La Garangeoire- 25th till 27th July

The pier at Les Sables-d'Olonne

After a great week of very productive travelling we headed west toward the coast to spend a couple of days with Morgan's cousins Sophie, Di and her (and Nick's) kids Bryn and Harry.  After Paris the cousins had driven to a campground called La Garangeoire for their annual holidays.  This campsite, near the village of La Mothe Achard, is very different to the type of campground we generally stay in!  It's very much a family orientated holiday destination and at first this little "slice of Britain" was a bit of a culture shock.  After a couple of days though, I could completely see the attraction for families because the facilities are amazing- a lake, canoes, pools (with slides), restaurant, band and lots of activities for kids and adults.  In fact the atmosphere kind of reminded me of summer holiday in NZ at the beach, where you know all of the families around you, there are a lot of BBQ's and the kids roam free!

The enormous pitch was a bit wasted on us!

The Dingeman's bungalow.

I think Bryn quite liked hanging out with Morgan.  We both really enjoyed spending some more time with both Bryn and Harry- they're a lot of fun and really great kids.

While we were there we took a drive out to the coast for the afternoon and the footloose and fancy free adults (that's Morg, Sophie and I) did one of the best wine tastings I've ever been to.  The man taking the tasting was very interesting and really informative....and the wine was delicious!

I think from the expression on Morgan's face someone's just pinched his bum!

Di, Sophie and Morgan.  Morgan's beard matches his t-shirt!

The carousel.  Equipped with lots of different toys for the kids to ride in and slightly racy pictures on the ceiling for adults to look at!

Les Sables-d'Olonne

Harry has a little quiet time.

Revived after some lovely family time we headed north to Nantes.

The Loire Valley- 22nd till 25th July

I just liked the colours in this photo.

After leaving Chartres we headed south into the Loire Valley.  We drove through amazing back roads with endless fields of sunflowers and hay bales- very picturesque and of course I don't really have any pictures because there aren't generally a lot of places to pull over when you're driving something the size of our beast!

Ah the classic "through the windscreen" photo.  The dead bugs don't show up as well as I expected.

Our first stop was to see the Chateau of Chateaudon.  The Chateau towers over the town and is one of the first things you see when you are driving in.  It has both a 12th and a 14th century part, a grotto and a collection of tapestries.

The looming Chateau

The Chateau of Chateaudon

The Tapestries

From here we headed to the town of Troo.  This is one of the regions "cave villages".  The caves are built into the local hill, one of the few features in an otherwise very flat landscape.  The caves here are interesting in that most of them are actually used as homes, gites (holiday homes) and shops.

The french hippie running a shop in this cave made us the best espresso for the princely price of 1 euro.

View of the Loire River and valley from Troo

Another cute cave dwelling

We stayed the night in a very good municipal campsite in the town of Montoire Sur Le Loir and the next morning we got up bright and early to attend their weekly market.  I love the food markets in France!

The Montoire food market.  Sans tourists.

So pretty.  But some advice about what else to do with radishes (other than salad) would be appreciated!  Tout suite!

Our market haul!

Our next stop was the town of Chinon where we stayed in another lovely Municipal site just across the river from the Forteresse Royale de Chinon, the town's main attraction.  The Forteresse was having a "medieval weekend", so in addition to looking around the grounds and buildings we also had the company of people in costumes and the pleasure (?) of a mock medieval battle.  Hmmmm.

The crepe complete, the french version of a bacon and egg McMuffin.  It's really good, although personally I've developed a bit of a taste for the Nutella crepe, where the hot crepe is accompanied by a spoon and a 6L tub of Nutella.  They LOVE Nutella over here- weird.

Forteresse royale de Chinon

Chicken wings make an excellent second breakfast apparently.

A church built into the side of the hill.

Part of the original wall which extended from the sides of the Forteresse.

One of the many gorgeous little restaurants.

View of the Loire River from the forteresse.

