On the road (2) – beaches, castles and chateaux COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM - Page 15 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
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To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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Great pictures, Tours did look much more "modernized" as you drove up with the taller buildings, yet up close it still held that old world charm. Sorry that you were unable to visit the Cathedral today, but you did get some wonderful exterior shots.
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Monday 7 June – part five: I like the look of number 15!
Although we had some slow speed limits – and some slow drivers too – we were soon at Chenonceau and turning into see the chateau. At first glance, the car park looked to be heaving, with quite a lot of coaches still there and loads of cars, but once we got in, we realised that there were a lot of spaces and people had obviously gone.
We headed in to buy our tickets, paying €29 ($35) for the two of us for admission to the gardens, the castle itself and the video iPod tour of the castle, which wasn’t much more money, so I thought that would be a worthwhile investment.
We headed in through the shop and stopped to get some photos of the tree lined avenue that awaited us, but my goodness, it took long enough, as first we had to wait for vehicles to go through, then walkers, but we got there in the end!
Now I had looked at the map of the estate that I had been given as we had walked in and I noticed that there were various numbers marked on it with attractions, so as you would, I started to compare them to the key and work out what was what. What was the first thing I came across? Number 15, which turned to be a donkey field! Oh boy, these guys were beautiful...
From there, we wandered into the vegetable garden, getting some photos of us with the roses. There would be a lot of use for the tripod today, I can tell you....
Once done in there – and we didn’t stay long, as the sun was now belting down and it was really hot. As I hadn’t put suntan lotion on, I didn’t want to be out in the heat too long, we then headed into the 16th century farmhouse area, which was beautiful and again, lent itself to some shots of the two of us.
From there, we headed past the children’s play area and found the toilets. Not only were these very well looked after, but even better, there was no attendant and nothing to pay. Result!
We wandered closer to the chateau itself, sadly realising that it was undergoing restoration work. However, when we got close to it, it became apparent from the information there, that there was nothing we could do about that, as it’s a 30 month project that’s running non-stop, so it’s going to be quite some time until it’s all done.
We got some photos just about masking the restoration work...
Then we headed into Catherine de Medici’s garden. This woman took on the chateau and made a huge difference to it, as she was responsible for coming up with the grand hall, which you’ll see in due course. The gardens were lovely, although it was very difficult to photograph them with the work going on around them and vans parked everywhere and bits roped off.
Monday 7 June – part six: time for a “little something”...
We finished in there and then I suggested to Mark that perhaps we could partake of a “little something”, to echo everyone’s favourite bear, Winnie. I knew that there was a salon de the, or tea room, that would be serving items until 5pm, so we set off to find it. Ok, so it wasn’t cheap, at €7.50 ($9) per dessert, but sometimes it’s all about the atmosphere and, my goodness, we got that in bucketloads with where we ate. It was a beautiful place and well worth the money. We also each got a soft drink, so the total came to €22.50 ($27).
I went for the Delice des Dames, which was soft cream puffs, hot chocolate sauce, almonds and Chantilly cream.
Mark had the Coupe Cardinal, made up of blackcurrant sorbet, pear sherbet, strawberry sherbet, raspberry sauce and Chantilly cream.
It was very civilised to sit in there and enjoy it, with a lovely view out on the garden beyond. I have to say a word here about the two French women who were also in there. They were the only other people there and looked as if they owned the place. They’d obviously been there for some time when we arrived and left after us. The weirdest thing was that one of them really closely resembled my grandmother, who is French, which was very freaky to me.
All full again, we headed out and towards the chateau, getting some photos on the way.
Once inside, we were able to get our video iPods, having to leave a form of ID as insurance that we would return them, which was a sensible idea. From here, we went on a 45 minute guided tour using our iPods, and these were invaluable. They taught us so much about every room we went into and only occasionally did we feel that the spiels were a bit too long. Most of the time they were just about right.
Of course, we took lots of photos on the way round. I’ll do my best to identify the rooms as we go.
First was the guards’ room, where you pick up your video iPod, which is covered in magnificent tapestries, a hallmark of many of the rooms throughout the castle.
Next you head into the chapel, which was beautiful. The stained glass windows in here were only put in during the 1950s, as the originals were blown out during a bombing raid during the Second World War.
Next it’s into Diane de Poitiers’ bedroom, who was King Henri II’s favourite mistress and the person to which he left Chenonceau.
Adjoining this is the green study, where she worked and her library.
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Pixie Dust
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Oh boy, these guys were beautiful... 
Holly: 
The place looks really nice too.
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