Château de Clisson

Morning guys! Although we didn't explore much last weekend, about a week ago we went to Clisson and we LOVED it. If you've been following this blog since the beginning (I started 3 years ago, what the what?!), you know that we're crazy about historical towns and castles. Well, Clisson is basically a charming historical town with a castle, so saying that we were pleased to spend the day there was an understatement.

Although we had troubles finding the car park at the beginning as our sat nav was sending us to closed roads, we enjoyed getting out of the house and discovering a new place not too far from Nantes. As we're planning to move to Brittany, it would be a shame not to explore little towns outside of Nantes whilst we're here ;)

The entry tickets weren't expensive as we didn't choose to do the guided tour and we took our time going around the old ruins practically on our own as it wasn't busy at all (it was pretty cold and I suspect that people preferred staying warm inside their houses with a cup of coffee). Also, we felt really lucky with the weather as even though it was overcast most of the time, we didn't have one drop of rain!

Once we'd seen all the corners and read all the little signs around the castle, we decided to leave and follow the footpath around the river, which took us a good hour and a half. It starts right at the foot of the castle and carries on all the way to the old mill before crossing on a bridge to arrive at the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot.

The Italian-inspired vila and its gardens were utterly beautiful and we were gutted to not have enough time to go inside and explore a bit more. Oh well, we'll just have to go back one day! It started to get busier as we realised that a lot of the local people must be used to walking their dogs on this path. And to be honest, who wouldn't? The view is beautiful all the way to the town centre.

Before leaving, we had to stop by a bar/café and whilst Jason enjoyed the Hellfest special beer, I had a very hot and comforting hot chocolate that warmed up my poor frozen hands effectively. All in all, a perfect end to a great day out :)