Too hot to trot - or do much else.

Friday 20th June

What to do today? Decided we'd visit a wine degustation place that we had a brochure for - Tresors du Bacchus, in the village of Saint Aignan about 30k away. A nice quiet drive to the village along the lesser roads and through many little villages. Not a lot to see along the road - we were hoping for a Chateau spotting or two.

Arriving in the village of Saint Aignan was surprising - cross the river, turn the corner and you are in the heart of this tiny village with narrow cobble stoned streets, traffic jams as we waited for delivery vans, and the village also boasted a Chateau. First place we visited was the biscuiterie right next to the car park. This was a lovely shop filled with many different types of liqueurs, biscuits, chocolates and souvenirs. I was able to taste Chambord, the liqueur made locally, and bought a bottle to bring home. 

On the side of the biscuiterie.

I made friends at the biscuiterie after tasting the chambord.

And Odette and Alice made friends with this sloth.

Part of the Chateau in Saint Aignan.

Beautiful dog of the day.

Chateau Saint Aignan.

And another beautiful entrant in dog of the day.

Lots of frescoes found in the crypt of the church.

Some of the capitals are just stunning - so much detail.

We then did the wine tasting, well Rob did. The wines from this area are very dry and not my taste at all, so I just watched, listened, and waved the credit card at the appropriate time. 

The wine tasting building - 1600s I think.
This village in medieval times had a lot of different trades. 

Pizza seemed to be the only lunch option in the village, unless we wanted really upmarket, so we just had a sandwich and a drink. It was too hot to do much else so we headed home to get out of the heat and rest.

Saint Aignan is on the Cher River- this is looking back at the village from the other side.
We had no idea what we would find in this village (apart from the wine tasting)
so this one was another surprise find.

Saturday 21st June

Today's Chateau,  Chaumont sur Loire. We picked the wrong place to park and were faced with a long, slightly uphill, walk to the Chateau. It is the festival of gardens here so lots of beautiful gardens to visit in the Chateau grounds with many sculptures. Again, it was too hot (38deg) to really explore all that was offered. There were also many art exhibitions in the Chateau and surrounding buildings.

Just a couple of the art installations in the gardens,

Don't know what this flowering tree is.

The Chateau itself was stunning. Beautifully furnished rooms, and the tapestries - just mind blowing. I still can't imagine how these are made - and how long they would take, how many stitchers,  the patterns, the designers. There was plenty of information in English in each of the rooms and a good English brochure. Queen Catherine de Medici and Diane Poitiers both featured in the history of ownership of the Chateau and we'd come across them in the Chateau de Blois also. 

Pretty impressive - Chaumont sur Loire.

Lovely garden beds of purple and white flowers.

Just one of many tapestries - they must have been well looked after
because the colours are still quite vibrant in most of them.
Enjoy the photos. 

Love this 3 seater 'settee'.

The inside of the chapel - it has some sort of art installation in it -
for me it spoilt what we were looking at.

Looking from the chateau down to the Loire river.

More 'art' in what used to be the stables.

We had lunch at one of the eating places at the Chateau - sort of buffet with a couple of options, not what I would have chosen but given the heat we just wanted to sit and eat.

Time to move on to our hotel near Tours.  Bonus, swimming pool and air conditioning. We broke out the bathers for the first time and enjoyed a leisurely couple of hours by the pool where we met an english couple who had just bought a house in the south of France, and a french Canadian couple who were there celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary by staying in a Chateau for a couple of nights. I started talking to the Canadian lady because I saw her sitting by the pool with her patchwork! (I'm suffering withdrawal.)

Just checked out the Chateau they are staying in chateau hotel of la Bourdaisiere - they told us they have 785 varieties of tomatoes and specialise in dishes made with tomato (tomato pannacotta??? Don't think so).