Wednesday 16 May
This morning Keith and I left early to go to the village of Vouvray in the Loire Valley. The journey there was long and the roads full of lorries. Overtaking was a risky business and it was down to me to let Keith know when the road ahead was clear as he was unable to see! The weather was overcast and chilly but the scenery grew lovelier as we neared the Loire.
We arrived in Vouvray at 11.30am and went straight to the little shop we had visited before and bought ten bottles of Vouvray and Bourgeil. We also bought two glasses with the name of the village inscribed on them.
After doing our essential shopping we drove into Amboise, passing the hotel where we'd stayed in 1999 after driving back from a holiday in Spain. We parked the car outside the town and walked in with hordes of other tourists, most of them American. We found the restaurant we ate in before and were the first to arrive!
Our lunch was delicious, the best we had had in France so far on this holiday. The restaurant is lovely - very old with dark wooden furniture and a big open fire that is used for grilling meats. An American couple came in after us and the woman spoke French with an excruciating accent but at least she tried and the waiter, a small dark man who constantly grinned like a little pixie, understood her.
Sadly the meal was over all too soon and we left after enjoying a delicious dessert and a coffee, which I needed to keep me awake on the journey home. I harboured a desire to go to Chinon and insisted on driving along the banks of the Loire towards Montlouis. Keith wasn't happy but when we came to the town he was pleased to see a shop selling the wine and local produce. We bought several bottles of still and sparkling Montlouis as we enjoyed the wine on our wedding day.
As it was now past 2pm we reluctantly decided to head back to the gite as the journey would take us about three hours and Mum and Dad were babysitting the children. We kept to the banks of the Loire and drove straight through Tours, a fairly large town.
Before we reached the motorway we passed through Bourgeil and St Nicholas de Bourgeil with vineyards stretching away on both sides of the road. I overcame my fear of passing traffic on the wrong side of the road and overtook two lorries at once!
I was a lot happier on the motorway even though Keith disagreed with my decision and said we would have made better time if we'd used the two lane country roads. He told me to turn off before we got to Le Mans but I was overtaking a lorry at the time and missed the exit. To say he was angry was an understatement and neither of us spoke to each other for the rest of the journey!
We arrived back at the gite at 6.15pm which I thought wasn't bad. It was a long way to go for lunch and some wine!
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