Life in the Loire

I woke up this morning to the sound of a rooster close by. He heralded the morning for quite a while and I finally gave in and heeded the call to rise. It wasn't long before he was replaced by a cuckoo. We have heard them in the distance and love the sound but this one was very close and I now know why someone decided to stick him in a wooden box and only allow him to come out on the hour! Actually, I am loving listening to the sounds of the birds, it will be all to soon before we hear the sound of buses and cars and an overenthusiastic cuckoo is certainly an improvement! 

We had breakfast in our lovely little cottage and then set out to see the sights.

The fields around here contain the expected vineyards but there are also acres and acres of wheat which is just now turning golden. It is a beautiful sight in the sunshine with the red poppies growing at the edge. Unlike the praries where the fields go on forever, here they are quite small and a small cornfield may very well be next to a vineyard or a field of potatoes.  We are continually surprised to see how much of France is rural and there are pretty little farms everywhere.

The Loire valley is vast, both long and very wide and the river splits and merges with numerous tributaries and throughout the whole vast valley are sprinkled the most amazing chateaux, country cottages for the once rich and famous. Every town and village has its own chateau. We started on two today, first Le Chateau Azay-le-Rideau built on the quiet river Indre and said to be the most romantic chateau in the valley. It is very pretty and sits on a little island in the sleepy river but it was smaller than I expected. It has been carefully restored and while there is little in the way of furnishings, the grounds are lovely.

Le Chateau Azzay-le-Rideau

Then we went to Le Chateau de Usse, a fantastic confection of a storytale castle rebuilt in the 15th and 16th century on the site of a medieval castle and said to have influenced Perrault to write The Sleeping Beauty. It is so large that it was hard to get a photograph. It is an enormous white palace that backs onto the dark forest of Chinon which makes it all the more impressive. Both Gord and I were mesmerized by the perfection of the place.

Le Chateau de Usse

We came back to our humble little cottage but it wasn't long before we too were feeling like royalty.  Our hosts had prepared an amazing dinner for us and served it to us in the privacy of our own dining room. It was wonderful! We had a great four course meal in our own place and all we had to do was sit and enjoy it - they even did the washing up! We may not be living in a chateau but at least we are being treated as though we were! It was a perfect way to celebrate Fetes des Meres, Mother's Day, here in France.