Mon banc dominical/My Sunday Bench...choices at the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire

A good day out...at the Garden Festival,

Yesterday along with Mike and Liz we made our annual visit to the International Garden Festival at Chateau de Chaumont-sur-Loire, We started the day with our usual bit of wine tasting followed by a good lunch at ‘Le Pied dans le plat'.

The festival delivered as usual with this year's theme being #Once upon a time in the garden.

Pauline was in charge of route planing with me sent out in front as scout and photographer. Our top three gardens were...

Number 15 'Le Jaedin des Songes where we loved the sculptures fashioned from white wire netting.

Number 13 'Hortus Pocus' with sculptures made from recycled material.

and Number14 'Le Jardin de l'Odyssee' where you look over the bow of a ship at a whale's tail fin. 

We did a 4.5 km around the 25 gardens but there was always plenty of opportunities for a wee rest.

Never been great at selfies!

Sensible shoes and the Garden Festival...

 

Good walk through the garden festival and chateau at Chaumont-sur-Loire yesterday. Will post gardens separately. 

A good day out...

Good day out yesterday with friends, we did the wine-tasting, trogo restaurant Garden Festival trip we do annually but for them it was a series of firsts.  

Good lunch followed by some great autumn weather, after a misty start, for our walk around the Garden Festival and grounds of Chateau de Chaumont-sur-Loire.

This year's festival theme is 'Ideal Garden' and despite the extreme temperatures of summer they were looking well. If you haven't visited this year we would highly recommend it, you have until the 6th of November.

The theme for this years Garden Festival is announced.

This year's theme for this popular event with our guests, is 'Gardens of thought'. As annual visitors we tend to not pay too much attention to the theme ( I say we but Pauline does tend to read the descriptions) but take the gardens as we find them with a cursory glance at the descriptive blurb. We have rarely been disappointed on our visits and as they  continue to add and improve the grounds away from the festival itself it always feels 'fresh'.

Pauline at last year's festival.

Church on Sunday...well another chapel actually.

When we visited the 'International Garden Festival' at Chaumont-sur-Loire back in August we decided to take in the chateau visit as well as it had been a long time since our last visit. We decided that the additional  € 4.00  would be worth it.,(€ 14.00 to visit garden festival € 18.00 to include chateau).The interior of the chateau is a poor second to its fairytale exterior but then there is the 'art' ( a collection of contemporary instalations ) and the view from the courtyard over the river Loire.Which leads us (eventually) to the chapel inside the chateau which has become part of the 'art' .

It has taken on a fairytale-esque quality but in a rather cluttered fashion which will, I'm sure, be interpreted in different ways by the many visitors who pear into it.I tried to find out more as to who's idea it was and what it might represent...without success.

Is it worth the the additional charge, if it's your first visit to 'Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire' then yes it is and you can form your own opinion with regards to the 'art' content.

2015 Chaumont garden festival in the Loire Valley

Chaumont garden festival opens today.

This year's festival runs from the 23rd of April 2015 to 1st of November 2015
The 25th International Garden Festival on the theme of “Extraordinary gardens, collectors’ gardens”

Check out our page on website here for examples from previous festivals here

Chaumont garden festival 2014 - a walk through in pictures...

A slideshow of all the gardens in the sequence they are laid out at the garden festival.

Chaumont Garden Festival 2014

Here are some pics. from last Friday's visit to Chaumont-sur-Loire's garden Festival.