Saint Aignan, France by Mel and Kev

Hello from Saint-Aignan.
Saint Aignan is a town near Tours in the centre of France, located on the river Cher. It is on the one of my favourite regions in France as it is the castle area. There are hundreds of castles around this region (from small private one to massive one transformed in museum). There are so much to see around here and so much history.
We arrived on the 2nd of July after 5 hours drive from Saint Quay in Bretagne. We came here to visit one of my best friends, Sophia and her daughter Clara. Sophia and I meet in Business school and she is one of the only people I kept in touch and we always tried to catch up when we are in France.
We arrived and spent the evening catching up while the kids played in the pool with Clara.
The next day, Sophia had to work, so the four of us went to visit ‘les caves Monmousseau’ which are caves used originally to be excavated to get the rocks to build the castles in the area in the 15th century. In 1886, Alcide Monnouseau decided to use the 15km of abandoned cave to make and store fine wine. The caves are always around 12 degres which make it ideal for that purpose.
Nowadays, there is still some wine being stored there (a lot of it: we saw hundreds and hundres of bottles) and you can visit it. They also added art to the wall of the caves. NaDa (Nathalie Dahon) et Reno Menat, 2 artists, inspired by the castles in the area used painting and projectors to decorate the walls of the caves. Each projection uses the shape of the walls to give lives to the painting. It is truly amazing to watch. I realy enjoyed the walk inside those caves transformed in a magical art gallery.
The end of the tour end back in the wine shop where we did a wine tasting. Kev did most of it as I was driving. I still had a tiny taste of each wine, and they were good. They are all sparkling wine, including a red sparkling wine which was intriguing. Kev liked it, but it was not my favourite.
After that, we visited the city of Loches. The history of the Royal city of Loches begun in the 9th century with the construction fo the castle. Over the following centuries, more building where added, for example the keep in the 11th century and several churches. A lot of history happened in Loches. Several kings used the castle for different reasons: as a prison, as a place to establish a favourite, as a place to live.. French and English kings fought over this place.
Joan of Arc told Charles VII that her "mission" was to free Orléans, besieged by the English, and take him to Reims to be crowned king. After the liberation of Orléans on 8th May 1429, she met Charles VII at the royal lodge in Loches and convinced him to take to the road to at last be "graciously crowned". The royal lodge is now a museum with a lot of information about all the history that happen there. It was very interesting.
The church near the royal lodge is beautiful as well and looked different from the traditional churches: the imagery used is more based on imaginary animals than the traditional religious figures and 2 octagonal pyramidal towers decorate the roof, not the traditional domes.
We end up our day eating a raclette: potatoes with ham and/or melted cheese on top. This is normally a winter dish, but I love it too much to not have some when we are here. When we went to the cheese shop to get some raclette cheese, they had to get the cheese from the back room as it is not common to buy some at this time of the year!!!
The next day, the 4th of July, marked our 6 months on the road. It is a weird feeling: we did so much in 6 months, it feels like we have been gone for ever, but it also feels like it is going so fast! It is confusing. I love traveling with my family. We are all growing so close to each other. The kids are wonderful and I love watching them discovering the world. They are so easy to travel with!!! Kev and I are also a lot closer than before. I am so grateful that he accepted to go on this adventure, as I know it was scary for him at the beginning. I know he misses home sometimes, but I know he is enjoying the experience. I could live this life forever! But I know we have to go back home at some point, I will just have to plan our next adventure!
Anyway, on that day we went to visit one of my favourite castle: le chateau de Cheverny. This castle has been in the same family for around 6 centuries.
The house (there is only one drawing of the house drawn in 1624) was built at the beginning of the 16th century by Jaques or his son Raoul. Raoul applied for permission of the king to fortify the new house in 1510. The lands were purchased by Henri Hurault, Comte de Cheverny, a lieutenant general and military treasurer for Louis XIII, whose descendant, the Marquis de Vibraye, is the present owner. It was one of the first castle to open its door to the public. The interior is beautifully furnished, and a lot of art has been kept there. This castle is a must see if you are in the area.
The creator of Tintin, Herge, was inspired by Cheverny to create “the Moulinsart castle” of The captain Haddock. This is why there is also a permanent exhibition about tintin and the adventure that happen in the castle!
There are also beautiful gardens to walk in and around. This castle will always be on my list of visits when I am around!
We then meet Sophia and Clara for lunch for a delicious galette. After lunch, we visited the mini castles garden: this is a garden with 41 castle at 1/25 scale. The reproduction are very loyal to the original and have little characters staged in and around it. It was pretty fun walking around the mini castle and learning about the different history of it and recognising the one we saw in real.
The next day was our last one with Sophia and Clara. We went to the chateau de Jallanges, which has some puzzle and enigma to solve. It started well but by the end of it, it feel they run out of ideas and the puzzle were a lot less good. We still had a good time together. We visited the castle which is lived in as there are rooms on the first floor that you can rent. It was a lovely castle.
For our last night there, we played board games and chatted until late at night.
On the 6th, we pilled up everything in the car again and said goodbye to Sophia and Clara (with a few tears for me) and went on our way toward the south to spend some time with my other brother Gerald and his family.
