Monday 22nd – Week 2 – Loire Chateaus

There is a vast array of camper vans and caravans at the two campgrounds we've visited to far. By far the most impressive was “Bounder”, which when it was parked as far forward in its allocated space still had a couple of feet hanging over onto the campground access road. In addition to its length, it also sported three extendable wings that retract when it's on the road, but then are spread out when it is in situ. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of it, but it really was a sight to behold. The most intriguing caravan so far was the one that parked beside us for a night in Chinon. Before the owners packed up to leave, it was one of the uglier ones we'd seen, but as they started to pack up, we noticed that the tow ball was located at the side of it, rather than the front. Anne and I were both pondering how this could work and how the body could be swiveled around, when the side of the caravan simply disappeared only to appear out the other side being carried by the wife. A quick flick and it was folded in half and stored. With in two minutes, the whole caravan had been dismantled and folded up origami style into nothing more than a small trailer with a blue canvas cover.

Most people we've met at the campgrounds have been very nice and when we arrived in Chinon, the English woman in the camper van that we pitched our tent beside was very concerned that we'd parked on the side of their camper van that had the toilet and that they'd keep us awake at night as they visited the loo. After a peaceful night sleep, we met the man who owned the camper van and he was from Geelong in Victoria and traveled around Europe for 3 months a year during the Melbourne winter – retired of course. He did spend two years traveling Europe with a caravan when he first retired, but now just comes over for a 3 month excursion each year, collecting his camper van from Cambridge and heading straight for France – nice.

Our camping equipment has expanded slightly, since we arrived. Rather than covering the evolution of man in 4 staggering steps (quadra-ped, knuckle dragging bi-ped, staggering erect bi-ped to stable erect bi-ped) as we scramble out of the tent, we've now bought a map and instead come bounding out of the tent, puppy-like, on all fours until we're clear of the veranda, where we can stand up, don our jandals and walk off, head held high with dignity (maybe).

Today's sightseeing is the first of several that we are going to sped visiting the Chateaus of the Loire. The first stop was the chateau at Montsoreau and the troglodite caves and houses built into the rock cliff faces at Souzay-Champigny. We don't go into all the chateaus, there's only so much fine porcelain, tapestries, wooden rafters and walks around the parapets that a person can stand, so we're trying to chose the best ones to go inside and the others just visit the gardens and admire there external architecture.

Next stop was the town of Saumur – quite a large town, with a very impressive chateau on the top of the hill overlooking the town. The chateau wasn't open, due to it being Monday, but we did get to walk all around it, before heading down into the old part of town, through the cobbled streets before buying some snacks for lunch which we then walked back up to the chateau and ate, sitting on a park bench overlooking the chateau and the town.

In the afternoon, we visited the chateau Brézé. The most impressive feature here was the massive deep moat that surrounded it. It's dry now, but it must have been 20m deep. The moat wall has openings that lead into massive underground tunnels and an underground fortress, which is large enough to house a small army. Now two things I can't tell you is how the openings work with the moat (I assume that it had to be filled with water) and how big an army they could house in their underground fortress – maybe I'll google that later. Again, this was an external visit and we didn't go inside the chateau.

Last stop for the day was the chateau at Le Rivau. The walking tour that we did said that the motif above the main door contained the families moto, that “they would never be demoted in rank”. I was interested to read later that the family lost it's wealth and status 300 years ago, when while working in the king's court, the master of the house had had too much of a good time and lost the family chateau by not being able to honour his debts. The chateau had gone into serious disrepair following there downfall, until it was bought by the present owners in 1994 and it has now been completely restored and they have created some amazing gardens with some awesome sculptures (see pictures)

On returning to the campground, we stopped at the supermarket to buy some drinks and nibbles, which we sat down to enjoy by our tent, before heading out for dinner in the nearby town.