{"id":483,"date":"2012-05-11T18:53:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T17:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=483"},"modified":"2025-11-23T05:24:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T05:24:48","slug":"chateau-over-troubled-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/05\/11\/chateau-over-troubled-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Chateau Over Troubled Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We heard today that the new Socialist government in France is making the stockmarket and World currencies nervous.\u00a0 Ah well, we\u2019re still on our holiday\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>The sun shone again so we got the bicycles off the back rack and cycled along to the Chateau de Chenonceau with sun tan lotion on our noses and bottles of water in the back pack.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_484\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-484\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-484\" title=\"Diane de Poitiers garden\" src=\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/144-Diane-de-Poitiers-garden-600x395.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"395\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Diane de Poitiers garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We wandered around Diane de Poitiers garden; she was apparently King Henri II\u2019s lover and he gave her the Chateau.\u00a0 Hmmm, must find myself a rich King with a spare chateaux\u2026..<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_485\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-485\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-485\" title=\"Piglet at Chateau de Chenonceau\" src=\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/138-Piglet-at-Chateau-de-Chenonceau-600x417.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"417\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-485\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piglet at Chateau de Chenonceau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We then toured the interior of the chateau marvelling at the age of everything there and admiring the most beautiful flower displays.\u00a0 Two florists are employed full time in one of the farm buildings to create the interior displays and \u2018assure\u2019 them daily; I think they meant refresh them daily, otherwise there\u2019s an awful lot of talking to the plants going on in there\u2026..!<\/p>\n<p>The gallery was a lovely room used as a ballroom by Catherine de Medici when she lived there.\u00a0 It is the long room that she had built above the bridge over the river.\u00a0 It\u2019s long and narrow with windows both sides and fireplaces at both ends; it would be great to have a big party there.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_486\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-486\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-486\" title=\"The Catherine de Medici garden\" src=\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/149-Catherine-de-Medici-garden-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-486\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Catherine de Medici garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As it was now lunchtime, we popped into the caf\u00e9 next to the Marques Tower for lunch and ate it outside in the sunshine; another first.\u00a0 Then after that we strolled around Catherine de Medici\u2019s slightly smaller garden, the 16<sup>th<\/sup> century farm, the vegetable and the flower gardens before heading over to the maze.\u00a0 We love a good maze, but this one was disappointingly easy; four entries and every one led almost straight to the centre!\u00a0 Ok Rodney, you still got there before me\u2026..<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_487\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-487\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-487\" title=\" Chateau de Chenonceau from the Catherine de Medici garden\" src=\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/151-from-Catherine-de-medici-garden-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-487\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chateau de Chenonceau from the Catherine de Medici garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Back on our bikes we cycled through the village that seemed to comprise of one hotel\u00a0with\u00a0a restaurant, one boulangerie and nothing else. So we carried on over the bridge to the opposite side of the River Cher (singing \u2018Turn Back Time\u2019 as we peddled along), then up a very muddy lane to find another beautiful view of the chateau.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_490\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-490\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-490\" title=\"Chateau de Chenonceau\" src=\"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/154-Chateau-de-Chenonceau-600x399.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-490\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chateau de Chenonceau from the other side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The rest of the day was spent with Rodney trying to straighten up his bike wheel a bit more so that he can use top gear again and me doing a bit of hand washing and hanging it up in the sunshine. We\u2019re now snuggled back in Eileen with small rain drops outside and Rodney is reading all about the global financial crisis from the point of view of Paul Mason and I\u2019m blogging away and enjoying looking at all of our photos.\u00a0 What will tomorrow bring, I wonder?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We heard today that the new Socialist government in France is making the stockmarket and World currencies nervous.\u00a0 Ah well, we\u2019re still on our holiday\u2026.. The sun shone again so we got the bicycles off the back rack and cycled along to the Chateau de Chenonceau with sun tan lotion on our noses and bottles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-piglet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8134,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/8134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}