Back to the Loire Valley and longing for lace

From Martel we moved slowly North until we got to the Loire Valley, the land of chateaux around every corner.

This is Loches and although we didn't go in it was really beautiful from the outside.

These lambs were pretty stunning too on one of the  tombs in the church.

Next stop, Amboise with this wonderful chapel perched on top of the battlements.

Plenty of textiles to admire here...

And amazing architectural challenges for sketching. 

Beautiful lighting through the stained glass window in the chapel. 

We finished our architectural visits with the Abbey at Fontevraud, somewhere I'd wanted to go for a very long time. It didn't disappoint!

The scale of the chapel was enormous and very earie with no furniture inside. 

This is one of the murals in the Chapter House.

But my lasting memory will be this amazing light installation by the artist Claude Lévéque. It was staged in the enormous upper dormitory that would have been occupied by the nuns.

And this was my favourite  building, a smokehouse/kitchen with fish shaped scales on the roof, and wonderful quirky faces, etc keeping guard.

Yesterday we were in Saumur for a visit to my favourite lace shop, the lady there makes such wonderful creations. But we had to walk 3 miles there on a river walk from our Camping Car Aire. 7 miles in total if you count walking round the town. That's dedication .......

 

We are now in Alencon the home of beautiful French Lace, and I'm so excited to be making another visit tomorrow.

Thanks once again to everyone whose been following my posts, I will respond to all your comments soon.