Well after a slowish pack up this morning we set off for Saumur in the heart of Loire country. Navigating the motorways or E roads or D roads takes a bit of figuring out to say nothing of the tolls. In the end we paid €42 in tolls today after wandering along many little roads trying to find the motorway junction that we could enter, to then pay the price of a 3 course meal with wine for the pleasure. After a long journey, we crossed the Loire at Saumur only to miss the turn off that we needed, which sent us, complete with caravan, through narrow streets in the centre of the town and under low arches only to find ourselves past the turn off for the caravan site.  The directions were a little hazy, saying there are signs off the D 937 and various N roads which didn’t figure on any of the maps we had. After an amazing manoeuvre in a lay by we managed to find our way back and there was a tiny sign saying camping. We arrived on an island in the middle of the Loire about 4pm. Camp set up and all good now after a barbeque.

Friday morning and a slow day in prospect. We just had a longish trip to the supermarket which took us a while to find, E Leclerc, and then was massive so took us a while to find what we wanted. We went out later for dinner to Le Pol Lapin which was in the rough guide and it was really good, including the assiete surprize to share as dessert.

Saturday we decided to go to Chateau Villandry, famous for its gardens. It was about an hours drive away but we are getting more used to driving and reading road signs and gauging distances in France. The gardens were every bit as spectacular as promised, all due to a Spanish man who bought the chateau and grounds in 1906 and set about restoring it. There was a water garden with a lake in the shape of a Louis XV mirror with 2 swans gliding on it. The decorative kitchen gardens were 9 blocks of beautifully set out vegetables all colour and shape co-ordinated, with 10 gardeners supposedly responsible just for this part, although we never saw any evidence of gardeners, just immaculate grounds. There were avenues of lime trees joining all the areas, with 1100 trees in total. The French do avenues of trees brilliantly. A hornbeam maze, a children’s play garden, a sun and cloud garden and the formal gardens with a theme of love next to the chateau were some of the best gardens. We then went for a long slow French lunch at a troglodyte cave nearby. Although the waitress had little English, she did tell us that aoubliette was tripe, one to be avoided for me, although it brings back memories of my grandma who used to love it. We are remembering more words and trying to speak French as we go on.

Sunday and we went to Abbaye de Fontvraud, which was a massive abbey church built in the 1100s and surrounding village. When we arrived it seemed deserted, with a couple of bikes outside the entrance and a few cars in the car park and so we wondered if it was closed but no, so we had a leisurely walk round. The village was a massive monastery and nunnery, but Robert d’Brissilime who founded it had revolutionary ideas and put a woman abbess in charge of the whole place. There were effigies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry ll and their son Richard the Lionheart. Eleanor must have been a formidable woman. After the French Revolution, the place was emptied of all its religious people and effects and as so many French churches, became an empty shell. It was then used as a prison for a long time and restoration work on the abbey only began in 1985. We had lunch in the village, tried to go a bit easier than the three courses with wine that seem to be de rigeur.