Château Luynes
Château Langeais
Château de la Cour du Berruyer
On our way to the village of Chinon, we passed a number of impressive châteaux; so many, in fact, that it was impossible to stop to take photos of them all.
Château d’Ussé - Château de La Belle au Bois Dormant
The Château d’Ussé is said to have provided the inspiration for Charles Perrault’s fairy tale classics. The most notable of these fairy tales is “Sleeping Beauty”, which (according to Wikipedia) includes a Part II, which continues the story after Sleeping Beauty awakens from her 100-year nap.
Château de Chinon
The Château de Chinon, which is mostly in ruins now, sits above the village of around 9,000 inhabitants. We noticed some renovation work taking place near the main entrance gate of the fortress as we hiked up to it.
Restaurant Les Années 30
We stopped in for a memorable lunch on the terrace of a wonderful restaurant in Chinon called Les Années 30 (78 rue Voltaire, tél: 02.47.93.37.18). We fell in love with the 2005 Domaine de la Noblaie Chinon Blanc, which complemented our lunch of Cabillaud au Wasabi just perfectly. After perusing a brochure of the winery that we picked up at the restaurant, we thought we would head out and do a little wine tasting.
Domaine de La Noblaie
It was pretty easy to find the Domaine de La Noblaie winery since the brochure had a map which gave us an idea where to head, and then there were signs along the way to guide us there.
Domaine de La Noblaie Cave
After a self-guided tour through the cave, we tasted a couple of their Chinon Rouge, and then bought a case of the aforementioned, gold medal-winning 2005 Chinon Blanc, and a half case of the bronze medal-winning 2002 Chinon Rouge. It cost only 19 € to have it shipped to us in Antibes for arrival scheduled in three days.
Château d’Azay-le-Rideau
The last visit on our Châteaux tour was the 16th-century Château d’Azay-le-Rideau, which seemed to float on the mirrored Indre River in the middle of a lovely park.
Bonjour
regarding the Chateau de Chinon you must know than now is rebuild as it was in 15 century...
Sorry for my poor English language.
Lardounet
Posted by: Lardounet | Saturday, 04 April 2009 at 12:44 PM