Off to Blois today which is a halfway point for us on our way to Epernay/Reims. A 3 hour drive that was uneventful except that Ruby couldn’t locate our hotel and that is because she was looking for the street in Blois when even though that’s what the hotel touts itself to be they are actually in a suburb of Blois. We parked the car and went in search of the tourist office so that they could direct us to where we needed to be and the girl there couldn’t have been more helpful. For the little bit that we saw of Blois itself it seemed to be a really nice town. Once we got back into the car and put the correct address into Ruby we were fine. Unfortunately though once we found the hotel it wasn’t open, some of the hotels you can’t check into until late afternoon (god knows why) so when we arrived just after 12:00 we found a sign saying it was closed between 12:00 and 3:00pm. Bloody nuisance really but the others that we’ve chosen so far we’ve been able to get into no matter what time we’ve arrived. Anyway you get what you pay for, we haven’t even got a mini fridge in this one to keep our drinks cold, luckily it is only a quick stopover!!
We decided to head off to Chambord Chateau which is one of the many Castle’s & Chateau’s in the area and was only 30 minutes away. King Francis I started the building of it in 1519 but didn’t see it finished before his death in 1547 when his sons Henry II & Louis XIV finished it. We’re always amazed at the grand scale everything is done, it is all so huge. In the centre there is a spiral staircase that links the three floors. It consists of two concentric spiral flights of stairs that wind independently around a hollow central column, so if two people each take one flight of stairs they can see each other through the openings in the central column but will never meet! Yes straight from the brochure but we walked up them and it was really fascinating, amazing really. The estate covers 5440 hectares but only 800 hectares are open to the public, as if anyone would see all of that. Once again it is very hard to write exactly what we see and make it interesting for anyone else, we’re always saying even the photo’s don’t do justice to what we see.
 |
| Chambord Chateau |
 |
| Kim at Chambord Chateau |
 |
| Kim & Jane at Chambord Castle |
As you can see by our attire, another sunny day of 30+ temperatures, beautiful one day, perfect the next. We asked a gentleman if he would take a photo of the both of us which he had a little trouble doing but eventually managed. But as we started walking back towards him he thought he'd take another and was very pleased with himself. I actually prefer this one (the above photo ), Kim not so much.
Heading into the champagne region tomorrow, after looking at another chateau here in the morning, look out!!
No comments:
Post a Comment