Chateau de Tremblaye

After western Brittany we headed to Cholet and the Pays to La Loire. We'd found a great looking chateau hotel in the orange book though I was decidedly wobbled when the directions took us through a fairly large industrial estate on the outskirts of Cholet! It wasn't helped by the fact that without realising it we'd broken the connection for the sat nav and the battery ran out just as we were making our way through Nantes, leaving me back with the Atlas and the brief directions in the book! Sat Nav is a marvellous invention but it's always good to have a back up! We managed to find a replacement connection in a very helpful car parts shop but it took us half a day of exploring to find the right kind of shop.
I was further wobbled by the chateau itself which appeared to be semi deserted and extremely crumbly though very picturesque. John and a very helpful chef carried all of our luggage up 3 huge flights of stairs to an amazing room right at the top of the chateau with a great view over the grounds and John persuaded me that he was charmed by the whole crumbling chateau experience and happy to stay. I certainly warmed to the place which manages to give the impression of being deep in the countryside and has wonderful grounds, woodland, a pool and a pen of small sheep and chickens. The bathroom contained a bath which is a great luxury in French hotels so I was delighted - though less delighted when the hot water broke down but once they realised it was broken it was quickly fixed. With few guests I usually managed to get the pool to myself each evening for 60 lengths (it's only small) and roads are quiet enough to run without getting disturbed.
Most importantly the food is absolutely amazing - here in this falling down place in the middle of nowhere they have a Maitre Cuisinier who creates the most wonderful meals. The firat night I had the basic Menu du Terroir which was incredible so on Friday night we had the full menu and for Sunday lunch we spent several hours working our way through six fantastic courses - foie gras, turbot, cochon, with accompanying wines. It was truly amazing and pretty much impossible to do anything else for the rest of the day.