A visit to Montresor...

 

We did a visit to Montresor yesterday where Ada was really impressed by the exhibition of Gemmail, 'Art of Glass and Light' on the upper floor of the Halle des Cardeux even though it was a wee bit dark for her. 

We also had entertainment from a marching brass band who gave us a repertoire that included 'Scotland the brave' for their 'European Fete' event.  

Michael took the time to translate the items on the 'Legend trail' for Ada to understand and ponder.

Fortunately the cloudy sky dispersed  to reveal a lovely afternoon with the village looking its beautiful best.

Tuesday for towns & villages in the Loire Valley - Montresor

 

One of our favourite places in Southern Touraine, the beautiful Montresor.  

Wednesday for windows - little lucarne in Montresor.

More on Montresor here

Touraine an area blessed with talent...

Here in Southern Touraine we are lucky enough to have many fine artists and musicians who bring their own unique talents to share with us here in our lovely part of France. Someone worth checking out is Andre Sobas a Polish artist living in Montresor who makes these great black and white drawings and illustrations

 

Eileen at Montresor...

Eileen will finish her first week of self-isolation tomorrow having fallen foul of the UK's change of rules while she was over visiting us - hope she feels it was worth the sacrifice! We certainly enoyed having her stay as it gave us the chance to revisit some of our favourite places - like Montresor - where we did the village walk along the river, which is a delight! 

Celebrating in style...

To help celebrate my becoming an old age pensioner (65) (without a pension btw, as have to wait an extra year for that) friends Jane an Peter laid on an evening of fun. Picked up from the door and whisked off to the 'Hotel de France' in Loches for dinner with fizz and nibbles en-route. 

We had a very nice meal in the hotel's lovely restaurant where the staff even pushed the boat out to help me celebrate!

It is a place we have really paid little attention to in previous visits to Loches, other than to peek into their courtyard off  Rue de la Republique but after this visit we would highly recommend it.

Their rather innocuous frontage on Rue Picois belies what lies behind it.

After dinner we headed over to Montresor to check out their 'Nuits Solaires'

We arrived to the sound of a siren blaring away and almost complete darkness! It was after the official start time of the event but this would not be unusual here in France!

We walked along the river patch following the sound of music and eventually cam across the musicians playing in the darkness.

After a few minutes we decided that it was all a bit underwhelming and decided to walk into the village to see if anything was going on there. On the way there we asked people who were sitting looking on to the chateau if it would be illuminated - they said it should already be but there seemed to be a power cut! We walked through the town in the dark but just as we reached the Mairie the lights came on!

We headed back down the the river walk to see what difference that made...

This was a bit more like what we had expected...

Great fun night in great company!

  

Lady in waiting...

As Pauline and I stroll around the region she often has to wait while I try and get a photograph without people in it, which in a popular tourist area can often be difficult.

Our walk around the beautiful Montresor on Saturday was no different.

Worse ways to kill time...

Yesterday we headed over to Loches to get my laptop checked out, the plan was drop it in in the morning, go for lunch and then back for a report. Lunch was simple but good (La Laterne) and we made some new Austrian friends - got chatting to couple at next table and ended up exchanging email addresses!We headed back to shop but due to the shop being busy he asked if we could come back around 5.00 pm! What to do?..not too difficult, we headed over to one of our favourite places here in Touraine, the beautiful village of Montresor.

Not that I needed to but I took loads of photographs to add to the many hundreds I already have of this great village which is beautiful and so photogenic at any time of year.

Shout out to our local tourist offices.

We would like to thank our local tourist offices here in Southern Touraine for their invaluable contribution during 2018.

Loches

Le Grand-Pressigny

Montresor

Descartes

Loches,lunch,a local walk and celebrating 42 years!

We packed in a full day yesterday which started with a visit to Loches and its market...

we included a coffee stop and a bit of people watching.

Then it was on to Chemillé-sur-Indrois, to have lunch at Le Moulin de Chaudé, something we had said we would do one day after a walk around the lake  here with our friend Karen way back in 2012 (surely not?)

We were celebrating our 42nd wedding anniversary  

and having the place to ourselves the lady of the house helped us celebrate. 

Then to walk off lunch we walked over to the beautiful village of Montresor and back  (8km).

It had been a little cloudy but we had been aware all morning of a very bright sun trying to break its way through.

Friends wont be surprised that we somehow wandered of the marked route, think paying too much attention to these animals cost us dearly!

As it happened it wasn't greatly different from the actual route but brought us into Montresor at a different point. On realising this we backtracked a little and picked up the yellow markers again and followed them into the village.

By the time we entered the sky had turned back to the blue we have been having over the last week or so here in Touraine.

We took advantage of the shade at 'Cafe de la Ville' for another 'pit stop'. Then after a visit to the Tourist office and a chat with Rebecca,who is now working here permanently (she used to be in the office at Le grand Pressigny), we back tracked to visit the  'Exhibition le Gemmail' in the 'Halle des Cardeux' 

Glad we did! it was beautiful...

Then we walked through the streets of this beautiful village as we have done many times before...

before heading out along what was the old railway line (I think)...

back to  Chemille-sur-Indrois and our car. 

Great way to spend a day out even though we had to end it by a visit to the supermarket at Loches for our weekly shopping...reality often gets in the way!