Jane & Kim's Overseas Adventure 2011: Chateau de Chaumont-sur-Loire

Saturday 1^st October, 2011

Left the hotel this morning to go and visit the Chateau of Chaumont-sur-Loire. Another chateau, of grand scale with many hectares of grounds, stables, etc. Because we get up early, and we still haven’t figured out what time they do things here we arrived early for it opening. We actually knew what time it opened but as we didn’t want to have breakfast where we were staying we thought we’d get some in the town before the Chateau opened. Big mistake, huge. Not much was open especially not for breakfast. We wandered around a bit and walked along the river to get a look at the Chateau from that angle as it overlooks the river. Then went into an accommodation place where we could see the patrons eating breakfast and asked if we could get a coffee. He obliged so we sat down and filled in some time there and warmed ourselves, chilly mornings. When we were walking out we realised they had opened the gates and we were literally the first in which was great to take photo’s without hordes of people all over the place. We spent a good couple of hours there wandering around and when we left we thought we’d try this other little place that we noticed had just opened for a coffee and something to eat, we still hadn’t had breakfast. We said can we get a coffee and we noticed crepes on the menu outside so asked for that. She said no and told us just drinks. We were a little undecided because we really wanted something to eat but then thought we’d get a coffee and have something from the patisserie we saw earlier. Well she directed us to a table, after shaking her head apparently at our indecision, and took our order, 1 cappucino & 1 tea. Other people were coming in and they were seated on the other side and given menus!! We apparently weren’t allowed to order food but everyone else was. We were sitting there dumbfounded, not really sure where we went wrong. Anyway then my cappuccino came and it had whipped cream on top, not froth, and chopped nuts!! Have you ever?? Weirdest thing I’ve had in a while and Kim’s tea looked like dirty dishwater.

Anyway we then took off and decided that we’d stop at one of the La Boutique’s (no more autogrills, although we still see the occasional one) and we got a jambon and fromage sandwich, which in actual fact is a ham and cheese roll or baguette. That hit the spot as it was now 1.00pm and on our way to Reims. Ruby got us a little bit lost because they had a new freeway, or whatever they call them here, but we soon managed to get back on track again. We arrived at our hotel at about 4.00pm after a couple more stops a bit hot and bothered. It has been another beautiful sunny day of over 30 but perhaps a couple of degrees cooler in this region now.

There had been a muck up with our booking which we found out about on email and they didn’t have the twin room available for tonight so we are in a double again and then will move to the twin for the next two nights. The girl at reception has been so nice and couldn’t have been more helpful with all the questions we have been up and down asking ever since we arrived. They are going to organise a tour of one of the champagne houses, Mumm for us tomorrow morning and we’ll probably do another on in the afternoon. In between each of those we will have a look around at the monuments here as we didn’t get time this afternoon. She also told us they had some entertainment on tonight which we can hear just sitting here now. Not too loud thankfully. Another long day again today but who could complain, we’re in the champagne region of France for god’s sake.