Exploring The Beautiful Loire Valley.

Exploring the Loire Valley.

As there are so many wonderful chateaux to be seen in the Loire Valley and it actually covers a fairly large area, we have decided to base ourselves in two different towns so we can maximize the number of chateaux we can actually visit.

The first place we stayed was the delightful town of Chinon in the western half of the valley. Chinon and the area around here is known as Joan of Arc country, for it was in Chinon that Joan persuaded Charles VII to give her an army to drive the English out of France. This medieval town has a magnificent statue of Joan of Arc on horseback.

The view from our window at the Hotel Dirdot.

 



  The wonderful statue of Joan of Arc.

We stayed in a little hotel right in the middle of the old area of Chinon called the Hotel Dirdot and it was just delightful. We had a lovely old room on the first floor looking out on one of the old churches, an ivy covered stone house and a mass of trees on the side of the hill. It also had a beautiful small garden where we had breakfast and drinks after a busy day looking at the chateaux and even a resident cat. Everything about this hotel was just perfect and we loved our stay here.

The resident cat.

 



Enjoying breakfast in the garden.

 



The Hotel Dirdot makes its own wonderful selection of jams.

 From here we visited the last great Renaissance chateau to be built in the Loire Valley, the Chateau de Villandry which is a perfect example of 16^th century architecture. Its gardens are absolutely splendid and a magnificent example of the splendour of the formal gardens of the Renaissance Period. We spent a couple of hours just wandering through the three main formal gardens – (one was a formal kitchen and flower garden with sculptured trees, another was an ornamental garden and the third on the highest level was a water garden) and the French style informal gardens – (one in white and blue tones and the other in yellows and orange colours.) There was also a children’s garden and a formal herb garden and many archways covered in grape and wisteria vines. The inside of this chateau was decorated as if a present day family was living there and it had a very elegant but lived in feeling.

The Chateau and gardens at Villandry.

 



Part of the formal gardens.

The white and blue informal garden.

 



Inside the Chateau.

 

Next we visited the Chateau de Breze which was totally different. This Fortress is renowned for having the highest moat walls in France but as you walk towards it you think it is just sitting on a hill until you get right to the entrance bridge and the you see that the moat has actually been dug out to this great depth of 18mts. The interesting thing about this chateaux is that there is just as much happening in the caves and tunnels under the chateau as you can see above the ground. It was just fascinating to explore and learn about all the activities that took place in the caves that were only accessible from the dry moat and the tunnels up into the centre courtyard of the castle - horse stables, bakery, wine maker as well as families living in the caves.

This is what you see as you approach the Chateau de Breze.

The dry moat wall at the Chateau.

 Inside the chateau.

After we left Chinon, we went to Blois and stayed there for 3nights. On the way to Blois we visited the Chateau de Chenonceaux which unlike all the other chateaux in the Loire Valley, this one was created according to the wishes of powerful women notably King Henri II’s mistress, Diane de Poitiers and his widow, Catherine de Medici. In the Chateau there are many beautifully decorated and furnished rooms that create an impression of matchless grandeur. (The many painting and tapestries are just beautiful and in perfect condition.) The rooms include the bed chambers of many of the queens and mistresses, a fantastic equipped kitchen including its own butchery, a delightful chapel and a famous gallery built over five arches that extends out 60 mts across the Cher River and its elegant beauty is reflected in the rivers waters. The history of this chateau is amazing and I hope to read and discover more information when we get home.

The Beautiful Chateau Chenonceaux.



 

The Chapel.

 One of the many bedrooms.

The Chateau de Blois is perched high above the town and is also very interesting, in that it consisted of 4 wings around a large central court yard. Each wing was built during the reign of a different King and shows the wonderful architecture of that particular period. During our visit here we also saw a very realistic period re-enactment of a sword fight. This Chateau is authentically furnished and has many pictures that depict its troubled past. It also showed the work involved in the restoration of such properties.

 

The Main Entrance to the Chateau at Blois.

One of the wings with very ornate architecture.



The sword fight.



` From Blois we drove back down the Loire River to the old town of Amboise to see the historically important Chateau d’ Amboise. This Chateau was the first medieval fortress to be turned into a royal chateau. Louis XI lived here, Charles VIII was born and also died here and it was his favourite residence and Francois I was brought up here.

The Chapel. 

View of the Chateau from the gardens.

Another beautiful Chateau along the Loire River.

 



The view from the Chateau d' Ambrose. 

