Great day at Chaumont

Château at Chaumont

We got to Chaumont probably two or three times during the garden festival, which begins late April until October.  You can buy a ticket for the whole site which includes the château as well as the gardens or just a ticket to gardens, which is what we did yesterday. I'm trying to write this with the thud of heavy rain pounding away in the background. Stark contrast to yesterday - sunny and hot at around 25.


We have been caught in heavy rain over there in the past, but with plenty of trees about, there's no difficulty in finding some cover. Yesterday of course we didn't need it.  The light was really good and I got so much photography done that I used up my compact flash card. Didn't have a spare with me!! But in any case by then, it was early afternoon and the light had become too hard.  

Every year there is a different theme. For 2014 it's The Seven Deadly Sins. Twenty-eight gardens, each with the same dimensions. but each has a different designer(s) from around the world, as well as home-grown - sorry about that, couldn't resist it.

At this stage everything is looking wonderfully fresh. We're going back again June/July, just to see how the gardens have filled out. But we're also hoping to get over there for one of the late night openings, which happen throughout July/August. The evening starts at 10pm and finishes around midnight. 


May be we'll go over and have dinner somewhere in the town, and then wander round the gardens afterwards. It would fun to do that. There are five different eating places in the gardens, but they all shut are shut by 6pm. Fortunately there are two really nice places very close by. 

Top Girls?

There are always traditional design ideas alongside the abstract and the impractical.  The sort of mix that we really enjoy. Something always surprises. The gardens this year were allso interesting, from the simplest of presentations to the passionate and colourful. There was one that seemed perfect for an outdoor production of Top Girls.  We were there for about four hours in all. Clearly a good year.