The main task was to buy beds and order their delivery to the new house. In general, we know the IKEA assortment, so we could take some things without looking. We spent the longest time choosing mattresses 🤣 and from the unusual, we took an interesting cabinet-work surface for the kitchen 😊 And of course, we had lunch at the IKEA restaurant, which we always liked to do. Here, with desserts, everything is in order and the mashed potatoes are just right 🤗

A distinctive feature of the French IKEA restaurant is the cheese plate 😊

Having collected everything we chose, as we usually did, in the warehouse and filled three carts, we went to the checkout with this beauty. And when everything was scanned, before paying, I asked where I should go to arrange delivery... that's when the surprise was waiting 🙈 Usually, you buy everything first, and then take what you want to deliver to a special place. But France went its own way 🤣 We had to mark everything that was scanned, unload all the small stuff back, and drag the goods for delivery back to the center of the warehouse, where they arrange delivery... the second surprise was already at the delivery arrangements. As it turned out, we did not have to pick up things in the warehouse, only codes were needed. "We will still bring you from the warehouse, and not the same ones that you picked up" - the manager explained to us 🤦‍♂️ In fact, judging by the information before delivery, the mattresses were on their way to us from a completely different store in Orleans (the third closest to us 🤷‍♂️). And the main surprise, but already quite unpleasant - the nearest possible delivery date was in 9 days!

Having made the delivery, we returned to the checkout with a receipt for the delivery 🤣 There we again punched in all the change that we ourselves took into the car (a full trunk of change 🤗), punched in the delivery receipt and the goods in it! Finally, we had a snack in the IKEA cafe and left practically when the store closed at 7 or 8 pm.

Kitchen cabinet-table. Fits perfectly, although a bit cluttered for now. You can cut something and look at the garden

On their place in the rock “Roche de Breze” in 1063 appeared underground fortress, where the surrounding residents sought refuge from Viking raids, epidemics and bad weather. The caves got a new life in the 15th-16th centuries, when the moat was widened, deepened and the underground space was again used for protection and storage. The total area of underground constructions of the castle is estimated at 28000 square meters!

Later, the underground structures were used for winemaking. The region itself has been famous for its white wine since the Middle Ages. The exceptional soil around the castle, consisting of loamy sand, clay and tuff, has always given the local wines a unique individuality and mineral content.

3 last pictures are in series in 5 minutes difference. The sun is going down :)

Paris after the French countryside seems very chaotic and hectic. Lots of cars and really lots of traffic jams. It's also all dug up now. Many squares are being built, if not stadiums, then stands, apparently to put screens in front of them. Even near the Eiffel Tower, half of the park is closed off and something is being built there for the Olympics. In some places, there are road repairs and restoration of buildings. It adds to the chaotic nature of the city. But Paris is still beautiful. Despite the cold, chestnuts are blooming everywhere. So, we had an aesthetic pleasure 😊

La Giraudière is an ancient feudal estate. The first mention of it dates back to 1298, when a certain Josbert de la Mort and his wife settled here, having rented the territory from the monastery of Pompier-Egre. In 1434, Lord Jean Dusoul became the owner, creating a family estate with a farm, vineyards and agricultural land. His descendants lived here for three centuries until Joseph Dusoul, who served as chief clerk of the Department of Water and Forestry, sold the estate to 🤷‍♂️ in 1740.

In 1786, the property was transferred to the religious community of Champigny-sur-Veud. And in the early 19th century, the estate was divided in half and received two new owners. The main building passed in 1817 to the family of local tax collector Jean-François Julien, who owned it for several generations until 1932 🔥.

In 1957, the area got a new owner and a new life. Mr. Delahaye turned the estate into a hotel. The hotel is now a three-story main house with rooms for rent and an auxiliary house with a reception, utility rooms, kitchen and restaurant. We lived on the top attic floor, which we climbed up by an internal compact spiral staircase that looks like an attached tower from the outside. There is also a rather large courtyard where tables and breakfast is served under a tall (and apparently old Atlantic cedar tree) in the warm season, and behind the house there is a large parking lot and even somewhere there must have been a charging station for electric cars 😊.

The location turned out to be really very convenient for visiting castles. The room had a bath and basically everything you need. So really liked the hotel and the details of its history are just what you expect from classic Europe.

By the way, don't you get bored with my seascapes that I post here regularly? It seems to me that the sea cannot get boring, it is always different and always beautiful. What do you think? 😉

Jellyfish, by the way, there were jellyfish of all tastes - big, small and well-fed (if such a word can be applied to jellyfish 🤣), some looked like small alien flying saucers 🤗

The sky also incredibly appeared to be sort of split into two parts - black cloud on one side, blue sky and white clouds on the other. Together with the sea, all this created inexpressible colour combinations 😊

The adjacent territory is extremely strange. There is no river as such, but rather a stream enclosed in a wooden frame. Among the trees one can see a strange wasteland with some buildings. What it is, I never realized. On the right you can see a soccer stadium, which for some reason is absent on Google map 🤷‍♂️ On both sides of the bridge there are huge cognac factories: behind the bridge there is Ararat, and from the side of the city center there is Noi factory.

The funny thing is that I didn't just write about fall, although thunderstorms seem to be a sign of spring. But in a number of trees, fall has indeed arrived. After standing green for almost the whole calendar winter, by the end of February they began to turn yellow, dry and fall! Coupled with wet asphalt, it all looks like real fall 🍂🤗

It's a working church without any museum connotation, so there were no special tourist signs in or around it. By the way, it is made of the same Armenian stone Tuv, which together with authentic patterns gives it a very old look and makes it quite unusual.

True, the beach is still in a kind of embryonic state - small and without breakwaters. The coastal zone is still under construction and improvement, so this part is better 🤷‍♂️.

Well it's certainly less green than the main streets in our area. There are nice well-maintained lawns, but not so many big old trees, mostly newly planted young trees.

The walk turned out to be really fun. It felt like walking through a new city 🤣 At the end we walked around the shopping center a bit and had a coffee in one of the cafes. Loved the neighborhood by the way 🤗