Chateau du Lude

The two couples had gone our separate ways the day before, and on the way back from their visit to Le Mans (Milton's choice), Dot & Milton found this beautiful place when they stopped for refreshment. They then recommended that we also visit and experience the guide, who delivered her commentary in French and then in broken English, both at top speed, gesturing the visitors through this amazing (and still lived-in) property. You can visit the website here.

Chateau de Clos Luce

This stunning chateau has been dedicated to the work and creations of Leonardo da Vinci. With astonishing reconstructions of his ideas - many of which were centuries before its time - it is also a very lovely place to be.

Barbecue time

After all their help and hospitality, we thought we owed Ali and John a return match! So here we are at the start of what turned out to be a very - ahem - alcoholic evening...



(although we all commented that we should have felt very hungover the following day - and, presumably due to the excellent quality French wine, felt much better than we deserved to...)

A heavenly lunch

... at the Moulin Bleu, near Bourgueil: under the awning, glorious sunshine, and mama-cat with her new kittens - one black, one white; superb food and an amazing view. Heavenly.

A day at the zoo

The zoo at Doue is an extraordinary place. Created in an old quarry, it provides a natural environment for many animals, who appeared to be very contented there - given the amount of them who had babies!

The red pandas were wonderful. Dorothy's camera has an impressive 12 x zoom, so her photo was much better than mine:



Selwyn & I had visited during an earlier holiday in France, four years ago, and were especially pleased to see one of our favourites - the snow leopards - growing up well. When we saw them in 2003, they were tiny cubs just venturing out to greet their adoring public; now they are huge, but still very recognisably cubs in their playful nature. Not to mention their still disproportionately large paws.



Other favourites included the giraffes ...



... and the vultures ...



... and some of the superb wooden carved animals around the place, just made for photography...

A visit to the troglodytes

There are many of these amazing places in France, and particularly along the banks of the Loire: dwellings actually built into the rock. In the case of those shown below, they were last lived in around 1960 (if I remember rightly), but we saw many others as we drove around where clearly regular houses had their part-troglodyte construction in the side of the hill.

Our first "cave"

...click here to visit their website...