I know that my parents and my uncle Roy will all want to know the route of our travels around France, so I enclose a quick guided tour… on the basis that I can never remember the names of places when people ask me, as has already happened this morning!
The general idea was for Kim and I to take a relaxed road trip to Limoges for Philip & Isabelle’s wedding and back again, not driving more than four hours on any of the travelling days and generally getting to experience a little more of this beautiful country.
You have almost certainly seen paintings of Giverny, as it is the home of Monet’s water garden with its glorious water lilies and low arching bridges. The village is narrow and quaint and beautiful in the evening sun. We arrived too late to visit the house and gardens so had to endure the crowds and the drizzle the following day, but it was still beautiful.
Arriving in Loches the following evening, we were slightly taken aback that the hotel looked like a house, it’s front door opening directly onto the pavement of a busy thoroughfare. We were however welcomed through the door into a hidden paradise that backed gracefully onto a canal with a park beyond… shown below from further up on the ramparts. The well-travelled owners hosted afternoon tea on the terrace and gave the assorted guests the opportunity to chat amongst themselves and to a couple of interesting local friends who had stopped by. It was a wonderful lesson in true hospitality and resulted in us dining with Katrine and Phillip, a French couple from Blois… who incidentally belong to a running club that regularly visits Lewes!
The town itself is beautiful, with its narrow streets and tall roof-lines surrounding a near impenetrable fortress of a chateau.
We wondered how the next hotel, a converted barn in Nantiat near Limoges, would compare to the opulence of Le Logis, but we were not disappointed. It is a glorious contemporary conversion of the kind that you may well like to live in yourself… well I would anyway! The quiet contemplative space is surrounded by countryside, but only a twenty minute stroll to the bustling village where the hosts cycle or walk each morning to buy croissants and bread for breakfast. Ironically this getaway is run by a couple who used to live in Burgess Hill and belong to Kim’s running club!
We had been invited to a small informal barbecue at Isabelle’s parents house the evening before the wedding and we duly turned up to find a table set for about sixty… pictured looking each way from the middle below! The caterers were excellent and the festivities went on from a glorious day and well into a cool clear evening.
The wedding was on the following day and despite a groom who looked poorly briefed about the nature and order of a French wedding (he certainly signed up to something), it was a wonderfully lighthearted and participative affair. The sixty then decamped to a local chateau for extended festivities which continued from the afternoon well into the following morning… we finally got to bed around 3am.
We spent the following day reading and relaxing in our relaxing haven and later ate in a picture postcard restaurant in nearby Bellac. This shall remain nameless as, run by another English couple, it was a lesson in how not to if ever there was one! Cheap ingredients, poorly prepared and presented and thus extortionately priced. Sorry to be frank and all!
It was always going to be hard to match the calm of Nantiat, but the studio on the hill overlooking Saumur was still quiet, despite the team of gardeners working furiously for two days to make the previously overgrown garden presentable for our departure. Saumur itself is a lovely town and is overlooked by another of France’s great defensive chateaux, which appears to be undergoing a complete restoration. Certainly the town below the ramparts has large sections of contemporary buildings in the vernacular, with a cosmopolitan cafe culture spilling out into shaded squares.
After all the other delightful accommodation we had visited during our 1026 mile road trip, we arrived late last night at the best of all: with it’s bright shower room and crisp sheets… there’s nothing like a trip away to remind you how wonderful home is!