Under the patronage of Francois, Leonardo da Vinci the artist and inventor spent his final years and he is buried in the Gothic Chapel of St. Hubert, which is the chapel of the Chateau and situated high on its ramparts.

This very impressive chateau is situated high above the town and has magnificent views along the Loire River and it was a delight to visit.

The final chateau we visited was Cheverny which was finished in 1634. This Classical Renaissance Chateau was also very impressive but quite different from the others we have visited. It is noted for its stag hunting and has 70 hounds on the estate. It is magnificently presented with great expanses of manicured lawns and inside the rooms are decorated in 19^th century vintage.

The hounds in the Chateau grounds.

 



The entrance to the Chateau Cheverny.



Inside the Chateau. The top picture is the kings bedroom and the other the music room.

 



 

We have had a great time seeing how the wealthy and the Royals have lived in France over the past 500years. We have also learnt a lot about French history and where the country was governed at different times. There are hundreds of chateaux throughout France, many have been restored and our open to the public to visit. We have seen only a few but they were all very grand and each had a distinct personality and specialised in showing a particular part of how the wealthy lived in the past.

 

 

2000 Years Of Bridges in France.

Two Thousand Years of Bridges.

After spending several days in the Provence area chasing lavender fields we were positively lavendered out – we were also abbeyed out. We had seen some great country and really enjoyed what we had seen up on the plateaus but we now needed a change.

(Once you have seen one abbey you have seen them all – they are very much the same – lovely stone work, beautiful caved pillars, the same sandstone colour and the occasional stone sculpture but very little colour. The churches on the other hand are all different. They all have magnificent iconic pictures, stained glass windows, lovely coloured statues, chapels and alters and their own way of presenting their treasures. I could keep looking at churches, chapels and cathedrals for every, l find they all have a distinct personality of their own.)

We decided to do a Back Roads of France drive that enabled us to see many different bridges dating from Roman time till present time. Our trip started at the 2000 year old Roman Bridge the Pont du Gard and ended at the amazing new viaduct spanning the River Tarn Gorge at Millau and on the way we saw magnificent scenery, the wild uplands and the shady chestnut forests of the beautiful Cevennes area and deep canyons of the Gorges du Tarn and the many small stone bridges that are deep down in the gorge and crossing the river.

This is the Pont du Gard - look and see how small the people look on this very large Roman Bridge.

 

The Pont du Gard is the highest bridge ever built by the Romans. It is a stupendous feat of engineering still unsurpassed.  It is 160 Ft. High and as well as being a traffic bridge in its day, it was also a via-duct carrying water some 30 miles/50klms. The French have turned this grand Roman Bridge into a real tourist attraction with a large visitors centre, museum and 3D movie. It was just fantastic to see it and to be able to walk across it even through there were lots of people also enjoying the bridge.

 

There were many tunnels cut through the mountains that we had to pass through.

 In most places the road is very narrow - a bit scary when some one is coming the other way.

The drive through the Gorges du Tarn which is often referred to as the Grand Canyon of Europe was just unbelievable. There were magnificent views, as the road snaked its way along the heavily treed side of the gorge that has been sculptured out of the limestone by the Tarn River. Along the way were several stunning little villages built into the sides of the steep mountains.

 

Two of the Villages on the way. 

This is a small group of houses on the other side of the river accessed only by a flying-fox.

 In some places there were small groups of lovely old stone houses on the opposite side of the river and these were only accessible by a flying fox strung across the deep valley and fast flowing river. The stone bridges were old, very small and very pretty and if you had to cross one they were only wide enough for one car at a time.

Two of the stone bridges we saw on our journey along the Gorges du Tarn.

 After a long steady drive down from the high rugged mountain area, we eventually arrived in the large city of Millau and the viaduct de Millau. This marvellous engineering feat finished in 2004 has created one of the highest suspension bridges in the world (higher than the Eiffel Tower) and it spans the gorge made by the River Tarn for a distance of 2.5klms. The tallest pier is 340mts tall.

 This is the Bridge at Millau. There are 7 piers that support this suspension bridge.

 
This was a great Back Roads of France journey –such a great variety of wonderful countryside to admire and enjoy and the many little villages and their beautiful old stone houses, churches and bridges were delightful to see. It was a great journey in the middle of summer when the fields were green and full of cereal crops and the villages were very colourful with their hanging baskets full of brightly coloured flowers, but I also had to wonder how beautiful this wonderful area would have been in winter covered with freshly fallen white snow and then in spring, what would it look like when the river is swollen and roaring through the gorge.

Wonderful Time in Provence and the Cote D'Azur Region of France.

