Traveling in France: Saumur and Château d'Artigny

Our road trip continues.

Our next stop was Saumur, which is also located on the Loire river.  Saumur is picturesque with plenty to see.  

While in Saumur, we visited the Cadre noir de Saumur - Ecole Nationale d'Equitation - the historic French military riding academy, founded in 1828.  The academy's name, Cadre Noir (or Black Corps), comes from the black uniforms worn by its instructors and riders.  

The Cadre Noir is included on UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.  

We toured the facility and saw lots of riders and horses in training.

"Are you looking at me?"

Below are some amorous equines.

Unhappy about being interrupted while eating hay, the horse below is saying:  "Go ahead.  Make my day."

At the most recent Summer Olympic games, the French team included a Cadre Noir instructor.  The team won the Gold medal in Team Eventing.

We also spotted some equine artwork during our enjoyable visit to the Cadre Noir.

We also visited the Ackerman winery in Saumur.  The land in the region is ideal for producing wine and the troglodyte caves carved in the soft tuffeau rock are ideal for long-term wine storage.  

Sally, Rob and Marie-Chantal at Ackerman winery, founded in 1811

We toured the winery's extensive network of caves.  Along the way, we stopped at a sniffing station and tried to identify different wine bouquets.  

We also learned all about wine bottles.

In the caves, different works of art were displayed, including artwork using black light.

In the caves, we also discovered some traditional French games, including La boule de fort.

Of course, we visited the tasting room and sampled  some white, red and Cremant, a delicious sparkling wine.

Marie-Chantal said, "That's my kind of wine glass."

We had a nice very time at the winery.

In Saumur, we also visited a very different kind of museum, the Musée des Blindés, which features the world's largest collection of tanks.  Who knew?

Here is a photographic tour of the museum.

Following our visit to Saumur, we overnighted at Château d'Artigny, a 20th century chateau in Montbazon.  The chateau was built for the founder of Coty perfumes.  The chateau was lovely inside and out, and we enjoyed a picnic on the grounds of the chateau.

Marie-Chantal spotted a fig tree and decided it was time for a snack.

Thanks for visiting Saumur and Château d'Artigny with us.

Next stop, Amboise.