Loire Valley

We've had a great few days in driving up the Loire Valley, land the land of Chateaux and Kings and Queens. We had a great morning picking blackberries by the estuary of the Loire river. The patch was so big we ended up with with a bucket of berries. We didn't have enough jars so we had to empty a few things in the cupboard. We spent the night at a big goat farm that had been going for thirty years. They had six hundred goats and a rotary milking system which meant the man in control took the same amount of time for all of us to handmilk our goats. The next night we camped at a Historic Brick tile factory. It was still used occassionally. We got to see all the equipment they used to make clay into different tiles. Everthing was done and stored in unique sheds with big wooden frames and a holey tile roof. In the morning we went to a local goat farm which made goat cheese for restaraunts in Paris. It wasn't a 'France Passion' but we hoped we could stay and learn how to make cheese. The owner was very busy and after waiting all morning to talk with him we ended up leaving because he wouldn't come and talk to us. We drove onto another goat farm and on the way we passed lots of sunflower fields and some small dull villages where the only life was the pretty pink flowerbeds in the window boxes. We continued following the river to Cheanonceau Chateaux. It was privately owned and instead of going in, we decided to walk along the on other side of the river where we saw beautiful views of the castle and the gallery spanning across the river. We have been eating lots of fresh goats cheese from all the goat farms we've visited.
We went to Chateaux de Chambord on Saturday, after finding a spot for lunch in the massive park surrounding the chateaux. We walked around the moat of Chambord Castle. We were in awe of it's beauty especially the Renaissance Architecture and the spires on top of the towers. It was the most spectacular of all the castles we've visited so far. We decided to stay nearby at a 'France Passion' horse farm and go into the Chateaux again the next day. William and Thomasspent the night "throwing up from"- what we think were some old unwashed tomatoes. We went back to Chambord the next day and having EU passports us kids got in free. The interior was as beautiful as the outside. We walked around the grand reception halls and saw lots of art work, marble statues and tapestries. We liked the exciting four-poster beds in the Royal Apartments in the stories above. In the centre of the castle was a spiral, double-helix-staircase with two sets of steps that interwove like a candycane and is thought to have been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci. We liked the exhibit on the Castle during WWII and discovered the Mona Lisa was safely stored here during that time. The view of the park from the terrace roof top was spectacular and some men dressed in costumes played the french horn. The little bonus that made our day even better was that we didn't have to pay for parking because the bar was broken!

The Nieuwys
Pictures coming later!