Chateaux and Cars

Wednesday April 26

We are currently in the Loire Valley - known for its many chateaux. The valley extends to the west as far as  Bordeau. We haven't been to Bordeau on our previous travels in France but may get there this time. Not all chateaux are open for visiting and a lot of them are hard to see from the road - I guess they don't want Terry tourists like us rubbernecking at their home.

Today we just picked one chateaux to visit - the Chateau de Valencay (about 40k from where we are staying). We left the route up to Dora - no motorways, no tolls - and she took us along some interesting roads and through some lovely villages along the way. We stopped at a village called Gracay for breakfast, and like we found previously it was OK to buy croissants from the bakery and take them to the tabac where we could get coffee. 

Further along a little country road we spotted our first deer but too slow for photos. A lot of the areas we passed through today were forested and alongside the road were little raised platforms, I guess for hunting deer. There are signs up everywhere warning of deer - like kangaroo signs at home.

The Chateau was pretty speccy - not as ornate as some we have seen. Much less colour, few tapestries and hardly any wall frescoes that we saw. One thing I did like was one of the most recent owners had a club foot and he redid the stairs to be nice and shallow and even. I tell you though these French aristocratic types were pretty immoral, living with their wife and moving their mistress in to the same castle. And secret little stairways and passages to allow all sorts of shenanigans

We found a lovely little relais for lunch - packed when we arrived at 1, empty by 2. We shared a table with a lovely couple - limited English but we did manage to communicate.

Veal was the hit of the day. Followed by cheese and coffee. I resisted the dessert.

This is fairly typical of a relais - very crowded from 12 - 2,
then I guess they spend the rest of the day getting ready for tomorrow. 

On to Le Musee Matra - a motor museum with a display of British cars. The museum is dedicated to the Matra company. We know it primarily through formula 1 in the 70s and following on with an extensive successful history of winning the Le Mans 24 hr. Rob said the sound of their V12 engine was just stunning.

No dog today. Weve got the house cat.

Last exercise for the day was fuel for the car and fuel for the bodies. Thought we may have had a problem with our card not working at the pump, but moved pumps and all OK. Phew!!