Today (our fourth and final full day in Amboise) was full of hills and valleys, literal and figurative. 🙂

We decided to drive through the countryside to a few of the castles we hadn’t seen. Just for a peek. Our first stop was Azay-Le-Rideau. Lovely town – but the castle’s roof was being refurbished and there was a ton of scaffolding. We caught a glimpse of the castle (below) but not much.

We were hoping to see more of the troglodyte caves that are everywhere in the Loire. We read a brochure at our apartment about an “authentic troglodyte farm” in Azay-Le-Rideau and we made the mistake of: 1) believing the reviews on tripadvisor; and 2) ignoring the fact that Rick Steves’ does not recommend any of these places in his book. It was a semi-interesting stop but not worth either our time or the entrance fee.

We then drove over to see the Usse castle, which is purportedly the model for the castle in Sleeping Beauty. Got a good pic of it (below).

We decided to kind of roam around the area (small, lovely, medieval towns everywhere) on our way back to Amboise. We were meandering along the backroads and Marty said that he needed to go to the restroom. Hmmm… No cafes or public toilets (or even large trees close to the road) in sight. The situation was becoming desperate, if you know what I mean. Marty saw a little vineyard with an “ouvert” (open) sign and we decided we really wanted to do a wine tasting. 🙂 Marty managed to taste one wine before asking where the restroom was. Anyway, it was a GREAT stop. The guy (Francis Jourdan) did not speak much English but between his English and Bunny’s limited French, we had a lot of fun. He brought out a wine that was among those tasted by Obama and Putin at the 70th D-Day commemoration in 2014. Bunny asked him if Obama liked it and he said, basically, that he must have cuz he and Putin weren’t talking in the morning but after the wine tasting they had a long chat. 🙂 We bought a bottle and we’re hoping to bring it home to share with friends/family.

A good day!