Yes it has been a lovely day. We drove over to Savonierres and then cycled along the River Cher to Villandry. There are now poppies flowering along the edge of the rape fields adding extra colour to the rural scenes.
The Chateau de Villandry was completed in 1536 and is the last of the great chateaux built along the Loire Valley. It looked lovely, but we were there to stroll around the gardens which are laid out over terraces and contain 1,200 lime trees, 52km of box hedging and some of the 250,000 individual flowers and vegetables that are planted here each year. There are ornamental gardens, a water garden, a herb garden, a maze, a vegetable garden, and a woodland and we wandered around everything, stopping only to take photos and to have a ‘pique-nique’ overlooking the large pond.
When we finally left the garden, we had an ice cream before cycling back to Eileen. Then back at the Ballan-Mire campsite, it was so warm we donned our swimmers and dived in to the chilly indoor pool. I spent half an hour jiggling about doing aquarobics and swimming while Rodney spent most of that time sat on the side watching……..
We’ve sat outside in the sunshine reading our books and now we’re tucking in to lasagne and salad before another night under the stars.
There’s apparently ten gardeners, though we only counted nine, one must have been on holiday, along with the rest of France……
Did you ask how much they pay their gardener…maintenance of that lot is more than a weekend job. Not a blade of grass out of place.