Lunch with France of a Lifetime

We work with France of a Lifetime tours [link] to provide customised experiences for our mutual clients. Naturally every now and then it makes sense for us to get together to share ideas and nuture our relationship. Lunch in Loches is a good way to do that, and to familiarise Mallory and Ben with one of the restaurants we use with clients (in this case, Le George). 

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel. 

A Remarkable Traveller Visiting the Loire Valley

We don't often get French clients, although some of our American clients speak French very well. But earlier this year we were in for a real treat. Sophie booked a tour for three people with us. She assured us that everyone was quite slender and they were sure they would be comfortable in the back of Claudette together. I assumed the third person was a child, travelling with parents or grandparents. But it turned out that Sophie was French and the third person was the rather marvellous Marguerite, her 90+ year old mother. 

In case you are wondering, they stayed at the luxurious Chateau Louise, near Amboise.

 

Why had they hired us? Well, Sophie was also American, having grown up there, and her husband was American. Marguerite had also lived in the US most of her adult life, having got married and then emigrated so her husband could pursue his medical career. Now she was a widow she had come back to live in Paris and Sophie visits often. Marguerite was well versed in French history, and had visited many of the places we took them, albeit many decades earlier. What was especially nice were her stories about her parents and the circles they moved in (which included being friendly with the chocolate manufacturing Menier family from Chenonceau). Marguerite was very discreet though, pointing out that she was only a little girl at the time, so couldn't pass on any scandal...

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel. 

A Superb Conservation Restoration in the Loire Valley

The three year restoration of the fabulous 15th century Chapelle Saint Hubert, in the grounds of the the Chateau Royal d'Amboise, is finally finished and the building is once more accessible to the public. Quite by chance, I was the first independent guide to take a group there, on Saturday 1 June. My tour group, of American men on a cycling holiday, were the lucky recipients of this treat, and happily posed in front Leonardo da Vinci's grave to commemorate their visit.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel.