Hi everyone. We will be trying to post new pictures each day. As we are 6 hours ahead you should check around 8PM each evening for that day's updates. I am trying to fix any problems reported but it takes a day to make each correction. We hope you enjoy looking at these as much as we are having being here and taking them.


If you would like to send us email (questions, comments, feedback), you can click on the email icon to contact Anne.


Friday-Sunday, June 8-10.


This is the front of our hotel in the village of Chenonceaux.
This is us in the town/village of Amboise.
This is us across the Loire river. You are seeing the castle in Amboise in the background.
This is Chateau Chaumont, isn't it amazing?
What's this?


,SUNDAY, June 10.

We started out at Chateau Chenonceaux , probably the most beautiful chateau (castle) in all of the Loire. It is difficult to describe how positively awesome it is.

You can get a different perspective from this view.
This is in the village of Amboise. We are just finishing lunch.
Don't these look delicious ? They tasted good too!


,MONDAY, June 11.

Today we rode from Chenanceaux to Loches. This is taken in front of the driveway of our hotel in Chenanceaux just before we departed for Loches. You can see all of our group.
There is a medieval castle in Loches although we didn't visit it today. Check tomorrow for more pictures.
The ride to Loches offered spectacular views of the countryside and the riding was marvelous.
In the afternoon (after a picnic lunch) we rode to a town called Montresor ("my treasure") that has been awarded the "most beautiful town in France" award many times. There is a tenth century castle in the town. The only thing actually remaining from the 10th century are the walls. The castle itself is from the 15th century.
The town itself is quite remarkable looking. All of the houses are from the 14-15th century.
In this picture you can see the houses down below the castle but built right into it as well as some of the parts that are under restoration.



,TUESDAY, June 12.

Today was a light cycling day as we wanted to visit the medieval village beside our hotel!
This picture of the church was taken from the top of the "keep", about 40 meters above the ground
I have about 15 more photos of the medieval castle & walls but Anne chose others instead. Once we're home we will post them all.
We stopped for lunch at a beautiful restaurant in Cormery. I have become rather legendary in our group for my love of cheese. Doesn't this selection look great?
We had lunch from 1-4PM in this idyllic setting .
After about another hour of cycling we arrived at out hotel for tonight - Chateau D'Artigny.
Our room in this beautiful place is 2 floors. The first floor is the bedroom , while the second is the bathroom.
After dinner we had our Kodak moment on the beautiful staircase.


,WEDNESDAY, June 13.

Today was a busy day. We left Chateau D'Artigny after breakfast and headed to a beautiful Chateau on the Indre river in Azay le Rideau . From here we went north to Villandry to see the incredible gardens. We arrived after noon so we stopped for lunch before visiting the chateau. This was a small restaurant with a rear courtyard . Villandry is the last of the large chateaux built on the banks of the Loire during the Renaissance. The gardens are arranged geometrically and include vegetables , herbs & flowers . After leaving Villandry we headed back south towards our final destination of Chinon. All along the road we could see caves cut into the rock of the hill bank. We stopped at one of them as they advertised wine tasting. These caves were cut by hand in the Middle Ages to provide the stones for all of the chateaux in the Loire region. We tasted some wine deep in the cave. The kind lady told us how good our French was but then we realized that she was comparing us to a group of Japanese tourists that had just passed through! Imagine my surprise when she told me that the Tour de France had passed there last year. You can see the advertising on the road.
Before Chinon we detoured to Rossigny-Usse to see the castle. This castle inspired the writing of sleeping beauty & was used as the model for the castle in the Disneyland Magic Kingdom. It was late in the afternoon (about 6PM) when we arrived in Usse & Anne was hungry so we went to the small snack bar for something to eat. They had some brownies behind glass. When they brought them to our table outside, this is what they looked like. With a small coffee each it was 82 francs (about CDN$17). They tasted as good as they looked!
We then biked onwards to Chinon against a bad headwind. Chinon has a large Medieval city at its center. While walking around our the Chinon near our hotel we came across this statue of Rabelais, one of the writers who writings helped instigate the French revolution. Tomorrow we leave for Dijon in Burgundy. I'm not sure if we'll be biking but I'll post some type of update anyway.


,Thursday, June 14.

Today was a travel day. This was the day that our original tour group disbanded & each couple went their own way. Two returned to their homes in the USA, four went to Paris to spend different amounts of time on their own, while Anne & I went on to continue our biking in Burgundy. We will be staying in three places over 5 days: Dijon, Macon and Autun. Due to scheduling issues, we spent the most of today doing a walking tour of some of Autun. Most of our pictures of Autun will be taken on Monday when we stay there overnight. Today we visited the incredible 12th century church, St. Lazare. As with most of these buildings, it is impossible to describe its size and beauty. We chose this one picture from the many we took of the interior. This stained glass window is one of the few that survived the destruction during the French revolution.
While admiring the Cathedral, we saw one of the new Mercedes/Swatch cars. They sell for 70,000 FF and come in a convertible model as well. Cute, aren't they ? There are mouth watering chocolate stores everywhere we go. Each one we see seems to have a display better than the last. We went for a short drive to the village of Rochepot where we tasted wine from the Haute Cote de Beaune. There is a chateau in the village that was completely restored from ruins in the 20th century. A private family (a president of France) did this. Due to the geography, it was not possible to get a good picture of the entire chateau but we were able to capture the part of the roof with the beautiful enameled tile designs typical of that time. We also went past the Lycee Militare in Autun which was built in the same style.


