I didn’t get up until about 7:30am, which is pretty late for me, but I’d stayed up the night before to get the blog finished. Ash had just left to take Paul out so I had a few minutes to get ready for the day by myself. We went down for breakfast when he returned around 8am. We weren’t in a hurry to get out – checkout was 11am – so we took our time with breakfast and packing and finally meandered out of there around 10:30am.

The weather wasn’t great and wasn’t going to improve, plus many things are closed on Mondays so we weren’t even sure what we’d be able to do exactly. We’ve discovered that accuracy of internet information out in the country isn’t very reliable. We decided to drive by Chateau Montgeoffroy because it was like 10 minutes away in the direction we were headed so why not.

But, alas, it was closed. So I snapped a couple of photos, above and below, and we moved on.

We couldn’t check into our next place until 3pm so had plenty of time. We stopped around 11:45am for coffee at some random place just to kill some time. It was nothing to write home about, so much so I didn’t take a single photo. But the coffee was great.

We decided to stop by Chateau Saumsur because we’d heard good things about it. But it, too, was closed. But you could still walk around the grounds and it was a great looking castle so we did. I love in this photo the grapevines in the front and the town sloping down on the right.

It had an honest-to-god moat…

…and an actual draw bridge.

This is like the epitome of a castle. It was originally built in the 10th century, this version was constructed in the 12th century.

Did you expect anything less at this point?

The side view. It’s very “Wicked Witch of the West” don’t you think?

We loved these vistas of the town of Saumsur.

We got to our hotel just after 1pm so it was too early to check in. She directed us to just about the only restaurant in the area that was open today, just back down the street we’d driven up.

We were so worried about whether or not it was actually a street because it was so narrow we’d never noticed the restaurant on the corner.

The view out the windows of the restaurant – still on the river.

It was a nice little place. And since it was the only place open, we came back for dinner and sat at that table just behind me – I was where the guy in the red shirt is now.

The first course was gazpacho and some salmon over a carrot and ginger salad, as seen below.

Second course was fish with some nice vegetables and a great sauce. Ash essentially had the same thing for dinner later; it’s a pretty limited menu. Both of these dishes were excellent.

This is the wide part of the street (!) which took us back to the hotel.

Hotel Le Bussy, we found it on Booking.com yesterday morning. Really reasonable rate and a cute location.

That’s the parking lot I was standing in when I took the prior photo, with a chateau just behind us, Montsoreau.

Charming lobby.

Charming room. Small but pretty comfortable. We agreed these beds are more comfortable than the last place we stayed.

Our view directly out the window…

…and to the left, with the Loire River in the back there.

The weather was temperamental all day. We took advantage of a bit of blue sky to take Paul out.

Some of the town looking back from the parking lot.

It’s a pretty wide river.

I loved the pink wild flowers growing on the side of the row.

And speaking of pink, these were growing outside someone’s wall as we walked back up to the hotel.

At some point in the afternoon we went out in search of dog food for Paul. These are houses built into cliffs.

This little bridge was a trip to driver over. Check out the short video below.

We got back around 4:30pm and just relaxed in the room until it was time to go out for dinner again.

As I said before, Ash had the same thing he had for lunch. So unlike him. He’d originally ordered the risotto for his main. I’d gotten this for my first course and when he saw it, he changed it to the fish. We were thinking something completely different, but this was definitely risotto, just in wild rice and a sauce we couldn’t quite identify. One thing about being in the country vs. Paris: nothing is in English out here, and the English of the locals isn’t very good, so sometimes you just punt. I wasn’t expecting all the ham on the side but if my French was better I might have known it was coming! This was interesting but not great.

I had the duck for my main. Also interesting but not great.

I had strawberry cheesecake for dessert – served in a bowl almost like a pudding, with the graham cracker crust at the bottom. It was good.

Ash had chocolate cake with a warm filling and raspberry sorbet. This was very good.

And that was our exciting day. Some driving, some eating, some walking around. And never went more than an hour up the river from where we were. It was just what we needed after spending a good 5 hours in the car each of the last 2 days.

We have a couple of nice castles picked out for tomorrow, we will see if the weather cooperates. The forecast isn’t hopeful.