Viva la France

I know it's been a long time since we last posted but we've been in France with My Mum. She has been wanting us to come over for a while and it was a spur of the moment decision to go. We left on September 5Th and took a 10 hour flight direct to Paris, which is a real luxury as you usually have to change planes. Once there, we took the TGV (a train that travels about 200 mph) down to Tours, about an hour drive from my Mum's complex, needless to say we were pretty tired when we finally got there.

This picture is of the cottage that my Mum and her boyfriend Anton have converted into a holiday home for guests in the summer (a good way to earn some extra retirement money). She allowed us to stay free of charge and it was great having our own place.







This is the other barn conversion opposite the little cottage that Mum and Anton live in. It has taken them years to convert the two buildings but they are absolutely fabulous.



I'm not crazy here - these are spring waters that are renowned for their healing properties after some king watered his horse here and it healed him. I felt immediately better after drinking it - it was only when we left that we found cups - that would have been a lot easier!!



We went touring around the little villages and found these castle ruins.






This was at the local horse races and we won 60 cents on one horse - it would have been more but Dusty and I couldn't figure out how to say 'bet to win' in French.



This is Oradore which was about a 4 hour drive from the house and we had great fun riding in my Mum's motor home. Oradore however was not fun but very sobering. It is a martyr city - basically a monument to a to a town destroyed by the Nazis. Everything was left exactly how they destroyed it after the bodies and ruble had been removed. About 620 people were killed here and it was horrific to hear all the details and to know that the towns people had done nothing wrong, it was simply an example to scare the resistance.





These are the woods surrounding my Mum's house and Dusty, believe it or not, caught an orange slug on a stick!!!



This is a monolith that we found on a drive and was quite scary climbing up but well worth the picture!



We decided to take a cycle ride into the local town and eat lunch and on the way back take the forest path......bad idea.....we were lost in them for a good 2 hours.





Loches - a beautiful medieval town with a castle and a huge dungeon.





And a market selling all kinds of smelly cheeses and great wines.







The local Cafe...we loved just watching the village life.



Langue De Bouef......just don't ask!!



Mumsy guiding us around Tours before we left on the TGV to Paris.



Fin!