Not much knitting was done!

We had a lovely time visiting the Chateaux of the Loire Valley. We stayed for one night in Vernon, this is a photo of the Church and Tourist Office.

Day 2; we went to visit Monet's Garden at Giverney. It was beautiful and as we were one of the first coach loads of tourists we had the garden to ourselves for almost half an hour. We also visited Monet's house. Later we walked up through the village and stopped for coffee before rejoining the coach and continuing our journey to Tours.

We stopped at Chartres for lunch and explored the cathedral, the colours of the stained glass windows were beautiful.

During the afternoon we continued our journey pausing at Chateau Dun then onto Tours arriving early evening.

Day 3; We visited Chateau Villandry, it was restored in the early 1900's and the medieval garden was recreated from plans of the original garden. The chateau was beautiful and the gardens were stunning.

Late morning we continued on our tour pausing for a photo opportunity at Chateau d'Usse - Sleeping Beauty's castle.

By lunch time we had moved onto the medieval town of Chinon which had a medieval fair on, so we wandered through the streets stopping to look at the stalls

Day 4; We visited the town of Amboise which has Chateau Clos Luce, the home of Leonardo Da Vinci for the last few years of his life. We walked through the chateau and then the grounds which contain life sized models of many of Leonardo Da Vincis' inventions, it was fascinating

For lunch we walked down into Amboise, which is another beautiful old town

13.00 we left for Chateau Chennonceau which was once the home of Mary Queen of Scots, (daughter of King Henry VIII & sister of Queen Elizabeth 1st). The chateau was very busy with visitors and it was difficult to see the rooms due to the number of people inside. The chateau was stunning to look at and the gardens were beautiful but different to previous chateaux we visited.

Day 5; We left Tours and began our return trip to Paris via Fontainbleu. On our way we stopped at Blois for coffee, we saw a chateau but didn't have time to visit. This chateau is one we'd like to visit in the future Just after lunch we arrived in Fontainbleau, we had lunch in a little cafe then visited the chateau. We didn't have enough time to see all of it but it was impressive and beautiful.Day 6; finally we return to Paris to catch the Eurostar and find that we have time for an impromptu sightseeing tour, so our coach circled Paris pausing at the most popular sights, before delivering us to the Gare du Nord.