Fontevraud Abbey

Linz and I visited the Abbey in 1999 and loved it, but my photos weren’t digital then.  We visited the town of Fontevraud again last year but didn’t go through the Abbey because we didn’t have time.  As it houses the Plantagenet tombs, it is an important part of Linz’s teaching so we took the time to go through it again and enjoyed it once more.  For those of you who are wondering, the answer is no, I haven’t taken my new camera out of the box yet, so there’s a good excuse to have to come back and photograph the Abbey all over again next year!

Abbey entrance & tomb area	Eleanor of Aquitaine and hubby Henry II	The fantastic kitchen building
		Richard The Lionheart, son of Eleanor & Henry

Livin’ It Up On The Loire

Bits ‘n pieces from our 5 days in a much loved area of the Loire Valley.  We had a great time, and leaving this time was quite emotional for both of us.

Typical houses in town in Saumur

With our heads down and our …

Top end of Saumur city

Linz would not let me buy this house

A favourite building in Montsoreau

Chenonceau – it was on the Bucket List

This is a highly visited romantic fairy tale chateau and as such was humming with tourists.  In fact it was way too busy and it took some of the enjoyment away from the experience.  Added to that, a large chunk was surrounded with scaffolding, which has apparently been there for over a year.  Oh well, it was still amazing and we still enjoyed exploring it.

The entrance		The Fairy Tale View
	Shame about the scaffolding	Yes, every man and his dog was there

Brézé

We didn’t know this place existed until a fellow guest talked about it.  Brézé is a chateau that was built underground and has the largest dry moat in France where it housed a whole army with horses for years in its system of tunnels. In the 16th century, another chateau was built right on top of it and they co-exist today.  Wine was produced in the underground chambers until 1985.  The weather was overcast and rainy, so it was a good choice of sights for the day.

The Pigeonnaire - it housed 3700 pigeons – 2 for every hectare of land owned	Inside the Pigeonnaire – the birds were kept inside while crops were harvested	Costume in the Breze overground chateau – elegance from a previous era
Brézé’s dry moat – it’s hard to appreciate how deep it is	Brézé Chateau tower ceiling	Brézé below ground
Full wine barrels in Brézé caves	Solid brass swan taps in the servants’ bathroom

Return to Les Peupliers, Loire Valley

After a wonderful stay here last year, we were looking forward to a few days at Les Peupliers B&B with fab hosts Mike & Tracey …

This time we booked the fabulous and huge upstairs Hayloft Room

Max was so ecstatic to see us again that he could hardly contain himself

A wonderful alfresco dinner with hosts Mike & Tracey (front) and fellow guests Phil & Helen from Manchester