Gite le Chardonnay a Amboise

When we travel, all 6 of us, finding a place to stay can be a challenge.  A traditional hotel is almost never the answer for us.  My favorite place to go for housing options is www.airbnb.com.  In the US I like www.vrbo.com, but in Europe Airbnb seems to have more options.  We have used this website in Switzerland, Spain, and France.  We have almost always been happy with our choice and this time was no exception.  This time we stayed at the Gite le Chardonnay a Amboise.  We found the house with little trouble.  

Here was the driveway.  I was in love already.

Our parking spot.

The owners, Joel and Rose, were so welcoming and sweet.  They did not speak one word of English, but thankfully that is not as big of a problem as it used to be.  Joel and Rose live in the main house, the guest house was originally the barn that has been converted to 2 apartments.  These buildings date back to 1610!  It still amazes me living here how old everything is, but it is still being used.  I love it.

The following pictures were taken over the course of the next 3 days.  We spent a lot of time away from the house visiting the area, but when we were 'home' we were having fun.  

This tree was great for climbing.

The fields were great for running.

Could she be any sweeter?

There is Garrett having a conversation with le Coq. 

A field of wild flowers in the front yard.

The stone wall went around the property and I love the neighbors.

Addie has gotten a lot better about posing for pictures, can you tell?

There are the neighbors again.  

One of the sweet chickens that the kids chased around during our stay.

This was the backyard, I love spending time out in the country.

The inside of the house was very nice with a double bed in a room upstairs, two twin beds in another room upstairs and a futon in the living room.  The kitchen was extremely well stocked and the bathroom was a good size.  These are things that I do not take for granted any more after some of the places we have stayed.

The location was excellent for the places we wanted to go, Amboise is just 10 minutes down the road,  Blois is about 45 minutes, Tours is about 45 minutes, Chinon was an hour.  The whole drive from Paris was under 3 hours.  

This puts an end to our Loire Valley trip, I hope you had fun reading the posts, I had fun revisiting all of the pictures I took and the memories we made.