Category: flora & fauna

  • Terredavino, Cantine in Barolo

    Continuing with our visit to Northern Italy – Barolo – one of the best-known Italian wines – are made in the village of Barolo in Piedmont.  Partly because of time-constraint, we did not visit any of the famous winery, like Conterno, … and not even Renato Ratti, owner of the villa where we were staying…

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  • La Cadre Noir de Saumur

    Back to posting on the stuff we did in June in the Val de Loire … The French National Riding School (Ecole nationale d’Equitation) founded in 1972 is located in Saumur. Take a look at their very helpful official website here. Much of the information here came from this site. We had a 2+ hour-guided tour (the…

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  • Château et Jardins de Villandry

    This is one of the three chateaux we visited in the Loire Valley. We chose Villandry because of its famous beautiful gardens. Villandry is unusual in that it is a Renaissance castle that was the residence of neither a king nor a courtesan, but of Jean Le Breton, Minister of Finance for François I. He drew…

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  • Champignonerie at the Musée, Saumur

    Continuing with our journey into the caves of Saumur … People in the area did not just live in caves, they use it to store wine and to grow mushroom. See earlier post here about the museum. The caves provide an environment of high humidity and constant temperature that is perfect for growing mushroom. Many…

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