Friday, June 15, Dijon.

We stayed overnight in Dijon. This is where the mustard of the same name originates. It is sold everywhere. We were told today that the mustard fields were destroyed just before WW II and were re-seeded with mustard seeds from Canada!
By special request (from Stacey) we are will be increasing the number of food pictures. This one was taken in the bakery where we purchased bread for our breakfast this morning. It actually tastes BETTER than it looks! You can watch the baker in action right at the front of the bakery. We then went to the market to buy some cheese. It was hard to choose. The cheese stores were called "Cremerie".
While sitting at a cafe having coffee and eating our "breakfast" we struck up a conversation with a couple from Dijon. They insisted on spending about an hour giving us a personal tour of some of the oldest areas of Dijon. There are numerous private dwellings that are historic locations where the public has the right to enter and view the building. This picture is taken from inside the courtyard looking back out to the street. The view from outside was unimposing; we would have just walked by.
This house is on Rue des Chouette (street of the owls). There are sculptures of owls at numerous spots on the buildings & walls throughout the street. One remarkable building housed the tourist office. These two views are from the courtyard and looking up to the top of the spiral staircase.
It started raining this AM so we spent the day touring by car. We drove part way down the "Route des Grandes Crus" which took us past the best known vineyards in the Burgundy region. Thee grapes are everywhere as far as the eye can see. We of course tasted and bought some of our favourite.
We went back to the market area for dinner and noticed this store. We will be visiting when it is opened early Saturday morning for our breakfast! (We'll take some great pictures, Stacey). After dinner we returned to our hotel for desert & coffee. Anne's was delicious as was mine. It was called a "mushroom" and contained 3 flavours of sorbet inside.


,Saturday, June 16, Dijon to Macon.

Today we awoke rather late. We were planning to cycle part of the Route des Grandes Crus but time was against us. We started our day with the same breakfast as on Friday. First stop was the patisserie Paul for bread & other yummy baked stuff. Click here, and here, and here, and here, and here.
We then stopped at the cheese shop (you saw a picture of it closed yesterday). We could smell the aroma from outside. It was heaven. On entering the store we noticed that all of the cheese was set out on shelves, not behind a display case. As we entered the store a woman came over to serve us. She helped us select just the cheese we wanted for breakfast. Off to the cafe to sit outside & enjoy our petit dejeuner. Before leaving we went back into the indoor market to view some of the other delicacies.
We set off to our next destination - Macon. The amount of land for vineyards was remarkable. We stopped in one village on the way to view the local chateau.
It rained quite a bit today so we didn't bother cycling. We were quite tired from staying up so late doing this web page anyway. We walked around the old city of Macon looking for a place to eat. We settled on a Moroccan restaurant. We were the only ones inside at first but soon others entered. We waited about 30 minutes for our dinner but boy was it worth the wait! The meal was superb. When the chef came to ask us how we enjoyed our meal we told him how terrific it was. I also asked him how he made the couscous so perfect - no lumpy balls. He proceeded to give Anne a ten-minute explanation of how to make couscous and then finished off by inviting her into the kitchen for a personal lesson. Imagine my surprise when she re-emerged 5 minutes later with a gift. We asked the chef to join us for a photograph. For those who are wondering, this is a couscousiere. This was apparently the chef's own that he gave to us as a gift. We don't know how to pack it to bring it home!


,Sunday, June 17, Macon to Autun.

Our day started out (again) at the Boulangerie. As usual they had many different food items for sale. The variety of breads was remarkable. Some are sold by the kilo not the loaf. We still had cheese left from yesterday's fabulous cheese shop. We made our next stop at a cafe on the water (behind the camera). As I was starting my coffee Anne gave me my Father's Day card from the kids. The weather has not been good since we got to Burgundy. It has been raining on and off every day. As our coffee arrived it started raining so the waitress ran out to extend the awning so we could stay outside.
We went for a short tour in Macon. There is not much to see. This old church was around the corner from our hotel. As you can see it is being restored. On the way back to the hotel we passed another patisserie that specialized in meringues. This is all that was left.
On the road again, we are heading into major wine country. Our first destination is where they bottle Pouilly-Fuisse. We went through the back roads through such small ancient villages - with satellite dishes on many homes. We could see the rain approaching as we drove. Pouilly-Fuisse is bottled in five villages. Two of them are Pouilly and Fuisse. Everywhere we looked were grapes as far as the eye could see. The signs along the way let us know where we were. These signs are in the village of Pouilly. The streets we passed did not go very far back & there were vineyards behind them all. We stopped in Fuisse to walk around.
We stopped to taste & buy some wines. The lady in the pictures is trying to calculate what we owe. We bought 9 bottles and I was trying to figure out how to carry them home. As a gift on parting her winery, she gave us a tenth. We now have a total of 20 bottles to bring home. The winemaking equipment in this small winery was neat. Some of the tanks were metal as well as the traditional wooden barrels. How could we not also visit the Beaujolais area while we were so close.
We then headed towards Autun. While passing through a small town we spotted this incredibly beautiful chateau in the distance. No one we spoke to could tell us how to get there! Invariably when we get directions they are wrong anyway.
We finally arrived in Autun. Our hotel is an old Ursuline convent. Our room is the finest in the hotel. It has two levels and a secluded terrace with the best view in the city.
After supper we spoke to everyone on the phone. It's after midnight here and time for bed. We want to get up early in case the weather has improved so that we can get in a lot of riding on our last day. We've been typing enough, good night.