After our wonderful evening in St Emilion, we made our way north east towards friends who we were visiting on the Saturday evening. We left our idyllic vineyard around 10.30 to drive to Angoulême, another medieval town that is also renowned for its comic strip murals. Apparently, once a year 200,000 people descend on the town for the annual comic strip convention! Most of the town was a bit boring but the centre was quite cute and the comic strips interesting. We had a lovely lunch of tiny shrimps and fondue at the covered market.

After lunch we headed east towards our friends’ house in the hamlet of Logeat near Le Lindois. They have a beautiful house that they are continuing to renovate. After a cup of tea, we went to the village fête at Montembœuf about a ten minute drive. Great fun to wander around the stalls, have a drink at €2 a throw and watch the steam punk theatre. Back to Jo and Nat’s for a late BBQ in the garden.

The heavens opened up overnight and continued all morning so we decided to make the best of it by driving up to the Loire area to visit some chateaux after a late breakfast. It was a long drive (150 miles) mostly in the rain, which cleared up as we approached the chateau at Chenonceau. There was a large motorhome aire nearby by a railway line that we reserved in advance so after parking up, we went for a bike ride to case the area and found we could see the iconic bridge over the river from the other side. We had a great night’s sleep until the trains started running again at 04.00!

The next morning (Monday September 15) we got to the chateau not long after it opened to avoid the crowds. It was beautiful inside and out with wonderful gardens that were a delight to walk around. Chenonceau was given to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, by Henri II, and after his death his widow, Catherine Di Medici, demanded it back and all of France was run from there as Queen Regent.

We left after a couple of hours as we also wanted to visit the chateau at Chambord. Both these chateaux have royal connections and you can see why the people rebelled against the ancien regime with all its wealth and privilege. They did build beautiful castles though!

The Chateau de Chambord was about an hour from Chenonceau and very different. Chambord was all about its architecture including a double helix staircase in the middle of the keep. Built for Francis I, it had 440 rooms!

After a couple of hours looking around, we drove north to Giverny. The Monet House and Gardens had a free motorhome stopover but the barrier came down at 20.00. Even with avoiding the toll roads (we had learnt our expensive lesson) we made good time and arrived at 19.30.

Miles since last blog: 398

Miles this trip: 1,293