Day 76, Tuesday 29/5:

Today’s major outing was to the Chateau at Villandry. We set out with Yyves and Annie, leaving Evelyne at home. Yyves drove, taking us along scenic back roads, including various stretches beside the river, La Loire. We had a very nice picnic just outside the gardens, which Evelyne had prepared earlier. The Chateau is of the 16^th century and was bought by the present owners in 1906. We followed a guided walk, which took us through the house and gardens. The house is full of history, with various rooms, set up to exemplify how people lived back in the day. However, the main attraction is the large garden. As you exit the chateau, you walk onto an elevated walkway that gives a panorama of the gardens below. The entire garden is split into nine different sections, each with a different theme. The two standouts of these for me were the sun garden and the kitchen garden. The sun garden was set out around a central fountain, with all sorts of colorful flowers abounding. The Renaissance style kitchen garden is set out in a symmetrical grid pattern and is undoubtedly the main focus of the greater garden. The beds are filled, depending on the time of year, with a range of lettuce, cabbage, leek, carrot and beets, to give different colour shadings. A very impressive sight, if one visits the garden at the appropriate time of year, they will give you a bag of produce as you leave. We stayed here for the bulk of the afternoon, taking motorways back home and exiting at Le Mans where we drove around the public sections of the Le Mans 24-hour race circuit. The race was recently held and I was indeed able to pick out the sections of track on which we were driving from the news bulletins. It was then back home. We were joined again by Serge and Annie for another nice dinner.