![]() ![]() ![]() Recently re-developed, it’s one huge palatial playground of formal opulence. This renaissance masterpiece, also has the best looking gardens ever. 500 years exactly since its evolution, on the instruction of King Francois l, it’s been state owned since 1930 and was UNESCO listed in 1981. If ever you were to imagine the most elaborate, opulent and stately of Chateaux, then Chambord is it! This extraordinary architectural masterpiece is just exquisite. The heroine of girl power still holds her mark on Orléans today, attracting curious tourists and making for a good excuse to visit this medieval city. Think Joan of Arc and imagine her riding through the ancient Orléans, liberating the town from the English back in 1429. So let’s get exploring on our campervan tour of The Loire Valley! With a journey time of around 5 hours from Calais, warmer Summers this little bit further South, and the added bonus of magnificent cycle routes, it’s an idyllic destination. ![]() With so many Chateaux, you really are spoilt for choice. The Loire is a perfect camper destination, with plenty of picturesque places to stop the night. The beauty of France in a campervan is the simplicity that it brings and the ease of the Aires system for us all. It made us realise, that we no longer wanted to be returning each night to the same destination, enough to make us switch to our first Motorhome, as soon as we returned to the UK! The freedom of those French camper owners moving around at their leisure, with the holiday home in one really appealed. Noticing, the big advantages, that swapping to one would give us. ![]() It was, in fact, here, whilst on holiday in our touring caravan, that we first noticed the French love of motorhomes. Stretching from Sully-Sur-Loire to Chalonnes-Sur-Loire, making it the largest of its kind in France.įor us, it was a perfect location to start exploring, back in our earlier days of road trips in France. Running from East to West, this UNESCO listed centre section covers an area of 280km. Well this is The Loire Valley, home to not just one, but over 300 glorious castles, or should I say Chateaux, surrounding the banks of the longest river in France, The Loire. You get the impression that modern residents of Vichy would be happy to see that terrible period recede from the public memory.Who doesn’t love a fairytale castle, swathes of sunflower fields, hills of rolling vines and the charms of ancient riverside towns and villages? Let’s get ready for a campervan Tour in the Loire Valley! It makes for an uncomfortable dialogue in places like Vichy, where the monument to people deported to prison camps by the Vichy regime sits in a little corner, visibly apart from the grander monuments to France’s war dead. (It has to be said, though, that sometimes it’s clearly a “mixed” memory, since there are also occasional reminders of instances where French people collaborated rather than resisted. I’ve seen many other examples of plaques honoring the “juste parmi les nations” in my travels around central France, and you only have to walk through a cemetery like the one in Clermont-Ferrand to see how many people are remembered for fighting back against the German occupation. It’s true that the “echoes” of World War II are fainter now as that generation is less present in French life- but there is still a definite impulse to remember what happened between 19. ![]()
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