Here we are in front of one of the support vans. These met us at strategic places (often 'easy to miss' turns) and provided drinks and snacks. What a luxury!
Here is Anna, one of our guides, clowning around at the van. Anna was fromSalt Lake City, and is an experienced guide. She always had an interesting story to tell and was always so wonderful, smiling and supportive. We all just really liked both our main guides as warm caring human beings. I'm sure they are as nice to each group, but we really did feel a genuine warmth from them and it was greatly appreciated.
Here we are riding along through typical Loire scenery; gently rolling farmland filled with wheat, barley, canola, sunflowers, etc. This was a particularly quiet (little traffic) ride that eventually ended up in Montrichard, a quaint little town with ancient ruins and a lively market.
Unusual tomato variety in the market.
Gorgeous produce.
Smiling and chatty local vendors.
And perhaps a fitting last picture from the market; flowers.
I will always remember the sight and smell of the flowers here, especially the poppies in the fields and the roses in the towns. It inspires me to fence the deer out of our front walkway and really make a serious planting effort.
I will also remember the bird songs. Wonderful wren like calls, mimicids, warblers, cuckoos that sounded like the clocks, and many more.
And I will remember the kind French people we met; the hosts at hotel Diderot and at chateau de Nitray stood out - I would love to have spent more time with both mending my broken French.
After a farewell lunch, we boarded a large bus which returned us to St. Pierre decours and the TGV train to Paris. In the blink of an eye, the 185 mph train whisked us back to the bustling city, where an excellent taxi driver crammed all our luggage into his citroen and returned us to the Best Western Regent Park, where we were last week.
Now the Paris part of our adventure continues...
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1 comment:
Nice synopsis of the sights and smells and sounds that I will remember for some time to come. Somehow all my photos from our visit to the market are gone! Fear I may have a memory card problem. I was bummed to lose those photos because they captured the colors and vibrancy of that market. So much great food that we couldn't take with us easily.
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