Repeat, cold and grey, foggy, not nice. Gloves scarves, wool in our socks, yes and that's all when we are in the truck. \condensation needs to be wiped down by the underpants rag full before we can start out and the truck engine run for a few minutes to get a head start on the windscreen clearing.
We left Bouchemaine headed further up the Loire valley towards Tours and just beyond, Vouvray an aire with a charger in the chateau region.
Drizzly and grey, but between the clumps of fog were very beautiful rural village scenes, no less pretty because of the greyness, in fact that lent an almost ethereal mood as spires and tours of dark grey contrasted against the pearly grey of the cloud cover. Of course there were grand chateaux and mansions along the way with square towers, orbs, rounded turrets, all manner of fairy-tale shapes perched on hill sides or towering above the denuded forest. Much of the journey was along the banks of the Loire, high up on a stock-bank on a narrow and windy road, but with clear views over the river and green freshly planted fields.
We headed to a chateau which was awarded three stars (not to be missed) in our Michelin guide to France, it was the Chateau Azay Le Rideau - not surprisingly in a village of the same name. When we arrived it was raining, we parked at a camper-stop without power for lunch and to allow the rain to stop, and use up some time as the Chateau closes from 1230-1400 each day. Despite our best efforts (and those of Oshkosh) the sky remained resolutely dark and the day cold, though the rain did stop sufficiently long for us to have a wee explore around the grounds and admire the exterior of the chateau. It is a pretty little chateau with a lake surrounding it allowing for good reflections, and woods all around providing scenes of near naked trees on bright green grass with a rug of red brown leaves at their feet. There were interesting fungi in the damp leaves under the trees. Large odd shaped almost sea-like growths of dark grey through purple, and I imagined truffles by the kilo under the oak trees. It is truffle hunting season at the moment, and I'm sure they are abundant in areas, I have visions of making my fortune with a truffle hunting dog, but am yet to find one handy who wants a job, and I'm not sure about the rules of possession when hunting on the lairds land.
Inside the chateau were a number of grandly furnished rooms including some wonderful tapestries- and of course some narcissistic paintings of giant proportions.
Once we had finished our tour of the house we had a scout around the village before returning to the truck. It was about 4.30 I guess and beginning to get dark especially as the rain had returned. We didn't have much further to drive to Vouvray, about 40kms. We found the campsite OK - there was another campervan there for the night, with a British couple in it, who had a daughter and son-in-law living in Cromwell so that was nice/ Unfortunately the power charger and water had been turned off for winter and so we had to make do with candles, wind-up lamp and battery operated lights, which isn't enough to do much close work by.
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