Her she is, Diana of the Hunt. One of the many reditions. This one resides at a chateau on the Cher river in the Loire valley. She adorns a bedroom wall. In another part of the chateau
fabulous copper pans hang in the cuisine (kitchen).
Then there are the cleavers. Chenonceau is a grand chateau. Below you can see how it stretches across the river. Very unique and beautifully appointed.
The thing is though, everyone in France was here today. You could hardly move inside the chateau. That was distracting. However, it made for good shoe watching. I enjoyed seeing the variety of footwear. That’s because you really had to watch where you stepped so, when moving, you were always looking down.
Ray and I decided to go dancing and an artist caught us doing the tango!!
Actually, this is a one of many pictures hung in the chateau”s gallery. We don’t know why it was there, but it was. Viva la difference, I guess.
And to our great surprise, Louis XIV was there!!! The chateau had a wax museum. Voila. I took lots of pictures but it’s time to move on.
We drove to Amboise, a touristy town on the Loire, not far from the chateau. Actually, Amboise has it’s own chateau. But how many of these chateaus can you take? So, I snapped a few pictures to capture the quaintness of the place. One of the big draws here is chocolat!! Many great magasins de chocolats (chocolate stores). So we bought some. And we followed that up with sorbet. Ray got a banana chocolate boule (scoop) and I had a fig sorbet. Fabulous.
Do you realize we didn’t get lost? I didn’t fall? More to come.
Oh, we lost yesterday. Something about not wanting to wander too far away from le toilette. However, it was a great day. Did walk to the pharmacie. After buying a few things, the nice young man who spoke anglais asked if there was anything we needed. “Chocolat”, I replied. Everyone in the shop laughed. And that was a large number of people. Because the pharmacie was about the only store open in town. In France on Monday, everyone opens at 1400 (2 p.m.). So, if you need anything before then, you’re in deep trouble. There are a few exceptions: the boulangerie, the supermarche (super market). Even the tabac (tobacco/newstands) are closed. Which reminds me. Every village has several pharmacies, tabac shops, a charcuterie, boulangerie, vin (wine) shop, restaurants, real estate offices and a post office. Larger villages have vetements (clothes store), fromage shop, patisserie, (gateaus cakes) etc.
L’exterior, le chapel, le chambre (bedroom with pink bed from the 1700’s, l’exterior with moi and une avec mere (outside with me and Ray).
One picture I didn’t take was of a black bedroom. Don’t think it would photograph well. It had gold teardrops. Black velvet tapestries etc. Because she was mourning the death of Henry the something. Can’t remember who she was. But she needed happy pills!!
Picture of two streets in Amboise with part of their chateau showing. Sidewalk cafes were buzzing.
A matter of moving backward, may I present pictures from our lost day hier (yesterday)?
This is how they package fresh fish for the trip home. Ray barbecuing in the rain with the parapluie (umbrella). And dessert from the boulangerie.
Opps, out of wack again. I’m using two cameras so my timing off. Anyway, today as we were speeding (literally, you can go about 80 MPH which is 130 kilometers) on the toll road to the chateau, there were so few cars that I slowed to almost a stand still so Ray could capture these sunflowers. Ah, Van Gogh!!
Need to go cook dinner. More to come.
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