Yak rides.  Why not?

While we were in Chinon we had dinner at an amazing restaurant, Restaurant L'Ardoise.  After a lot of great rustic or bistro style French food it was incredible to have a very modern, fine dining meal.  The presentation was gorgeous and everything was very, very tasty.  At 27 euro each for an entree, main and dessert we were pretty happy.  We were even happier (and fuller) after the complimentary "welcome" dish from the kitchen which was followed by the amuse bouche.

The Loire River

The local delicacy that I decided to pass on :(

Our "welcome" dish.  The marinated salmon in the middle was amazing.  Although tasty I have my reservations about the prawn creme brulee.  

Morgan's entree- eggs three ways.

And his main, an amazing piece of duck.  All you Masterchef geeks will appreciate the beautifully turned vegetables too!

The desserts we really didn't need!

So the Loire valley gets a big tick from us!

Chartres, France- 20th till 22nd July 4257 miles

While we were sad to leave Paris it actually felt great to get back to our "home" and back on the road again.  We headed south west to a town called Chartres.
Chartres revolved around two things for us - food, and the 'Illuminations....'

To get the most out of the experience, we spent most of our first day in town trying as many of the local specialties as we could. This included:
- Honey
- Mentchikoffs (praline covered chocolates)
- L'Eurelienne beer
- Sable de Beauce (shortbread)
- Beauce Cola
- Chartres Pate (actually a kind of pie)

It was all delicious, including the confectionary, which was a relief after some of the fairly hideous stuff we have tried in the past.

14 randomly flavoured macaroons - the shop assistant spoke no english.

It tastes good, and is good for you.....can I have a job, please? If you look closely, you can see the sellotape, glue and bits of plastic card that are holding the left arm of my glasses on.

Giant macaroon cake, this one was for 4 people - you could get one that would feed 8.

Chartres Pate - actually a partridge and guinea fowl pie. Really, really yum.

This shop was even weirder than it looked. It was owned by a French guy who went to NZ for a visit, loved it, and set up this shop. However, he also set up a clothing label to go with it - and the clothes are emblazoned with moko motifs and 'Maori Pride'. I don't think the Tangata Whenua would be pleased. We did get a New Zealand bumper sticker though.

We also went to the cathedral (of course) and went up the steeple. According to the Chartres promotional material the Cathedral is 'the most complete and well preserved of all Gothic Churches' and it has all of its 12th Century windows. During the war they took them down, dismantled them and put them into storage. It also has a 'labyrinth' on the floor that pilgrims can walk through, and it represents a spiritual journey to Jerusalem. Presumably less customs hassles, but more boring travel photos.

This is a gardeny representation of the labyrinth.

......and here it is for real - covered up with chairs unfortunately.

Houses across from the Cathedral

The Cathedral at dusk.

The "illuminations" were incredible. Every night during the summer months they light up 22 locations in town with a mix of static displays, and some which move, change and are set to music. It is an amazing thing to see in such a relatively small town, and these photos don't do them justice (even though the photos are really, really good.)

The illuminations, the Cathedral had a series of different images projected on three sides of the building while music played. It lasted for about 15mins before repeating. 

The museum had two different movies projected on different sides to a musical score.

St Aignan's Church - this was a static image. This Church has only one buttress (the arch going from the little tower on the left to the roof). It was designed to have a vaulted stone roof, but they ran out of money and built a  wooden one instead, so they didn't need the extra support of buttresses. They had already built one, so they built that small tower and called it a day.

The Church of Saint Pierre, sadly falling to bits a little inside.

On our way out of Chartres we visited the Picassiette - which is a small house ornately tiled with smashed plates. The name is a French pun, which means 'plate stealer' or 'Picasso of Plates'. The owner lived there, and tiled it over decades. We were not allowed to take photos, so these are photos taken of the information brochure.  It was pretty incredible.

Chartres was a great way to get back into things after Paris.  Now onward through the Loire Valley.