Today we finish with the Loire Valley – we could spend a month just doing the Loire but we have to head south soon to really get a fuller picture of France.

The room at the Chateau de Pray was very small but very nice – and in the morning we got to shoot the exterior.

This is the patio where we had dinner!

Pray is like 5 min from Amboise which is our next destination.

I wish we had big biscuit stores like this at home.

Lunch before the castle though…  Even a quick Italian lunch here is amazing!

The Chateau d’Amboise is pretty big. And its tricky because it has these HUGE walls and you climb up and up and arrive at a raised courtyard so it looks bigger outside then it does inside and you really get this isolated city feeling.

This one tower ramps all the way down…

The small chapel was interesting.  I liked the cross in the antlers.

Most unexpected is the grave of Leonardo da Vinci.  This isn’t where he was originally buried.  In fact a short ways away there was another chapel and when they excavated they found a grave of a man the right age and period and dress that had other indicators that it was Leonardo (who lived at the time 5 minutes away) so they moved the body here and placed the marker.  So this only the alleged grave of Leonardo da Vinci – though no one has another that is competing with it.

I won’t post the photo but we watched as some lady first sat down and then stretched out like she was doing a glamor shot on his grave.  Very tacky.

And just a 5 min walk from the castle (well 10 min in the heat) is the Chateau Clos Lucé.  This is the Chateau where Leonardo spent the last three years of his life.

Inside is pretty standard in terms of furnishing – nothing too special but one floor is all miniatures of his inventions and it is a real zoo!  Outside there is a park with oversized and climbable models of his inventions for the kids to play on. The coolest part is that in the basement there is a tunnel (closed off of course) that they say leads to Amboise!

The zoo continues in the gift shop – its all Leonardo all the time.  I now have a Mona Lisa lens cloth (thank you Amanda).

And one last quick jump down the road takes us to the Chateau de Chenonceau.

The history of this castle is pretty interesting because it is completely influenced by women.

One woman built it, another restored it, and then it was the primary residence first of the mistress of the King and then after he died the Queen took it for herself.  Of course everyone loves the fact that its a castle AND a covered bridge.

The covered bridge is one large room – every one walks to the end – checks that the door is locked and turns around.  You have no idea how busy this place is and how hard it is to get this photo though!

I love the kitchens here – very well stocked – butchers blocks, knives, pots and pans.  In the corners of the rooms they have pumps to bring up water from the river!

The bedrooms are lavish – this is the bedroom of Catherine de Medici.

This is the black bedroom of Louise of Lorraine also known as The White Queen.

Chenonceau has a great gift shop and when I saw this guy I felt a little better about the amount of stuff I was carrying on my back.

I almost got this stuffed bunny for my mom.

You get spoiled in the Loire because everything is VERY close and we headed off to our next hotel which was 2 hours away – (no more castle hotels for a while).  Finally we made it to our IBIS budget. When you go to check in and the self check looks like this…. it doesn’t bode well.

And when I say that many of the hotels we stayed at were bare bones – I mean bare bones – this is what the toilet looked like at most of the hotels.

And yes it is in a closet.

More soon!

Trip tally: 1530KM traveled.  33 places visited (21 castles, 3 cathedrals, 4 prehistoric  sites + 5 places of cultural significance).

As always we thank you for the support of this project be sure to Like us on Facebook & tell your friends.

Sorry for the delays in posting – but let us continue.

Yesterday had been a shorter day – we did Laundry and only visited Saumur (which was long in that since I can’t pronounce the name I had to say it 100 times) and then spent the night at Rochecotte which really is a wonderfully luxurious castle.  We couldn’t stray too far because I wanted us to be at Langeais first thing in the morning for the dropping of the drawbridge.  I had stumbled upon this a few years ago by mistake but every morning they actually drop the drawbridge.  You can see footage of it in the original trailer and so this year I wanted to get it from a different angle.

Of course while you wait you need a Viennese cocoa and an almond croissant.

I watched the drawbridge fall right at me – its was pretty cool.  Very tense as I didn’t know when it was going to exactly happen.

The Chateau has some great interiors. They really have a lot of the castle open and allow you to see what it looked like.

Very few ropes and wonderful floors!

They have a nice exhibit of tapestries as well with some pretty good explanations.

As we headed back on the road we saw an outdoor laundry! Outdoor! You just drive up (and then I guess wait).

Next we headed to Villandry which is known for their gardens (as you will see) but first a quick lunch.

