{"id":253,"date":"2018-09-21T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=253"},"modified":"2026-08-17T06:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:23:13","slug":"france-2018-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"FRANCE 2018. 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve met some OSPs this year – and a few NOTs to be fair! \u00a0Of course there were the usual reprobates at Lann Hoedic near Sarzeau. \u00a0Representatives of the Republic of Ireland and the Save-a-Frelon Association – the SFA – based in Hampshire and Goa.<\/p>\n

In addition, some of the more notable people included a couple of Dutch girls at Sarzeau. \u00a0Each evening they sat in front of their tent in a haze of interesting smelling smoke, quietly grinning at all and sundry. There was also a guy with a couple of dogs – but we won’t even mention him!<\/p>\n

Normally the folk we meet come from all over the place – The Netherlands, New Zealand, the USA, Eire, Scotland, Wales and Northumberland – oh and Goa, obviously. \u00a0Never have we met anyone from vaguely near us. \u00a0… until this year. \u00a0Then like London buses we meet loads all at once! \u00a0Ken lives in Westward Ho!, Devon (originally Northumberland) (and I didn’t know that that was the only town in the UK with an exclamation mark in it’s official title. \u00a0However, our wonderful passport office won’t\u00a0allow residents to use it apparently!)<\/p>\n

Then there were Les and Doreen from East Ogwell less than 20 miles from home. \u00a0They had a campervan and every night they were on a different pitch at Sarzeau – they just couldn’t make up their minds. \u00a0Backwards and forwards!<\/p>\n

Last night we made a fleeting acquaintance with a couple from Denbury near Newton Abbot.\u00a0 Finally, there were Mike and Sandy Smith from Helson. \u00a0And Mike knows Noel Stuart who we meet most years in Helston for Flora Day. \u00a0It’s a small world!<\/p>\n

At Mosnes near Chaumont sur Loire we met Alan and Chris who are cycling the length of the Loire (in stages). \u00a0They’ve already done the Danube. \u00a0Next up, the Nile??? \u00a0They were delighted to be fed cups of tea in the morning. \u00a0Our good deed of the day!<\/p>\n

That’s quite enough people stuff – now back to Chaumont Chateau…<\/p>\n

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… and it’s beautifully colour-coordinated plantings:<\/p>\n

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… and some of the art installations in the stables …<\/p>\n

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Thousands of crystal geodes mounted on stalks – reminiscent of the poppies at The Tower of London and the Field of Light at Uluru.<\/p>\n

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And this “tapestry” is made entirely of tiny loops of recycled aluminium. \u00a0I reckon it is about 25 m x 4 m – a 100 sqare metres. \u00a0A quick guesstimate would suggest that a 10 cm x 10 cm patch has at least 100 pieces in a double layer. So that’s 100 x 100 x 100 elements. 1,000,000 bits individually wired to each of its neighbours. \u00a0That’s a lot of sewing!<\/p>\n

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In the grounds of the chateau there were dozens of art installations. \u00a0Some better than others, indeed some were amazing and many were on a grand scale:<\/p>\n

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But best of all (in our opinion) was the Valley of the Mists. \u00a0Every few minutes a cloud of mist drifted down the steep-sided valley…<\/p>\n

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All in all a really good \u20ac18 worth! \u00a0I’ll put up with hornets for that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve met some OSPs this year – and a few NOTs to be fair! \u00a0Of course there were the usual reprobates at Lann Hoedic near Sarzeau. \u00a0Representatives of the Republic of Ireland and the Save-a-Frelon Association – the SFA –… <\/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-253","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\/253","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=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8096,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/8096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}