Sylvie's Travels Home

September 28 and 29, 2024

We woke up to an enchanted view of the garden of Chateau de Chantore. The sun was rising, we had a good view of Mont St-Michel, deer and rabbits were running across the lawn, there was a rainbow at the horizon, the peacocks were frolicking, I mean…is this real life?

Bernard, our host this morning was the total opposite of his partner. He was talkative, interesting and interested in us, answer all our questions as he was serving us a breakfast fit for kings and queens with part of their silver collection. We were served giant croissants, bread, yogurt and fruits. There was jams, honey and apple juice, all made on the property. Bernard kept asking if we wanted a brioche? orange cake? scrambled eggs? camembert? ham? more coffee? tea? Yes Yes and Yes! We wanted the whole royal treatment!

We visited the stables which were not being used to conserve the original beauty, we walked around and inside more old buildings and even though it was time to leave, we just didn’t want to.

We finally left and drove 30 minutes away to Mont St-Michel where they now have big parking lots and shuttle buses to bring you to the island. It was raining by now but Derrick and Deidre decided to walk (it took them about 40 minutes and their pants were wet and muddy when they arrive. We waited for the shuttle for awhile but still arrive a little bit before them. It was so crowded that after 15 minutes, we unanimously decided to leave. I felt bad for them because they really didn’t see how beautiful the place is.

We then decided to go to St-Malo. On the way we stopped at a beautiful village called Saint-Suliac. I’m glad we did as St-Malo was so jam packed with tourists that we couldn’t find a place to park so we left! So disappointing.

We had a 3 hour drive to Amboise, our next destination, and were getting hungry. We couldn’t find a town that had an open restaurant but finally found a boulangerie in Châteaubourg and had a dried baguette sandwich.

We arrive at Château des Arpentis around 7pm. It was a little different that the château from yesterday. Not as ornate, a lot more tired, but our rooms were fine. We drove to town and found a brasserie to have a nice dinner then went to bed.

The next morning, after watching 6 deer zigzagging in the field and a hot air balloon going by, we had a continental breakfast on location and it was a far cry from yesterday’s breakfast. Funny how quickly we got used to be served like royalty. We had coffee, a few fruits on a plate, a basket of baguettes and croissants, jams and orange juice. We had apple compotes which were in individual store bought containers. Unacceptable! Sacrilegious! I will be preparing the guillotine shortly. Off with their heads!!

We found out that the hotel had a washer dryer so Pogo went to find it before breakfast. He walked all over the place to finally find it a few doors down from our bedroom. The wash took more than 2 hours! 45 more minutes to dry but we now have clean clothes for the rest of our trip.

After breakfast we went to visit our first castle: Château Azay-le-Rideau, a small castle about 45 minutes away. It looked nice but inside was more about costumes from different operas than actual furniture. We didn’t stay very long. We look for a restaurant for lunch and everything was closed. I think being just out of the touristic season and also because the weather hasn’t been great with a lot of clouds and rain, people are staying home snug in their blankets. We finally found a Chinese cafe…enough said…

The afternoon was spent finishing laundry, writing blogs, napping and working on drone footage. We gathered again at 7:15pm to drive to town for dinner. We arrived just in time to see the sunset peeked for a few seconds and illuminate the town church. We had a great dinner at Au Coeur Epicurieux and were back by 10pm.