming machines whose bass like rumbles arrived long before them and left way after.
Along the Loire a little further was Candes-St-Martin, a small village decorated with roses in full bloom, they made the village look so pretty. The Eglise Collegiale dominated the small square and the cobbled streets made their way uphill behind it, to the panorama view of the confluence of La Loire and La Vienne Rivers. The surprise of the day was the discovery of Brocant Gourmande with its little courtyard dining room with mismatched chairs, tables and china. The inside diningroom was filled with walls of old books and memorablilia, the resident cat curled up on an empty chair beside a contented customer.
On our way back to the car we found a wild cherry tree laden with fruit, and also the open gates to Chateau Vieux which is closed to the public. The owner of the Chateaux was driving out of the high gates on his way back to Paris, he only spends weekends at his Chateaux. We got chatting and he invited us inside the gates for a quick look around ...I love France!
In the next village of Chinon, the streets were full of festivities and celebrations. Our first encounter was with a guy dressed as a cow, his mates had thrown him into the river and his hide was soaked! It was all in good fun, he was to be married in August and this was part of the celebrations. In the back streets, a wedding party ambled, followed by beaming guests, ‘bon chance’ we called to them. We pulled over in a nearby park for a throw of the ball by the river, a fisherman reeled in a small fish while others sat idle, their hooks dangling untouched a little further upstream.
The last town on the itinerary today was Rigny-Usse and the beautiful Chateau D’Usse. It was so beautiful on the outside with its peaked turrets reaching high up into the sky, but lacked the warmth of Chateaux de Brissac we had fallen in love with on our visit last week. This Chateaux was only for show, each of its rooms roped off with mannequins dressed as the people would have been in years gone by. Chateaux D’Usse certainly didn’t have the same warm and fuzzy feel as Chateaux de Brissac, it was not nearly as special.
We got lost on the way home too, in one town we passed the same red tractor four times as we were taken on a loop through the narrow streets, we laughed so much and John just kept shaking his head in silence.
We got lost on the way home too, in one town we passed the same red tractor four times as we were taken on a loop through the narrow streets, we laughed so much and John just kept shaking his head in silence.
