Stop 3 - Blois

Today we were off to Blois. It's raining, again today. We travelled for a couple of hours, through pretty countryside which is lush and green...The Loire Valley. The Loire River is the longest River in France at around 620 miles long. We stopped for a rest stop along the way...then headed for Angers (pronounced on jay). This place is yet again a very attractive town. A huge Castle sits predominately on a hill near the river Maine. The  famous/well known Tapestry of the Apocalypse is housed in this Castle. Once again the town is full of buildings which are pretty ornate and very attractive. We walked around having a look at all the little narrow streets etc. got ourselves some lunch, then headed back towards the coach.

We ventured into a Supermarket which was housed in the bottom of a large department store. Lots of interesting and unusual goodies. we did find a couple of things to buy....
Of course, we managed to get on the line where the woman two ahead of us had obviously raided her piggy bank and she took forever to count, and recount her money out....and then the cashier had to count it all...and, you guessed it, it had to be recounted yet again......patience!!!!  Another travel experience.....

At the base of the Castle, on one side of the building were very nice and well kept gardens. We didn't go into the Castle as we thought the door was locked, but it sure was an impressive building built back in 1232...amazing.
Around 2pm we started off again heading for our destination for today, Blois.
Arrived in Blois at about 5 pm staying at the Mecure Hotel.

It is raining but we went for a walk to see the sights anyway.
The Mercure is across the road from the Loire River. The view from the pathway looking up to the rather unusual bridge was really nice. Once again where we are is a lovely little place.

As is usual around France the streets are narrow, steep and winding. We spied a huge cathedral on the hill and walked up there. On the way we met a young Aussie lady. She is in ADFA in Canberra but has taken 12 months off to explore the world on her own - very game!! We had chat to her for a while and the went on to the cathedral, which was locked.

We saw a statue of Joan of Arc which lookde like it may have been a gift fron New York.

It was still raining so we returned to the Hotel. There is yet another day tomorrow - Breakfast from 06:30, Luggage outside the door by 07:00 and on the bus by 08:00.