Lepod's Blog

We got up early in Josselin and caught the bus to Rennes, grabbed some lunch at the train station and picked up our hire car, which is a Citroen C3 diesel like this one except ours is green.  I was very pleased to get a diesel car

as the price of diesel in Europe is about 1 euro per litre whereas petrol is 1.40 or $2.90 nzd per litre! Also a diesel car is more economical to run, being more efficient. While it occasionally sounds like a tractor, most of the time you would not know it was a diesel as it is quite responsive and zooms along the autoroute at 130 very happily. (Thats the legal speed limit by the way.)

We headed towards the Loire Valley on the autoroute, arriving at our Chambre D’hote Les Perce Neige (the snow drops) late afternoon, in the little town of Vernou sur brenne, quite close to Tours. A Chambre D’hote is a B&B. This one was quite charming, with wicker furniture and also a wicker floor covering, and a large private back yard with sun chairs and tables. So we had a drink and read our books in the sun, then drove to nearby Vouvray for an excellent dinner. Next day, after a good breakfast and being entertained by the cat drinking from a vase of flowers in the kitchen, which it apparently does every day, we were off to the Château de Chenonceau about 26 kms away. The castle was built between 1515 and 1521 and was owned by Henry II’s mistress Diane de Poitiers and subsequently Henry’s widow Catherine de’ Medici. Here are some photographs. The castle is currently under restoration so there was some scaffolding about. There were also some amazing vegetable gardens so we took picutes of that also. More of the trip down in my next post.