We head off the next day and thankfully it is a lot cooler. We are heading for Chateau Royal d’ Amboise where the comments tell us, has a lovely village to explore. The aire here is an expensive one at 12euro a night but it does include electricity and water and it is the only place you can really park if you want to go to this castle. On the way we go through an area that is quite famous for its trogliodytes, which are in effect people who live in caves but here there are many cave homes. They are quite hilarious as often you can only see a door or a chimney sticking out of the side of the hill. It was difficult to get shots so i screenshot a few we went past from mr google.
We get to the aire and a German man flags us down, eager to tell us all about the aire. He is very pleasant and we discuss travels for a bit and then he takes off and we go in and park up. We head into the village and there are a lot of people milling around. There is a wedding and because it happens to be a long weekend there are a lot of brass bands playing. We head up to the castle and pay to get in. Outside there are a few tour groups. They upset us the most as they are incredibly inconsiderate when you are trying to see things they stand all around so that you cant see a thing and also cant get past. They are our pet hate when looking at tourist destinations.
It wasnt a bad castle as they go and the gardens are pleasant. There is a grave here for Leonardo da Vinci in a lovely little chapel. We could see some of the bands playing down in the village streets below and they were quite cool. We went down and had a drink whilst watching the bands one after another and it had started to rain, another good reason to stay in the bar under cover. Eventually we left, had a wander around the streets and then ventured home trying to stay dry under the one umbrella. We had done a tasting in a cave there and like a lot of places they only let you try 3 wines. I said i wanted to buy a box of 3 wines, but wasnt prepared to buy one i either didnt like or hadnt tasted so they had let us try two more to get the 3 we liked and bought.
We were going to leave the next morning but decided we should go and buy a baguette before we head off, so go for a walk across the bridge. There was a major traffic jam on the bridge with so many people and we realised there was a market on along the riverside. I can handle these for 5 minutes and only if there is fresh produce i want to buy, but after that i get sick of the chintzy chinese made rubbish and the maddening crowd and want to leave. This one wasnt bad for fresh produce and we bought some fresh goats cheese which is a region speciality and bread and then left. Today we head away towards Chenonceau.
