A SMALL ANCIENT WORLD, IN A VALLEY: Castles of the Loire, France

By bike, of course. If you want, you can rent a bicycle to observe – with deliberate slowness – wonderful castles and inns. While riding, you breathe a special atmosphere, full of history and balmy air of the Atlantic Ocean. You must remember, that the nobles who had chosen the Valley of Loria to build their 700 castles, breathing this same air that was cleaning the heavens (giving the blue color), it became warm through the orchards and vineyards on the hills. Arriving, you have used the state road 152, but it is necessary that you look your best road map, all roads on the sides of the road along the Loire leading to castles or vineyards, but also romantic river bends embellished with romantic trattorias. http://loire-chateaux.co.uk/en-gb/ 

If you did not want to ride too, visit the largest castle, Chambord – in the Renaissance masterpiece – enclosed within a boundary wall along 32 km. Before entering, you can choose between free visit or guided tour, but do not forget to stop this evening in the park in front of this piece of the ancient world, because you can enter in a timeless dimension, watching the show “Lights and Sounds”. Perhaps you, too, at the end of the show, you will have the pleasant certainty of having worn a dress that is not made of cloth, but of subliminal perceptions – discrete and quiet – who wish to remain still for a while inside you. http://loire-chateaux.co.uk/en-gb/

How to do? Follow my advice: prolong your stay you book in advance a room in Hotel “Saint Michel” (opposite the castle). http://www.saintmichel-chambord.com/index-en.php .

To complete your experience, receive my invitation to dinner in the restaurant “Au Relais d’Artemis” (which is located in Bracieux, 8 km south), an old coaching inn, which offers you a chance to choose the daily menu or whatever you like, not to mention the joy of drinking the local wine, the same as that of an ancient world that still breathes, tonight, while we return to our hotel room, next to the river. http://www.restaurant-relais-artemis-41.fr/18-accueil.html