This week was spent visiting some of the great French gardens and chateaux in the regions of the Loire Valley, Normandy and Picardy.

The style of gardens ranged from French formal of the 16th century to contemporary gardens created at the end of the 20th century.

A highlight was the magnificent Villandry, a massive potager garden maintained to perfection by a small team of dedicated and highly skilled gardeners.

Best viewed from high on the chateau terrace, it is a sight to behold with box hedges clipped into intricate shapes and patterns, interplanted with vegetables and flowers!

Truly spectacular!

Another great garden was the Le Bois des Moutiers, a fine example of the English partnership of Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll created in 1898.

The garden unfolds in a sequence of ‘rooms’ with beautiful planting between stone walls and yew hedges and includes a fine woodland walk.

And what trip to France would be complete without a visit to the great impressionist painter Claude Monet’s Garden, so rich in history and always ablaze with colour.

The famous water lily pond was filled with pink and white blooms and luckily few people, unlike previous visits!!!

We stayed in some amazing accommodation including two historic chateaux and a hotel right next door to the cathedral in Rouen, a city rich in medieval architecture.

There I visited the tower where Joan of Arc was brought to trial and the square where she was burnt at the stake!

The Musée des Beaux-Arts contains many fine paintings of Joan and I also enjoyed a wonderful Impressionist Exhibition of Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Gauguin.

The food, as you would expect, was excellent throughout! We were treated to some first class cuisine – occasionally big white plates and not much food - but the flavours - très bon!

The desserts have all been ‘to die for’ and I have taken a temporary break from my sugar free lifestyle – who can resist dark chocolate mousse, apple charlotte, fresh strawberry tarts, crème brûlée – not me at the moment!!!

And I ask you, what could be more idyllic than driving through the French countryside on a warm summers day, the smell of freshly cut hay, the ripe harvest of wheat, oats and flax in the fields, scattered with red poppies and blue cornflowers.

Then pulling into a quaint mediaeval village and enjoying a ham and cheese baguette and a cool rosé on the banks of the River Seine - moments to remember!

Happy gardening and Au Revoir,

George Hoad