Stars Tours Chambray-Les-Tours

... is a parasite that grows on other trees and they are really easy to see in the winter because all the leaves have fallen off. I thought it was pretty cool so the whole way to tours I looked for mistletoe trees. I found lots and took some pictures.

France isn’t big on lighting up their roads and boy does it get dark at night. After almost driving off ...

Seeing the lights of La Meslerie fade into the distance last night was a bittersweet experience. It's a place that, for so many reasons, has become near and dear to my heart. It's not often in life that we give ourselves over to the unknown, but it's a validation of the beauty of existence that you could take a chance and be so rewarded. Granted, I only spent a month and a half in France. But when I look back on this period of my ...

From Amboise we had a short drive to Chenonceau where we keen toursits along with one tour group we there early and had to wait 10 minutes until the chateau opened for day. Once through the gates it was a lovely walk through the forest where the leaves were all changing colour - amber, yellow, red - so pretty. As we approach the end of the forest the chateau appears before us and its like stepping into a fairy tale. The chateau sat on ...

Thursday 29 Oct
Drive to Amboise - Loire Valley
Feeling good we took on our longest drive yet to Amboise, nestled in the heart of the Loire Valley and on the banks of the Loire River. We used the time during the drive to type up our blog ready for upload once we hit our next McWifi. We arrived just after dark and found several other campervans parked near the river so we decided to join them. Kim ...

And so, the harvest is over. After 4 weeks of preparing, harvesting, cleaning and pressing we here at Clos de Meslerie have produced 6,050 litres of organic, biodynamic, unaltered, hand-picked, hand-pressed, grape juice. Which, given the proper time and care will blossom into a beautiful Vouvray Chenin-Blanc. It has been such a great time and a great learning experience on so many ...

... I will have for many years to come. I have to say that having this experience at the beginning of this journey has been exactly what someone who is going into the great unknown would want.

During the last of my time here, we will obviously finish up pressing the rest of the grapes that we are able to get this season, but I'd also like to take as much time as I can to visit some of the historic ...

... glasses of wine!

Yvonne, Bert, Linda, Holly, Elizabeth, Christina and I all went to dinner together afterward at Café des Arts. The food was quite good, but I was really impressed by the beautiful plates and cutlery they had. Most of us chose to have the Menu de Terroir, including me. I had the salad starter, which was composed of some wild greens, a slice of cantaloupe, a slice of salty ham (sort of a prosciutto), and tomato slices with little balls of mozzarella on ...

... to the hotel a bit early so I could wash a few things in the sink (hope they're dry by tomorrow!), and then we met for dinner at 7:00. The restaurant was Restaurant Hôtel de la Treille; "treille" means trellis.

We started with squash soup. I took two bites and decided that it's still one of the most vile vegetables ever. The entree was a salad and a pastry of ground, spiced pork and apples. It tasted better than it sounds, and the pastry part was ...

I took a day trip into Tours, which is the biggest city around here. It's a pretty amazing places, I still have a lot of exploring to do here yet, but I wanted to post some pictures of my first trip that I took into Tour alone.

Enjoy

... next to us was being nice by sneaking a toy to the kids as a gift. But I made eye contact with him and he was as baffled as I was. Hmmm. And then, it struck me. Theft. ... But which one of the kids? Ella would be the first thought (sad to say, but true). But she was over by Janice, ... and Samuel loves doggie stuffed animals and had it in his hand, and so my interrogation begins with him. The thing is ... the way it was "discovered" by Samuel means that one way or another ...