Last Day in The Loire Valley

We made several shorter stops on this last day in the Loire area. We loved wandering in a little town, shopping at an art shop, where we bought sketches of the Chateaus and enjoyed talking with the artist, then visited a church where Joan of Arc had her vision, saw one other charming garden, then on to Chateau de Villandry. I seem to recall that we were relying heavily on 'Freda', our GPS, this day =].

The gardens of Villandry are "justly famous", and we felt we needed to see them! The Garden Lover's Guide to France also says it is " inadvisable to go there in August" so on this cool day in September we were rewarded with an afternoon of blissfully quiet wandering. It is an amazing crazy-quilt with formal lines, and is best viewed from the high terraced walkways surrounding it.

To quote again~ Villandry occupies a fine position overlooking the river Cher. It is an ancient place~there was a great house here in the middle Ages~but the present Chateau was started in 1536. The garden dates from the early 20th century, though it honors the spirit of the Renaissance...

The management and maintenence of a garden such as this is of bewildering complexity. The logistics of raising and planting the numbers of annual plants are awe-inspiring. The curious thing is that the place, which is flawlessly kept, has an atmosphere of serenity, with no sense of stress or srain.