Wonderful Time in Provence and the Cote D’Azur Region of France.

I have read and heard a lot about the beautiful area in the south east of France known as Provence and the Cote D’Azur. From its herb-scented hills to its fabulous tourist towns and villages along the Mediterranean Sea I am sure that this is one area of France that most of us wish we could see for ourselves.

I must admit that the area actually known as Provence and the Cote D’Azur covers a lot more area than I had imagined and it took us some time to explore and see what we had hoped to see. When we planned our trip I had given very little thought as to what time of the year the fields would be full of lavender but to my great pleasure they were in full bloom, with harvesting and all the festivals that go with the harvest season due to happen only the week after we were there.

We had planned to spend at least a week around this area and because it is the Europe summer school holidays - we were not prepared to take the risk of not finding suitable accommodation - so we had taken the opportunity to book a cabin on the coast for our weeks stay early in our trip. Unfortunately the village we had made our accommodation booking in –Cavalier-sur-Mer was a lot further from the main road artery than we had hoped and also access to it was very difficult as there was only one way in and one way out. Traffic was most of the time bumper to bumper and it took hours to get anywhere. We therefore decided to stay put and have an enjoyable week’s holiday on the Mediterranean Sea. We were very close to the famous towns of Saint-Tropez and Saint Raphael so short trips were possible but very slow.

The Beautiful Blue of the Mediterranean Sea. 

We did however get up early one morning before all the other tourists and headed for Grasse-the perfume centre of France, Vence and St-Paul-De-Vence. We had an enjoyable day but we did travel about 300 klms and we saw no flowers at all in the fields, which was disappointing.

 

The Narrow Lane Ways in the Village Town of Tourrettes sur Loup.

 

One of the Shops.

In Grasses we visited a perfume manufacturer and went through the factory to see how they extract the essence from the flowers. It was a bit disappointing as most of the flowers they use are now imported from all over the world. Even though Grasse is a hill top town it is too large to really enjoy in a quick visit and as the traffic was horrendous and we could not get parking we went further in to the countryside and came across the little village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup. This village is a very small medieval fortified village in which the ramparts are formed by the outer houses. It is surrounded by violet fields but unfortunately they bloom and are harvested in March. We did however have a wonderful stroll through its delightful medieval streets and saw fantastic views across the countryside.

Vence was also a very pretty hill top town but again very difficult to find parking in. So we headed 3klms down the road and came upon St-Paul-De-Vence a beautiful walled hill top village surrounded by 16^th century ramparts, which offers fantastic views over many cypress trees and lovely villas with palm trees and swimming pools. On a clear day from this high vantage point, you can see to the Mediterranean Sea. It was just a delight to walk around the narrow cobblestone lane ways of this village for at every turn there was something beautiful to look at –old buildings with climbing roses and other flowers on them, restaurants with lovely outside eating areas, fountains, flower boxes and pots full of flowers, lovely old stone houses covered with grape vines and wisterias, a beautiful church and a cemetery.

 

                                                                    St Paul de Vence.

The Cemetery.

                                                        The Houses in St. Paul de Vence.

 

After our week on the coast we decided to go looking for the lavender of Provence - so we headed for the Valsensoles Plateau and we were rewarded with field upon field of deep purple lavender surrounded by mountains. It was just wonderful to see and walk through such vast fields, and in one spot the lavender fields had fields of bright yellow sunflowers for its neighbour. What a wonderful sight and colour mix –purple and yellow together.

                        The Wonderful Lavender Fields - Rows upon Rows of the darkest purple.

Bee Hives, Lavender and Sunflowers.

 



Some Lavender is planted in rows and in other places it just grows wild.

 



 

We also went to Manosque and visited the factory where L’Occitane en Provence products are made and spent time in their museum and retail shop. This factory complex was an absolute delight to visit.

The Factory Gardens. 

We continued on to another beautiful hilltop village of Gordes, which is said to be the most visited village in Provence and then down a very narrow winding road to the Abbaye de Senanque. This abbey stands all alone down in a small valley and surrounded by lavender fields. I had seen a picture in a book of this abbey but it was far better and absolutely delightful to actually visit and explore it and also to see it in its full glory surrounded by purple lavender.

The Beautiful Hill top Village of  Gordes.

 



The Abbaye de Senanque.

 



 

We had a beautiful and very enjoyable few days in this area and the weather was perfect. It was just wonderful to see the bright colours of the lavender and the sunflowers with the sunlight on them –it is a sight that will stay with me for ever.