I’ll see you there.
Mel

3.7.2025. Today we're off to visit des caves Monmousseau, a winery in the Loire Valley. It uses caves excavated in the side of a hill for tuffeau stone, used in the construction of castles in the Loire valley. Alcide Monmousseau (a French guy), discovered the abandoned caves in 1886, thought, “think I'll put my wine in there”, and that's how it all started. The quarry is made up of a network of 15klm worth of underground galleries, whose temperature hardly varies from 12°c year round. Making it the perfect place to age your wine. We started our tour on the outside. Walking back along a path down the hill a bit, we got to the entrance of the caves. We entered a code and the doors slowly swung open. As soon as you stepped inside the coldness hit you, ah that's lovely that is. The first tunnel was long, slightly uphill. As we walked we saw some pictures and art hanging on the walls, and read some information on the history of the place. The best thing though, was they had set projectors. Aligned with the walls and tunnels, giving us different scenes displayed throughout the tour. As we got further in, we started going past wine bottles stacked up along the walls and in metal baskets. I had a look, yep they're capped and there is definitely wine in there. This is after all a working winery. So many bottles, thousands, probably tens of thousands, maybe more. There were some old games there to play, the kids and Mel had a go. Remember when we first stepped in and I said it felt lovely? Well now I'm cold, blowing a small amount of frosty breath in the lights. We may have sped up the last bit of the tour, but it was just more bottles. Lots more bottles! We pushed through a door, out into the main lobby, where we bought the tickets. Ah it's warm here. We had a better look around, there is a smelling game set up, to see if you can guess the scents in some wines. I got 2 out of about 15 right(passion fruit and lemon). After having a bit of a look around, the person behind the counter asked if we enjoyed the tour and would we like to try some wine. Count me in! We tried a sparkling white, their most famous wine. We tried a rosé and finally we tried a sparkling red. Yes, sparkling red wine. Made from Cabernet grapes, not sweet but soft. In my opinion, delicious. We bought a couple of bottles, and then headed to our next stop. The old Royal City of Loches. We entered through the old city gate, we could see where the old gate mechanism used to be. We walked into the old city, and visited a church first. This church is different to most we have seen. Instead of the typical vaulted ceiling, this had a double octagonal pyramid. Completely different to the usual style. Made it no less impressive. After the church we found and had an expensive lunch(tourist area), then visited the Royal lodging. A castle inside the city, built high above its surroundings. My favourite part is looking out over the countryside. After the visit we headed back to St Aignan, stopped at a cheese shop Sophia likes, and bought a heap of raclette cheese. That means dinner tonight is raclette, that means yum. Raclette for those of you less informed, is when you melt cheese(has to be raclette cheese) and pour it over potatoes. Not just potatoes of course, anything. I had potatoes, zucchini, mushroom and ham. Add a little salt and pepper and it's nothing but yum. Andrew particularly liked the raclette, and I need to do it at home. I don't know where I'm going to get raclette cheese from though.
4.7.2025. Today marks our 6th month of travelling. We have seen so much in the first half of our trip, I'm forgetting stuff already. What I won't forget is the great times we've had as a family. We've had our trying times too, which has hopefully made us stronger and closer. I have watched my kids grow and mature, well grow at least. I feel closer to my wife than I have in a long time. I hope this feeling only gets stronger as the year goes on. How do I feel half way through? Would I still go on this trip knowing what I know now? I feel great and yes I absolutely bloody would do it again. We're gonna get back broke and with absolutely no leave left, and I'm fine with that. Have I missed home? A bit, not as much as I thought I would. I miss my family, outside of the looneys I'm travelling with. I miss my dog, the big idiot, and I'm starting to miss my Xbox a little bit. I'm still happy to be circling the globe with my small group of miscreants. I wouldn't give up my time with this group for anything. Anyway, what did we do today? We went to Chateau Cheverny, one of Mel's favourites and the inspiration for the castle in Tin Tin. We visited the castle, the Tin Tin museum and walked around the grounds. We checked out some of the dogs, they still have the hunting dogs here, but they no longer feed them all at once. They no longer do this as people complained about the use of a whip to keep the dogs in order. At least they still bring some dogs out for a look at. The kids really like the hedge maze, they did it twice. We had not had enough of the castle, but we were to meet Sophia and Clara for lunch. We met with them for galette. Which was as good as ever. After lunch we went to Parc mini-chateau, a place with miniature versions of the more famous castles around France. It was pretty fun, if only I still had the imagination of a child and not just the maturity. It was getting late, not that you'd know it, the sun doesn't go down until after 10. We headed back to Sophia's for dinner, then bed.
5.7.2025. We went to Chateau De Jallanges today. A castle set up with puzzle activities, mostly for the kids to work out. The puzzles started really good, but by the 13-14th they were running out of steam. All in all it was a decent experience, just think it could have been better. We did the short tour of the chateau and then headed back. Dinner again at Sophia's, followed by board games. Tomorrow we throw all our crap back in the car and head to Magalas, where Mel's other brother Gerald and his family live.
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