{"id":234,"date":"2018-09-19T15:13:19","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=234"},"modified":"2026-08-17T06:14:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:14:52","slug":"gramce-2018-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"FRANCE 2018. 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, that was a bit odd. \u00a0Part 11 got lost but my chief technical advisor has found it again and re-instated it! \u00a0Thanks Ed.<\/p>\n

Sunrises at Chantepie are quite stunning as seen from the caravan window:<\/p>\n

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However, enough of that touchy-feely stuff. \u00a0We are at Saumur. \u00a0Time to go wine tasting. \u00a0Got to be done once – but not at sunrise! \u00a0Ackerman’s fizzy (they preferred “sparkling”) wines were the target.<\/p>\n

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And very nice they were too – apart from the red which was our least favourite. \u00a0There’s a lot of hype talked about chocolate, pepper, seaweed and smoke flavours in their wines. \u00a0The statue in their front garden seemed quite appropriate…<\/p>\n

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Later, en route to Brissac-Quinc\u00e9, we got diverted at the village of Coutures. \u00a0Route bar\u00e9e! \u00a0A bricante market swamped the whole village. \u00a0Better described as an outdoors junk shop.<\/p>\n

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So many things that we didn’t know that we didn’t need! \u00a0Actually it was the artichoke f\u00eate. \u00a0But there’s only one sort of stall for that – and that consists of a pile of – yes – artichokes! \u00a0So to make it a fully fledged f\u00eate they added all the antique stands! \u00a0So, one correctly aligned stall and a zillion off-message junk outlets.<\/p>\n

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One last sunrise with two early morning balloon flights just visible over Saumur on the far right…<\/p>\n

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… and we are off to Chaumont to visit the 28th edition of the International Gardens Festival in the grounds of the chateau.\u00a0 Something Glenda has wanted to visit for years (obviously not the 28th edition, but you get the drift!).<\/p>\n

Our campsite on the banks of the Loire at Mosnes was invaded by two balloons in the early evening. \u00a0They drifted over no more than 50 feet above us and almost touched the water as they passed over the river. \u00a0So that was two balloons at sunrise and two at sunset. \u00a0I think they would be different balloons though, because we had travelled 70 miles upwind in the day!<\/p>\n

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On Wednesday we drove the last few miles to Chaumont with the target of being first there at 10 am when it opened. \u00a0Well we were only 10 minutes behind schedule but there were already dozens of cars in the carpark. \u00a0I headed to the shade at the very back and parked rear-in and in doing so disturbed a nest of – guess what!! \u00a0Bloody FRELONS! \u00a0(If you’ve had the great benefit of not reading earlier\u00a0messages, you might not know that they are man-killing hornets!) \u00a0Glenda was out and off leaving behind a string of instructions about moving away and not annoying them further and bringing her hat and sunglasses!<\/p>\n

The young lady on reception seemed completely unfazed that there were animals afoot (or a-wing I suppose) that were capable of reducing the takings at her kiosk by thousands of euros a day. \u00a0“Oui nous avons loads de frelons ici!” \u00a0“Thanks for that, we’ll tell Greg!”<\/p>\n

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Enough of that – the garden visit was absolutely fabulous. \u00a0We lasted (just) from 10.10 am to 7.15 pm with an hour out for a buffet lunch and lots of sitting on benches later in the day. \u00a0You might be interested to hear that I took 258 photos – that’s 7 rolls of film in old money.\u00a0 Now I have to choose just four to add to this message then I can finish it, post it and be just one day in arrears!<\/p>\n

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The Valley of Mists.<\/p>\n

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Garden 40 (forte)???<\/p>\n

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Fishing Pool (and that proves I didn’t take 258 photos).<\/p>\n

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Time for Reflection. \u00a0(My titles by the way!)<\/p>\n

And I’m still a day behind cos I REALLY NEED to show you some picures of the chateau itself and the artwork contained within.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that was a bit odd. \u00a0Part 11 got lost but my chief technical advisor has found it again and re-instated it! \u00a0Thanks Ed. Sunrises at Chantepie are quite stunning as seen from the caravan window: However, enough of that… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8095,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/8095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}