villandry and chenonceau

yay!! we saw some chateaux. we started with villandry, as chosen by sb. it was swelteringly hot! but beautiful. we had a mooch round the formal gardens, and were disappointed that you can no longer walk through all the little bits, just the main corridors. both girls had particularly wanted to visit so that you could run through all the bits, but we found enough fun things to do, including the maze, a play park and investigating the water. the girls loved the gardens, and some of them, indeed, you could run through, such that we saw the top of bb’s head racing about. i love villandry, and have been there before. both girls would like our veg beds to now be parterres! on the way out we stopped for an icecream. sb’s was the nicest – french gingerbread, with chris’ a close second – lemon and thyme. mine was too weird and sweet – hibiscus. a bit of a detour around the countryside as the road was shut, but we got back for a quick evening meal. we declared the day a success!

Sb has v carefully kept a journal of the holiday, with a few lines of writing, and some pictures drawn for each day. i was v impressed that she did it – though it did get shorter as the days went on! i had brought a few fact books that might pick up on things we could see, and we found out, entirely accidentally, that both girls can happily read in the car. since even map reading makes me feel sick, this is quite a surprise! so various books about henry 2 and 5, mediaeval times, castles etc was read. oh, and a book on henry ford – must remember to put the Time for Kids: Harriet Tubman: A Woman of Courage one in my basket, as sb wants to read it. Both girls also did lots of drawing and colouring on holiday, and loads of manic cycling around the campsite.

wednesday we walked to chenonceau. the campsite says it is 15 minutes. this is not the case! it was nearly and hour. both girls did walk it though! [i think it took chris 20 mins on his own back at a brisk pace]. it was a lovely walk along the banks of the cher, and then in the grounds. we found walnut trees who were dropping their fruit, so had a chat and collected some ripe green walnuts. i really didn’t like them, but sb did. as a congratulation for walking, we bought an icecream on arrival. oh, and bb got to buy a unicorn from the shop on the way in to save all the angst of whether she would buy on the way out!

chenonceau was truly fab. it was rated most highly by all of us. we pottered in and walked down a lovely shady carriageway, through the courtyard and into the chateau, where we picked up i-pods with the audio guide to chenonceau. sb had the children’s version and chris the adults. bb managed to be ok until the long gallery, where she shrieked and waggled about, and it was clear that there were no knickers under her frilly shorts :blush: so she *had* to behave! luckilly unicorn was happy to explore the chairs. i went round the kitchens with her, but then took her out to the gardens to romp, whilst chris and sb enjoyed the rest of the house [i have been there before too!] the i-pod idea is a smash hit though! we ate and then visited their waxwork display. slightly odd, and we think we might have been setting alarms off, but no-one investigated! the girls loved it, especially the costume swatches they got to feel. SB had obviously taken in a reasonable amount of history from the ipod too. a good walk around the gardens and a fab maze. bb flagging, so more ice cream and chris went back to campsite to bring the car back. they did get a dip in the pool too, so a resounding success of a day.