chateau & roman towers

Day 3 Tuesday 24th September

Woke this morning to a morning mist seeping from the river covering everything to waist height, however by 11 the mists had retreated back to the river & the sun was emerging with promises of a lovely day ahead.

chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau

First on the day's agenda was the 500m walk to the 16thC chateau of d'Azay-le-Rideau.  The entrance is approached from the village, bringing you across the moat & into the renaissance building.  The architecture both inside & out is seriously impressive although there was little furniture inside the building.  Loads of fantastic photo opportunities outside thanks to the fairy tale chateau framed by clear blue skies, it seemed that all visitors were busy clicking like mad with their cameras & phones, reflections of the chateau in the moat seemed a particular favourite!

looking towards the entrance from the 1st floor windows

Some of the interesting points here included plaited sea grass wall coverings that smelt like door mats whilst the cedar timbered roof space housed a large display of 'dungeons & dragons'.

By the time we meandered back to the camper, it was warm as in 'put the Levis away'; a leisurely lunch of fresh pain complet [brown bread], an extremely ripe soft cheese all washed down by ice tea was taken outside, yummy!  

Once lunch was woofed down, plates washed & doors clipped shut, the GPS was set for the Chateau & Jardins Villandry a 20 minute drive along country roads away.  This was a serious tourist 'hotspot', cyclist, campers, coaches in abundance.  we parked under some plane trees in the aires du camping car & headed to the entrance of this late renaissance chateau & it's superb fabulously restored gardens.

the ornamental garden

The afternoon was hot, a contrast to the cool interior of the house.  Windows opened onto fabulous panoramas of sunken knot gardens, vast colorful herb & vegetable gardens faithfully re-creating 16C designs.

the kitchen garden

The pottager garden was amazing, crisp, sharp box hedging, gorgeous orange pumpkins sat to attention on their individual tiles, shiny purple aubergines glistening in the bright sunlight, caterpiller-free ornamental Japanese cabbages, a variety of herbs, french beans, ruby chard, fruit trees both standard & step-over, cavolo nero plus many more varieties, all planted to dramatic effect.  

the amazing pumkins

 From the pictures you can see that visiting at this time of year almost guarantees the gardens to yourself, although we did hear some English explaining to someone or other, how marvelous Castle Howard was.

box hedging with lavender in-planting

After a refreshing ice cream, [salted caramel at 2 euros per scoop], we headed across the Loire to the extremely tall & imposing Gallo-Romaine tower at Cinq mars la pile.  A quick hike up the footpath took us to the base of this 30m high pile of bricks.  A bit of a folly this, no one knows what it was for, there is no means to access it,  though you do get some pretty good views across the Loire Valley from the base!

la pile Gallo-romaine de cinq-mars-la-pile

A good sight-seeing day all in all, a second night here at Azay-Le-Rideau, loads of photos taken & probably just the right amount of chateau viewing without going into overload, 'leave some for the next visit' l think!