I am starting to understand the joys of Gazpacho – an ice cold soup on a hot day – nothing could be better!

So while the meal was great I ordered a bottle of sparkling cider (which came in its own little ice bag) only to find out it was alcoholic!

I explained – “I didn’t want any alcohol”. ” Well why did you order the sparkling cider?”  “Because it was listed under soft drinks!” “So?”  “So what makes a soft drink ‘soft’ is that it doesn’t have alcohol!” The day before I drank a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling cider so I knew what I was talking about. They told me it didn’t have much alcohol just 15%!  They later apologized and took it off the bill.

Back to Villandry.  The castle really goes back – you can see the original keep.

Nice displays – some rooms (like the kitchen) were clear to view – a lot of it was an art gallery.

I like this old turntable.

But its the gardens that make this the place to visit.  They just go on and on!

They even have a hedge maze! (Which Amanda tripped and twisted her ankle in – luckily she recovered pretty well).

I love the souvenir shops!  I mean who needs wooden napkin rings with their names on it?  And how many do I get? Do they all have my name on it?

Our last stop for the day is Azay-le-Rideau.  It just emerges from the water.  Small but lovely! Well not that small really.   Just gorgeous!

Many of the room inside are nice to view – but the billiard room was coolest.

From there we headed to our hotel – which is a castle hotel called the Chateau de Pray.

While we were booked to spend the night there and a manager gave us a tour and let us film an interview.

They offered us a lovely dinner out on the patio – very very elegant.  Except for the bats.  The bats kept flying overhead and while that seems pretty ok – one of them left a present on the table.  Now imagine the paranoia I spent during the rest of this wonderful dinner – and it was a great dinner – they just kept bringing us food!

First the appetizers we didn’t order!

Then another appetizer we didn’t order – regretfully it was a sort of fish foam.

The meat was well presented and also cooked perfectly.  They brought all the sauces on the side.

Then the first dessert (which we didn’t order).

The the dessert I ordered – which was WOW – looks wow – tastes wow.  See and now I have already forgotten about bat poop.

Then more desserts we didn’t order!

And then they brought us a bowl of candies! OMG I was going to explode!

A great day in the Loire – 3 castles – some great food and the weather is still holding!

Trip tally: 1498KM traveled.  29 places visited (17 castles, 3 cathedrals, 4 prehistoric  sites + 5 places of cultural significance).

As always we thank you for the support of this project be sure to Like us on Facebook & tell your friends.

OK so an update for everyone!

First – we made it through the trip and we made it home safe.

We haven’t given up on the blog – we just had to take an intermission – we got short on time with the travel, filming, and dealing with equipment issues and data management.

But – there is 20 days of blogging left and we will start it back up again very soon!

If you haven’t checked out the first 10 days – be sure to do so!

As always we thank you for the support of this project be sure to Like us on Facebook & tell your friends.

It’s day 10 – which means 1/3 into the trip which means laundry day.  I did make sure that Saumur had a laundry mat and schedule the day accordingly.

Everything was controlled from one big machine on the wall – pretty cool.

With clean clothes we then headed to the Chateau in Saumur – which I have a really hard time pronouncing!  I mean really hard time. It is a storybook castle.

You might recognize it from the Duke of Berry’s Book of Hours:

There is a cafe outside of the castle and for lunch I had the salmon salad.

I accidentally ordered noodles – I still don’t know how.

I found that my new favorite dessert is the floating island – meringue and custard!

Like so many castles it is better from the outside than the inside – very much designed for children – lots of ‘fun’ things and museum things but not as striking as from the outside.  They have been doing a lot of renovation so maybe in a few years…

Our next stop was the Chateau Rochecotte.  This is a castle hotel that we stayed at before and also allowed us to film.  Very nice – very elegant.

Tonight was about filming a ‘fine’ meal – and this was one of the finest we had.  They allowed us to film at dinner.

First they brought us these tasting appetizers (that we didn’t order).

Then I had a carpaccio of Fois Gras and Tuna.

Then to the lamb!

And the cheese course.

You have to tell them what you want – I influence but let them take me on a tour.

After they tell you what order to eat the cheeses in!

Then the dessert…

And the dessert that comes after the dessert!

Remember folks – this is work! Though I do get to eat it 🙂

We have had lots of questions about menus so I am posting this one:

Trip tally: 1395KM traveled.  26 places visited (14 castles, 3 cathedrals, 4 prehistoric  sites + 5 places of cultural significance).

As always we thank you for the support of this project be sure to Like us on Facebook & tell your friends.