Tuesday 8 October

Breakfast at the Hotel Diderot with Lauren Dutheil, our delightful hotelier. Soft goats cheese, walnuts and honey on fresh bread this morning was much nicer than yesterday on the sweet brioche toast. Lauren makes many different jams and has a cookbook in French & English with some interesting combinations, so I have bought a copy. Lauren signed it and his dedication exhorts me to use the French only when using the book. If I do that, I fear there may be some weird outcomes!

We left Chinon heading towards a chateau at Chenonceau. On the way we detoured to see a roman viaduct which was probably built in the 2nd century and there are records showing that there had been repairs done in the 9th century…that is some longevity of something built with simple lime mortar, rocks and tiles and sealed with moss to make it waterproof. See pic below.

We also drove past a town, near Langeais i think, where a lot of people live at least partly in caves dug into the limestone. At one time most of the population lived this way.

We then went to Aurélie for morning tea. Some lovely pastries on offer. Love the French way of providing hot milk with tea and coffee so that you get a good hot cuppa!

There is a castle there, but we didn’t go exploring as we had a 30 minute stop only. There was a little lace shop beside the cafe, but I resisted all the beautiful offerings!

Back on the bus again and no stops till we got to the Château du Chenonceau. This chateau was built in 16th century on the site of a fortified castle and mill. It built partly in the Loire River and was saved from destruction in both the French Revolution and in WW2 by some astute strategic actions of the owners of the chateau. Currently there are rooms open to demonstrate the lifestyle of the times, with a huge ballroom, comfortable bedrooms, libraries, dining rooms, kitchen, art works etc all an show. There are many gardens, including a potager garden showing flowers, herbs and vegetables of the area. There are also some donkeys, but I am yet to discover the significance of them!

After the 3 hour visit to the chateau and gardens, Nick had organised a special picnic (or should that be a Nic-pic?) with some food that we had not tasted before, including a goat cheese, a type of salami and a sausage made from pigs intestine…quite tasty….but don’t get it confused with another sausage – andouilette. Read more at http://unclestinky.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/andouillette-french-pig-colon-sausage/

We piled back into the bus to move on to our next stop, another castle in the town of Chateaudun built in 13th century but refurbished in15-16th centuries during the renaissance. There is the remains of a church beside the castle where a plaque states that it was from 2nd century and excavations have suggested much earlier activities had been conducted at the site as well.

After a quick stop, we headed for our last night’s accommodation stop in Hostelerie du Bois Guibert. Nick had arranged special activities and dinner for the night…a trivia quiz on all the info that he had provided along the way. We had a lovely dinner. Choice of entrees was either chicken gizzards or goats cheese with figs; main was either fish or duck; dessert was choice of cheese or sweet snacks. We had good wide ranging conversations along with the dinner. Dinner pics below

Back to Paris tonight.