Chateau-hopping in the Loire Valley

Last week was a rainy and cold week and we were determined to go somewhere to find sun. On to the internet, looking up weather forecasts.....where will it be warm and sunny?

"Try Provence", says my dear husband. Nope....50s, clouds.

"Try Bordeaux".......ditto.

Greece? Italy? Spain? Hmmm......we only have 2 days. We decided on the Loire Valley.....it's SOUTH, right? It's gotta be spring there!

So, last Saturday, we rented a car, this time from Avis a block away, and headed out on another adventure on a pursuit of warm weather, sun, and viewing some chateaus. Well, we saw the chateaus.......

The countryside in the Loire Valley isn't a whole lot different from southern Minnesota along the rivers. But the towns.....they are just 1,500 years older! We passed fields of grain (didn't see much corn) and then found the villages along the river. Settled in the middle ages to the Renaissance, the towns are full of history, cobblestone narrow streets, and a chateau here or there to house the wealthy noblemen and occasional visits from kings. They were amazing! How to pick which ones to visit was difficult, but time only permitted a few...

First stop: the Chateau d'Amboise, which is known as the most important royal castle along the Loire, a center for kings during the 15th and 16th centuries. We did our own walking tour....not many tourists there. Not knowing French history, it was hard for me to place Francois I, Charles VIII, etc....but what fascinated me was that Leonardo da Vinci lived and died here, and we visited his grave in the small chapel on the grounds. Someday it would be fun to go back and visit his home and museum where you can see many of his inventions.

On to the town of Chinon (another Joan of Arc town) near where we stayed for the night. This town, as one travel guide puts it, is "like a medieval film set". We walked the narrow Rue Voltaire which is lined with houses from the Middle Ages, and looked for the house where Richard the Lionhearted lived and died. A chateau looks over the town, which is still open but in partial ruins.

We checked into our "manor home", Le Manoir de la Giraudiere, for the evening, which was outside of town in the heart of the vineyards. This one was also built in the 17th century (although parts of it date to 1298!) and of course, I loved it. Lyle keeps asking....where are the Marriotts and Hiltons? Note the sun....it actually came out for a few hours! There is a bikepath running right by this place and it would be fun to someday return and do some biking there.......

On Sunday morning, we drove around to a few more villages and picked the Chateau de Villandry to tour. This chateau was the last one to be built in the Loire Valley and the gardens are phenomenal. Of course, early April is not the best time to view gardens, but we were astounded by the sculpted shrubs and the labyrinths of gardens . It was beautiful....and a place to visit in full bloom. This is a great day trip, along with Chambord for any of you future Paris visitors!

One chateau I had to see was the one in Usse.....the one that inspired Perrault when he wrote "Sleeping Beauty". We drove along the winding roads to catch a glimpse of it and take a few pictures (for my granddaughters, okay???)! A family still lives here, but it is open to the public to tour. This would be a fun place to take little girls to because there are some rooms set up complete with the story of Sleeping Beauty.

And then guess what! We stayed in our own chateau! I prefer to call it my mini-castle! Doesn't every little girl dream about living in a fairy-tale castle? I did. I had Sleeping Beauty paper dolls! Well, we found a chateau that just happened to have a "spring sale" going on that discounted their rooms ((the Chateau de Marcay). So this was our splurge......wow! How fun! Although it was quiet there, we enjoyed the beautiful room, the views over the vineyards and valley, and my pretending that I was a middle-ages princess. Well.....anyway......it was special!

I am finding that the bathroom is always the prettiest room in the French home.....this one was no exception. Listening to the pigeons nesting under the roof above it just added to the ambiance! The walls still had the original timbers and were at least 20 feet high!

We had a pizza in town during a quick hail/sleet storm, returned to a beautiful sunset from our window, and then awoke Monday morning to frost.....so much for finding spring! But, as they say here, you can experience four seasons in one day in France.

As a footnote: weekend trips here are not cheap. Highway tolls amounted to over $40.00 and gas is over $9.00 a gallon!!! I still think we should take trains. How do people do it here?