In Summer 2016, Anastasia and I decided to spend a few days off in late August around the Loire Valley exploring the amazing Chateaux of this wine producing region. This roadtrip was very special for us as we found out we were expecting our little ~~poop machine~~ ray of sunshine baby boy at the end of our trip.

Our trip started by driving toward the Chateau de Chambord where we arrived late in the afternoon and missed the last call to enter the Chateau itself. Why we arrived late? We took the scenic way there and have fun with the rolls of hay in the fields taking photos. It might be just us, but we do enjoy climbing these and doing photos on them. We even took a few portraits of Boo - our dog. Before our baby Dante came along, we sort of were practicing traveling with Boo and taking photos of him wherever we went.

The reason we decided to do this trip was the close proximity of the Chateaux - it is a perfect trip to drive from city to city and castle to castle. The Loire Valley is just some 2 hours away from Paris and each Chateaux is about 45 minutes to a little over an hour from each other. If you’re good at planning out itineraries, you can set up your trip to visit two of these amazing places per day and stay each night in a different hotel exploring the different cities/villages of the area.

It is perfect if you enjoy road trips in the summer and it is wine country as well.

Our trip started out going to Chambord which looks like something out of Cinderella or any of Disney’s princess movies. After failing to get into the castle itself because we were late, we ended up having a quick snack at the little area and made our way to our hotel for the night in Blois.

Day two consisted of Chateaux de Chenonceau and Amboise. We decided to go first to Chenonceau because it was the longer leg of the drive. This is probably my favorite one of the whole trip because the castle is a bridge! Add to that a lovely grounds with pretty gardens and trails in the forest, it quickly made it’s way into my heart. I would come back to Chenonceau for a wedding shoot in 2017 around the time that Dante was born. Check some of the photos out below.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Amboise and visited this unique tower-like castle. You have to climb up as it sits on a sort of hill which is a bit of a challenge if you’re carrying a bunch of cameras, a dog and it’s blazing hot. Nevertheless, the view from on top is gorgeous. With the sun starting to get low on the horizon, we made our way to Tours for yummy dinner and spend the night there.

For day three, we had planned to spend the morning visiting Chateau de Villandry then make our way to dinner with our friend in Le Mans. France is known for beautiful gardens, but the ones from Villandry sit highest on top of the list with their intricate designs and insane meticulous planning. These gardens kick any other one in the butt.

If you are interested in planning out a trip to the Loire, make sure to visit the tourism website of Val de Loire (in French and secondary website in English) or just ask us :)

All photos below were taken on our Canon EOS3 on Fuji 400H developed and scanned by the awesome crew of Carmencita FIlm Lab in Spain.