It was New Year’s Eve.
I had driven Dominic to a friend’s house where he’d spend the night. Sophie had come along with me just to get out of the house and we were on our way back to Châtellerault.
We’d passed it numerous times, but this time, there were just two easily spontaneous people in the car who were in no particular rush. We stopped…
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It had been a long while since I’d gotten out to explore our own little town.
Isn’t that always the way? We travel the world in search of new, and big, and unfamiliar, and exotic, all while driving right by some lovely things in our day-to-day.
Covid19 has certainly honed that down quite a bit, but if I went exploring Châtellerault one early morning, two weeks ago, it wasn’t so much covid-related as it was car-related…
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Back in October, I took the long road home from a teaching day in Angers.
The day was beautiful, the onset of evening was slow coming, and no one needed to be picked up at the station in Châtellerault. Overall, the opportunity was too good to pass up.
I’d intended to document it long before this, but whatever the reason (there were likely a number of them) it didn’t happen until now.
Care to join me on an open-top drive down the Loire River Valley?
Gentle Warning:
This is my longest-ever blog post (3,500 words – about a 22 minute read). If you only have a few minutes, I’d recommend saving it for a time when you can enjoy it over a big steaming mug of coffee, not a small. 🙂
Ready? Let’s go…
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Every once in a while I post a #Travel Tuesday post, just for fun. Today is one of those days.
As so many of you have been aware, Covid-19 lockdowns have affected just about everyone in some way, shape or form. One of the big things, here in France, has been the confinement that kept us almost exclusively at home back in the Spring and quite close to home in the Fall. Although we managed to get out and about during the ‘in-between’ times, once the second lockdown hit, we were limited to local trips, for specific reasons and always with government issued paperwork.
That’s why a recent Saturday was a real treat for me.
I needed to go up to Seine-et-Marne (77) for work, back on the 12th, and had all the appropriate paperwork to justify a trip out of my region. Since, on our attestation we have work-related tick-boxes and a tick-box for short periods of outdoor exercise, I took full advantage of both boxes and broke up my 3.5hr drive home with a walk around Chambord Castle.
Join me as I give you the short version of a one-hour stroll around one of the incredible castles of the Loire Valley.
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Inspiration for today’s Travel Tuesday post came from a rather unlikely spot… it was a trip we took last year to the aerospace capital of France and also the nearest city with an Italian consular presence.
It was the trip we took to Toulouse to renew (and in my case apply for) our Italian passports….
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On Saturday, you read about my quick ‘night-time stop’ in Montreuil-Bellay, on the way home from Angers.
I’ve been driving past that castle since I began teaching in Angers back in September, 2017 and just a few weeks after that, in October 2017, I stopped in for a visit on my way home.
Here are a few pictures from that day…
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Today I’m Marie Kondo-ing my blog… so to speak: I’m posting something that sparked joy in my week.
…and it was all because of a Bible Study.
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In my last post, I introduced to to the Chateau de Brissac and showed you the principal rooms on the main floor. Today I want to take you further.
As promised, I’ll take you through a dramatic episode in the history of the French monarchy, we’ll talk about the arts and I’ll reveal how it is that hunting at Brissac is not reserved for men only! I’ll also tell you about how you can spend a night there and live like a Duke or Duchess yourself!
Let’s go!
The road between Châtellerault and Angers takes you through portions of three French departments (la Vienne, l’Indre et Loire, la Maine et Loire) passing by wide swaths of agricultural land and, as you approach Angers, field after field of vineyards. For the past seven months I’ve been making the 130km weekly, with the exception of school holidays, in order to teach English at a business school there.
Each trip makes me a bit more familiar with the general surrounding and from time to time my schedule allows me to explore points of interest along the way. Regular readers will recall that I first stopped in Brissac back in January, but was unable to visit the castle as it was closed for the season. Last week was different… last week I had a guided tour.
My first visit was in 1995 and I’ve probably been there a dozen times since then… but never inside. I’m not sure why exactly. Perhaps is was a lack of enough time to do it justice, perhaps the combined entry price of a family of five scared me off (although they’re not as much castle-goers as I am… “You seen one, you seen ’em all”, while not entirely an accurate summation of their feeling, is not totally inaccurate either), or perhaps it was those who told me that it was rather empty, or unfurnished, compared to other castles. Whatever the reason, I’d never been in… until recently.
AIM Long 