After spending some time soaking up the rain in Normandy and with things not looking like changing we decided to get the show on the road and head south toward Tours , a good starting point for the famed Loire Valley and the hunt for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

The region has its pretty areas , but in by humble opinion is overrated, and I guess my “ once you’ve seen one chateau you’ve seen them all! “ attitude and the fact that the entrance fee doesn’t come with accommodation, even though they charge you for it,validates my thinking.

The Chateau in all respects was grand , the Sleeping Beauty thing, more a devious marketing ploy, as only a few rooms in the tower had some sad manikin’s in drag which even the vivid imagination of a 5 year old had problems working out the sleeping beauty link. We left.

We explored some of the small towns and eventually stopped by the river Loire. Memories of Maria moaning about my ‘fricken fly fishing rod ‘ taking up space came to mind and I decided to shut her up once and for all by fishing illegally along the banks of the river. It wasn’t long before I proved my skills and landed a massive fish of some sort, but I drew a crowd so decided to jump back into the car and speed off.

Tours is a bit like Paris, the hotel we stayed in and the first decent meal we had in a while left me liking the place, but the rate at which we are spending money here has prompted me to speed up this entire trip in a big way, get things done and get to a cheaper continent. So we headed south again…aiming for Cahours.