13th of July, 2021.
I have always dreamed about travelling around the Loire Valley, enjoying its gorgeous castles sitting at the river. But the truth is, my trip it is a mess! Am I rusty after so many months not travelling? I don’t know. But the rain also didn’t help at all.
The nice driver is a bit lost about where to drop me. We are just outside of the central station. It is raining. Inside, I make a plan of how I will deal and travel with this rain. I decide to take the train. The castles I choose to visit are pretty close to each other, so the train tickets between the towns are, 3 and 6 Euros, respectively. Which is not so bad. Of course I could by food for four, maybe five days with that money. But it is raining.
I dress my backpack with the poncho rain cover; put on my rain cover; and with an umbrella on top of everything, I march to Blois Castle.
The castle is gorgeous! It is in the middle of the city centre, right on top of a hill, and stands beautifully in there, looking after the town. Actually Blois itself looks like a nice town, which I would like to walk around. But in a better weather day. For now, I buy some food at the supermarket and walk to the river, towards this nice stone bridge, Jacques-Gabriel Blois. If you have time, don’t have a huge backpack, and the weather is nice, I totally recommend you to spend some hours walking around the town.
Back in the train station, I eat some lunch and wait for my train.
Next destination is Chaumont-sur-Loire. This castle it supposed to be also gorgeous and I am super excited! And the rain has stooped! Yay! Knowing by the map that from the train station to the castle I will have to walk for about 30 minutes, I decide to save some time by hiding The Hulk in the bushes behind the station. I manage to do that and carry on. There is a nice view of the castle from the bridge and again, the town seems pretty cute. When I get at the entrance to the grounds of the castle, there are two guys, and I ask them if I need to pay only to walk around the grounds, they say yes. Because I don’t have my backpack on me, I don’t feel very comfortable to tell them my story and ask to go around just for a photograph of the castle. Maybe I even do but I don’t remember now. Well, I could have tried going around the point where they were, like turning left from where I was coming, from the bridge, because on Google Maps it seems that there is no gate or anything and you just ended up in the castle. Why I didn’t do it? I don’t know. Maybe I was scared. You try on and then tell me what happened.
Very disappointed with the wast of time and money coming here fro nothing, I decide to cheer me up with some French patisserie. Luckily there is a small and cute shop on my way and I buy a religieuse. Basically they are Eclairs in a different shape. But it is very good!
When I come back to the train station, my backpack is gone! No, just joking. Is still in there. I take the train to Amboise, my last castle and destination of the day. When you enter town, the view of the castle is great! Further more, there are two smaller castles and I walk to them too. It is raining again. I decide to ask in the second one, Gaillard Amboise, if I could quickly cross the gate just to take a photograph. It is a very small distance and it would take no time. I do have my backpack this time. But they still say no. Anyway, Amboise is also a nice small town so I totally recommend for you to go around. Following the same conditions I mentioned before.
I know I have to walk for quite a while out of town, to this park where I will camp. Because is still raining I wait outside of the tourist info centre (which is closed) and decide to change and clean myself in the public toilet. Unfortunately, apart of the careless of the place, with a wet floor and no place to sit you backpack, there are so stupid teenagers, hanging on there. Yeah, in the middle of the public toilets! How stupid can you be? Anyway, I manage to do that and when the rain stops, I move on.
The park is really nice, sitting by a lovely lake. The best place for camping is by a picnic table and I get a bit worried about be seen. But I take the risk. Sunset is gorgeous! I am exhausted so soon after eating I go to sleep. I heard nobody at all during the night, so yay!
