Following Mum, Dad and
Hayley’s travels around Monaco and Paris, Peter (Hayley’s partner) James and I
met in the Loir Valley to stay in a 16th century stone country
villa for a week. The villa was
beautiful, though a little dusty, and was filled with interesting paintings and
artefacts, such as war medals and carved ivory tusks. I have to say after living in London, the house seemed
massive in size! Our bedroom alone was close to the size of our whole flat!
It also had a
fantastic open fire, which we lit every night to toast marshmallows on. As the
week went on, the fire became progressively hotter and we almost singed
eyebrows trying to toast the marshmallows!
This holiday was
mostly about relaxing, and we struck some unseasonably good weather, so we all
came home with a slight tan.
Each morning, one of
us would head into the small, mostly French speaking town and collect our daily
croissants and pastries. Although delicious, this enthusiasm obviously teetered
off after the first three days…relative to our expanding waistlines!
Whilst staying in the
region we visited chateau Villandry- a beautiful chateau inside and out. This
place had some amazing gardens best explained by the photographs uploaded. It
was absolutely stunning.
We also spend a day
wine tasting-which was interesting as they have a lot of caves carved out of
the hillsides, which this winery used to store their wine. These caves kept the
wine at a constant temperature and their caves were up to 3km long. We had a disjointed conversation in French
with the owner, who, despite our limited knowledge of the language, felt the
more he spoke to us in French, the more we would understand him! We all had a good sense of humour about
the situation.
Mum, Dad, James and I
also took the hire van on a road trip one day to explore the region. Basically, if we said go left, Dad went
that way, so it was quite a challenge finding our way back (we did have the
Tomtom however, which we resorted to in the end!). Dad was fairly used to driving on the opposte side of the
road by now, however everybody took it as a responsibility to remind him as
necessary. Like Dad said, it was when he got comfortable that he was more
inclined to cross to the wrong side of the road. Of course we all came out of
the trip unscathed.
The following day we all went to Le Mans to see the famous race track. It was great to be able to walk along the pit front seeing all the cars-even the trucks they transport the cars in are something else. We walked through the Museum also, which painted an interesting history about the famous 24 hour race. Following lunch we took a walk through the old town of Le Mans, which was very quaint, with lots of crooked houses. It was a nice day out.
Following this relaxed
week in the sunshine, we bid farewell to Hayley and Peter and headed to the
train station, to leave for Belgium.
