The roads out of town were deadly quiet, a weekend morning in France, lovely. We rode 14 K's to the town of St. Georges for breakfast. We had a very pleasant repas sitting on a wall by the boulangerie. Then we continued on. The day was flat with barely any rolling today, nice and fast. We followed the Cher, down river, and by 11 am we had already done 65 K's! We stopped for lunch in the one star town of St. Aignan. There was a market on, boy was Paul salivating! I got a couple of very nice peaches, tasty and juicy. Then Paul discovered that there was a shop with roasted chickens, ducks, quail and... rabbits! Guess what we had for lunch? Yep an entire roast rabbit! Finger licking good. Actually it tasted a lot like chicken. We sat in a picnic area on an island in the middle of the river.
We had another stop at the one star town of Montrichard. We shared an Eclair Chocolat and I had another drink. The town is quite nice, has a modest church and the nice ruins of a castle on the hill. However we are more focused on the Chateau we are visiting today so we did not stop for long. When we were getting closer to Chenonceaux Paul wanted to stop at a Logis however he agreed that if there is a closer Camp site we'll go there. As it happens there is a one star camping site right next to the chateau, reasonably cheap. So no Logis for Paul tonight! We set up and then went to shower but there are no showers until 6 pm, bugger. I had a towel wash instead, Paul didn't bother. We did however do the laundry, and there is a clothes line, nice!
After that we walked the few hundred metres to the Chateau, three star site of France, only 10 Euro's each. Needless to say it was very good, and well worth the money. Then again I imagine Patrick would hate it :) The Chateau Chenonceau is a very famous one, it straddles a river and has magnificent gardens. We started with the Chateau which had three floors and is mainly filled with original furnishings, quite magnificent. It was interesting in the kitchens, there was a sign apologising for them not being the originals. The kitchen was upgraded during World War I because the Chateau was used as a hospital. So the new kitchens are almost a century old as well! We took far too many photos and then went for a tea. Paul's feeling exhausted and a bit feverish. Surprisingly the tea was only 1.50 Euro, just about the cheapest we've had in Europe! Then we went for a walk in the gardens, very extensive. The Chateau is of course surrounded by forests as well which were used for hunting. There were also large gardens for food and flowers. All of the floral arrangements in the Chateau, and there are many and they are huge, come from their own gardens. Between the fish in the river, the forest and the vegie gardens I can easily believe that the Chateau was self sufficient.
After an exhausting two hours we went back to the camp to check the washing and have a shower. There was an Ozzie there from Melbourne travelling on his own, he is here for 3 months and like us is finishing in a week or two. We talked for quite a while before we needed to shower. I am not sure if he is even going to the chateau, he went last time he was here, in 1982! Finally we showered, and feeling much better we went into town for dinner. There were several to choose from although the menu's are not that different. Paul is actually not feeling that well, so he is getting the Vegie menu, but yes it has fish in the menu. The meal was very nice, I had deer for the main with vegies in a really tasty sauce. I also had a Kir Royal and a 250 ml bottle of cider. I would have had wine, they had an excellent wine menu including several aged wines from the early 90's. But Paul doesn't want to risk it, damn. Still think of the money we saved :)
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