Tuesday 29 March 2011

A rose by any other name................Chédigny!

Last year we went out for the day with our friends John and Maureen. They have lived in the area for at least six months of the year since John retired, about 4 years ago. They have almost finished renovations to their house, and  a gite which they now rent out. More about this in a future post........

Anyway, at the end of May they suggested we all go to
Chédigny. We arrived at their house near Chatillion at midday, had an early lunch, and set off.

Chédigny is about 7km from Loches, and if you haven't visited is well worth a visit - especially if you like to see a good display of roses. The village is covered with them!


We visited during the annual Rose Festival, but I suspect the village would still be beautiful at other times in the summer, possibly when it wasn't so busy. However the festival also meant that there were various stalls selling roses, exhibitions of roses and rose products.









There were street entertainers and musicians tucked away in corners of the village, and wherever you looked there was something to see!








Jim McNeill ( A Social History of the Touraine) must have visited around the same time that we did; you can read his blog post and view his fantastic (much better than ours) photographs here.

I think we'll probably visit again this year, and buy one of the more unusual and rare varieties of roses to bring back to the UK, to remind us of France.

Towards the end of August Chédigny also stages a Blues Festival, which is yet another item on our ever growing list of 'things to do'!

6 comments:

  1. I also visited Chédigny last summer, although long after the festival. It's a lovely village and I will be writing about it myself, soon. It's a very photogenic place.

    I hope we are around at the right time to be able to go to the festival one year !!

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  2. I look forward to reading your post, Jean.

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  3. Now there's something I've learnt I didn't know the French did roses, I always thought it was such an English thng. Good to have my knowledge increased. Wonderful pics of roses growing round doors

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  4. This village certainly puts on a good show of roses, but other villages in France do too. Its probably an individual thing.

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  5. You may have to have a sit down once you've read the price of the rose.

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  6. Me thinks you could be right!!

    We did look at the prices last year, and that was probably a factor in why we didn't buy then.

    Maybe this year it will be different.........( is there a film there?)

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