Today is Wednesday. I spent most of the journey on Monday from Le Chanteloup to Le Val de Bonnal writing a very concise report of our weekend's visits. I was so pleased with it as this French blog is really an aide memoire for us (we need it these days!!). Anyway yesterday I went to publish it and lost the whole thing. I had written it in Notes here on my iPad but somehow after copying it to put it into Blogger it just disappeared 😟 I tried to find a fix on Google and discovered that there is a recently deleted folder - great I thought but no that was empty. I'm afraid to say that at that stage I hit the chocolate biscuits!!! I can't tell you how I felt - I rather lost the will to live. OK I know I am exaggerating but hopefully you know what I mean!! So now you have a concise version.
Saturday
We couldn't get our act together and ended up going out about 11am. We headed to Le Lude to visit a chateau which had been recommended by Monsieur at the caravan site. Of course by the time we got there it was closed for lunch so we wandered round the town and discovered a ghost town. Nothing was open except for a bar which didn't serve food. Eventually, down a side street, we found a small burger joint run by a Lebanese couple and we both had a checken (not a spelling error) sandwich and frites. We returned to the chateau and paid our money for a guided tour of the house - in French! Fortunately we had English notes or we wouldn't have had a clue as our guide spoke so fast I could hardly catch a word. The chateau is built in 4 different styles and is very homely inside - rather like a stately home we would visit in the UK. In 1427, on his way to join Joan af Arc at Orleans, the famous Gilles de Rais (Bluebeard) besieged the fortress which had been occupied by the English for many years. Sadly I wasn't able to take any photos inside but here are some from their website.
We called into the supermarket on our way home and then went back to the caravan for a light supper as we weren't really hungry after our large lunch.
Sunday
We were much more organised today even having bought a picnic lunch yesterday. We drove to Angers where we found a lovely Chateau which is really a fortified castle. Founded in the 9th century by the Counts of Anjou, it was expanded to its current size in the 13th century. Hopefully the photos will give you an idea of what we found. There is also a magnificent tapestry. Made of wool using the tapestry currently measures on average 103 metres in length and 4.5 metres in width. It is based on a 1st century A.D. manuscript. After a damaging period between the late 18th and early 19th centuries when it was mutilated, abandoned and dispersed, the tapestry was reassembled and restored in the mid 19th century by Canon Joubert. The tapestry was returned to the château d’Angers in 1954.
From Angers we drove to Plessis Bouree to visit another chateau. This one was much more like the chateaux I had imagined built in the Transition style. It is surround by a 2 metre moat and we had to cross a bridge and over a draw bridge to get in where we found a lovely courtyard. I could just imagine the horse drawn carriages going over the bridge and into the courtyard. We were rather disappointed that there wasn't a large front door though. The inside was quite austere - very different to Le Lude. Again we had a French guide but had English notes but this girl spoke quite slowly and I was able to pick up quite a bit really.
We returned to the caravan and, as it was our last night at Le Chanteloup, we gave their restaurant a try and it was very nice. We stopped at the bar on our way back to the caravan and had a nightcap. Today was the first time I had had an alcoholic drink for weeks as I seemed to have been on back to back antibiotics but the toothache has now gone and I'm just left with a wobbly and tender back tooth which will have to come out when we get home.
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