Visitors from Australia: part 1

I mentioned a couple of times over the past weeks that my parents were visiting from Australia. On Thursday (the 30th June) I went up to Paris to meet them off the Eurostar from London and bring them back to Preuilly. We arrived in Preuilly on the Thursday evening bus having public transported all the way. This took less than 3 hours, a saving of a couple of hours and a couple of euros over driving.

The train from London was delayed by 40 minutes
Luckily I had allowed 150 minutes for the
connection to Gare Montparnasse

We did many things over the week and a bit:

On Friday we had a little drive in Célestine, visiting la Gargantua, the Musée at le Grand Pressigny, and stopping at one of Susan's most reliable orchid sites. On Saturday we had a walk in the Forêt de Preuilly (where we saw some frogs) after doing the Saturday morning market shop.

Sunday, Preuilly held the second (as far as we are aware) fête de chasse, so we walked down to the plan d'eau to take in the hunting horn competition, look at the dogs, and have a splendid meal provided by the comité des fêtes (4 courses, 15euros)

Dad watching the hunting horn competition.
I bet you can't see him in that camoflaged hat.

On Monday we went to Tours and visited the Prieuré de Saint-Cosme, the remains of a monastry on the edge of Tours, where Ronsard wrote poetry. Susan will no doubt be writing about this garden at a later date.

The remains of the Prieuré de Saint-Cosme

On the Tuesday we left them to their own devices whilst I went for my health check up (I think I mentioned that I am really healthy...) and then ate dinner at l'Image (thanks Dad).

Simon

ps - this has taken ages to appear: we have been incredibly busy - my parents for 10 days, working for 5 days, and then friends visiting from London. I haven't had time to think, let alone time to write my thoughts down.