We set off early and said Aurevoir to Lake Annecy (really sad face!) although not after having breakfast next to a table where a little elderly lady and her cat (yes cat) were tucking into a yoghurt!
It was a little more motorway driving again today to get us back up North ready for the Calais crossing tomorrow. Although for Papa’s pleasure (ok and ours) we did take a little pit stop (pun intended) at the old Reims motor racing F1 circuit at Gueux. This was once the stage of the French Grand Prix and the abandoned grandstands and pit building still line the public road, the last race was held here on June 11th 1972 before the race moved to a different circuit due to the high cost of organising the street circuit. Luckily the old buildings have been fortunate in escaping many demolition plans thanks to ‘Les amis du circuit de Gueux’ a foundation founded by a group of enthusiasts to save the remains, they have successfully got a guarantee from the current owner of the site to have no more buildings demolished, to restore the current buildings and hopefully even create a museum!
Our final destination today was a traditional french Chateau in Bruyeres-et-Montberault called Chateau De Breuil, which was a beautifully restored castle nestling in a breathtaking surrounding of green fields. (In fact on Google Earth and Google maps it just appeared as a field which was a little disconcerting – especially as when we arrived there wasn’t another being in sight and everything was locked up. Luckily the waiting staff arrived a few minutes later).
We were shown to our room which was absolutely fantastic. We had a suite with a little lounge area, 2 bedrooms with 4 poster beds, the bathroom was the size of a 1 bedroom flat in London and the terrace was home to one of the best inventions in furniture EVER (a comfy outside wicker sun lounger with pram style hood) ANNNDDD a hot tub!!! Yes a frikkin hot tub on the terrace!!
Once we had overcome the awe of our surroundings and tried out the many luxuries our room offered we headed downstairs to dinner as the chateau has its own restaurant downstairs. Despite it being rather quiet and not a soul in sight when we arrived it was a complete turn out for dinner and the food was extremely yummy, the men had steaks…again and Mum and I had the fish fillet accompanied by creamy risotto. After dinner we headed to the lounge for coffee and a game of billiards, which we didn’t really know the rules to so made up our own which actually worked quite well!
It was actually quite eerie as it appeared the staff locked up and headed home for the evening leaving us on our own in the middle of nowhere in an ancient castle, the setting of many a horror film. We obviously weren’t the only ones staying there, well we hope not anyway, as when we retired to bed there were definitely shuffling sounds coming from upstairs and it didn’t help my nerves that a paper bag happened to fall over in the middle of the night!
French sentence of the day:
Pou vons – nous prendre le caffe dans le salon? (may we take coffee in the lounge?)
Lexie
xxx