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Day 8: June 1, 2024
This was a day of castles! We left St Malo and Brittany and headed for the Loire Valley to visit castles. The drive took most of the morning, but we made a stop in a service station where the group all headed for the McDonalds!
We arrived at Azay-le rideau in time for an early lunch before visiting the castle there. It had been lived in throughout many different periods of history, so there were rooms furnished in different styles. There was a lake and a garden behind the castle, which we walked through.
Then it was back in the bus for a 50-minutes drive to Chenonceau, on of the most famous Loire castles, and the second most visited castle in France (after Versailles).
This was decorated in a much more ornate style, and there were some interesting tales about previous owners, including Diane de Poitiers, mistress of the French King Henri II, whom was thrown out of it after Henri's death by his wife, Catherine de Medici.
Our last drive of the day was to our hotel in Blois. We were very lucky to be staying in this hotel, as we were originally booked into one in Azay-le-Rideau, but other groups had given it bad reviews, so they switched our group to a bramd new more luxurious hotel in the town of Blois. We ate in the hotel too, so no need to go into town to eat.
After dinner a group of 8 students and Deedee and I went up to the castle (a 10 min walk away) to watch a 'son et lumière' ('sound and light') show about the history of Blois and the kings who formerly lived here. It was truly spectacular (although we did get rather wet on the way back to hte hotel!