Exotic France

Suddenly, I know how Posh feels – what to wear to the airport? Not, in my case, because I need to assemble yet another fabulous couture ensemble for the awaiting paparazzi, but because it’s one of those scorching late September days Britain sometimes serves up by way of apology for another underwhelming summer. And I’m going snowboarding.
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The Loire is France’s longest river, and one of its most untamed. But it’s not its landscape that draws most tourists to the lower Loire, but the fine chateaux and palaces along its banks.
Castle building on the Loire started in the Middle Ages with keeps like that at Blois, but it was in the Renaissance that the mania for fine chateaux really began. French kings sponsored huge building programmes at Amboise and Chambord, while rich nobles built palaces like Azay-le-Rideaux, Chaumont and Chenonceaux.
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Normandy echoes the history of past struggles: the Norman Conquest woven into the tapestry at Bayeux, the perils of Jeanne d’Arc recorded in Rouen, the drama of the D-Day landings recorded along the Normandy beaches. The violence of its history is at odds with the ethereal landscapes that inspired Corot, Monet and Pissarro, a region to take it slow by boat, balloon or bicycle
An inspiring gateway to Normandy is Giverny, a village that would be sleeping still had it not captured the heart and imagination of Claude Monet. While the great painter’s pink farmhouse is charming and now a museum, Monte’s masterpiece was his garden, still complete with water lilies. Travelers following the route from here to Rouen can detour to Les Andelys, crowned by the fragmentary remains of Chateau Gaillard, a fortified castle built by Richard the Lion-Hearted in 1196 overlooking the River Seine
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