Yesterday was a beautiful day here so we borrowed a friend’s car and took off at 10:00am for a road trip to the Loire Valley. We had been told about Chateau Chambord and other famous castles in the valley and it was well worth the 2 hour drive. We had lunch outside on a patio near the castle before going in to explore it with audio guides. The weather was nice so after our tour around we played frisbee on the ‘gardens’ (castle grounds). Apparently the Chateau includes 53 square kilometres of land that was once the hunting grounds for Francois 1. It was built between 1519 and 1540 and is still in original shape with over many furnished rooms to visit over 3 floors.
We left there and drove to a little town called Beaugency that I had read about in a magazine on the flight back from Milan. 🙂 I knew it was between Paris and Chambord so we through it into the GPS and headed there. The town is beautiful (buildings dating back to 1100), with a medieval castle, 800 year old Abbey and river running through it. It is famous for the battles there led by Joan of Arc. After a short walk through the ancient town we continued back to Garches and returned the car to our friend Sebi. We were home by 8:00pm, even with a traffic jam coming into Paris. 🙂
C M G B Overseas 