Here's Lookin' At You Kid...

There will come a point in every holiday, almost without fail, when decisions I make will start to backfire. I should have seen it coming since it was my suggestion to visit the hideously over-priced Clos-Lucé yesterday in the hope of feeling some of the greatness about the place lingering after the passing of Leonardo da Vinci. But I paid no heed.

We had considered going to Sancerre for the day, but at roughly two hours each way it seemed an awfully long trip for some wine, so instead we headed off to Blois, with the intention to go from there to Richelieu to visit the Musée du Chat (apparently the Cardinal had 14 cats) and then a troglodyte site, restored as a farm, for which the site would have been used hundreds of years ago.

The choice of Blois seemed ambitious after we were en route, the cat museum was only open for an hour window on a Sunday according to the guidebook, so the plan changed and we went to Loches instead - now this wasn't the bad dcision because the old town of Loches was simply lovely. An incredibly interesting site, and so peaceful and calm after the incessant hurriedness of Chenonceau yesterday. We could quite easily have stayed for longer, and really should have done, for it turned out the cat museum seems to have disappeared.

Loches would have been a really nice place to hang around, enjoy a bit of lunch, and just soak up some of the relaxation. Okay, so the decision to belt it to Richelieu didn't leave us out of pocket, but it was annoying to say the least. The troglodyte site did, it has to be said, repair some of the damage though, and a gentle saunter along the river to Montsoreau found us a fantastic restaurant to while away the evening. In truth it was a massive amount of food after we decided to go for the tasting menu, and not exactly cheap, but really was worth every penny.

Naturally, I had given Mel the choice of restaurants.

And so tomorrow we pack up, and head to Versailles (via Chartres) for a couple of nights there. We're coming away from the Loire with a litany of things we still have to do and see, but having really enjoyed being here (and I'm pleased with the fact that my French seems to have held up as well as it ever was - 13 years after being a student in Lyon - though it's sparked me into wanting to get back to a level of total fluency...).