Springtime Visit to French Chateaus and Wineries

Touring Paris, Loire Valley, Bordeaux, and Saint Jean de Luz in May 2025

by Ed Thomas with Tiger Adolf

In May 2025, my wife,Tiger Adolf, and I spent about 2 weeks in France with friends Karen and Joe Childs visiting chateaus and wineries in Paris, Loire Valley, Bordeaux, and Saint Jean de Luz.  This article summarizes our trip and acknowledges the tour guides who made the journey memorable. 

Paris

Arriving in Paris, we checked into the highly rated and centrally located Grand Hotel Malher in the popular Marais downtown historic district. During our three-night stay we enjoyed a classical chamber music concert by the Ensemble Royal de Paris at Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre Church, dinners at Les Bougresses and Le Procope, an afternoon coffee and pastry break at Le Loir dans La Théière, and cocktails at Maison Proust, Resistance, and Little Red Door.  

Favorite Paris City Memories

• Our airport taxi driver’s excitement as we witnessed a police sting nabbing motorcyclists misusing the taxi-only driving lanes.
• Nibbling at the world’s tallest and amazing lemon meringue pie (errr… tart au citron).
• Listening to chamber music performed by a quintet of young musicians eager to entertain in an ancient chapel within sight of Notre Dame.
• How thoughtfully dressed all the locals were, young and old alike.
• Dining on a plat du jour dinner amidst the lively, neighborly vibe at Les Bougresses restaurant and the celebratory mood of dinner at Le Procope as they led us up the central staircase.
• Sipping cocktails on a street-facing loveseat at Resistance and having a passerby ask permission to take our photo and then walk away smiling to themselves, muttering “So Parisian!”
• Trying to open the locked red door to enter Little Red Door only to learn the secret entrance was in the wall next to it.
• Petting dogs and nurturing a whiskey and cognac-based cocktail at 11 p.m. in the reverential, book-lined lounge of Maison Proust.
• Leaning out the balcony of our hotel room to soak up the sun and street view.

Tours with Iris

Iris Amice (dayinsummer@yahoo.com) was our tour guide for 2 full days in Paris.  One day she met us outside Notre Dame Cathedral after we had viewed the interior on our own for a private walking tour that included the Notre Dame exterior as well as Sainte Chapelle chapel, Conciergerie palace, Ile de la Cité district, and “our” Marais neighborhood.  We stopped along the way for lunch at Café Panis, ice cream at the iconic Berthillon, coffee at La Caféothèque, and throat lozenges from a pop-up Ricola Shop.  On another day, Iris picked us up at our hotel in a taxi van driven by Amy for a full-day private tour that started in the village of Giverny with a visit to watercolor artist Claude Monet’s House and Gardens and an outdoor lunch at Hotel Baudy. Amy then drove us to the Palace of Versailles where Iris guided us through the buildings and gardens. We were fortunate that the palace’s fountains were in full operation to celebrate Victory in Europe Day.  It was unfortunate that the palace was so crowded with tourists elbowing their way through the throngs that Tiger now reflects on this visit as the “Battle of Versailles.”  By the way, we first met Iris in Paris in 2024 when we hired her for a private walking tour of Montmartre and impulsively decided to meet her a second day for her chocolate tour of downtown specialty shops. Iris has been guiding tours through Paris for over 20 years and her insight into how her life shifted from her Indiana home to living in Paris was fascinating.

 Favorite Iris Tour Memories 

• Learning the story behind the details in the archway of Sainte Chapelle that I had passed by in a previous visit.
• Standing in Marie Antoinette’s prison cell and learning how briskly the French courts prosecuted alleged dissidents without due process.
• The vibrancy of the Ile de la Cité market filled with silver tableware, African art, and cut-to-order leather belts. 
• Understanding the plaques outside several schools that memorialize the specific numbers of schoolchildren deported to Germany prison camps during World War II, as laughing children departed from school for the day.
• Enjoying the familiarity of the splashes of color in Monet’s gardens and the bridge over the pond.
• Relishing in the relaxed garden at Hotel Baudy’s outdoor cafe and visiting the artist studio in the backyard.  
• Being awed by the opulence of Versailles’ building and grounds, especially the ballroom lined with mirrors and the huge, formal gardens and fountains with a pond so large they staged mock naval battles.

Loire Valley

We initially planned to take the high-speed train from Paris to the village of Amboise in Loire Valley, but instead we wisely hired Stephanie LeDonne of Odyssée en Val de Loire who transported us and our luggage in her van for personalized curb-to-curb service. Along the way she engaged us in conversation about Paris and the Loire Valley. She joyfully taught us about her hometown, Orleans, and its famous daughter, the patron saint Joan of Arc.  Stephanie is a French native who has owned her tour company for over 15 years.  

We chose to make Amboise our Loire Valley homebase at the advice of travel guru Rick Steve. After settling into our 2-bedroom apartment with a terrace overlooking the Loire River from My France Vacation Rentals (see our place HERE), we dined on the menu du jour at Le Lion D’Or that included local catfish and first-of-the-season white asparagus and strawberries.  The next morning, we walked to the weekly Amboise Market where we bought pasta, fish, and produce for several dinners, and much too much cheese and sausage for snacking.

 After the market, Simon Jeannet (contact@toursavelo.com) picked us up at our apartment in his car for a full-day private tour that included visits to Chateau de Chenonceau and the gardens at Chateau de Villandry with lunch at La Doulce Terrasse, where we enjoyed beef cheeks and watched the pouring rain, followed by a winery tour and tasting at Domaine le Capitaine.  The next day, Simon took us to visit Chateau de Chambord and Chateau de Cheverny with a leisurely lunch at Le Rendez Vous des Gourmets and a winery tour and tasting at Domaine le Portail.  Each evening, we worked together to prepare a relaxing, home-cooked meal using our market purchases.  The wine we drank was from places we visited and a specialty food store in downtown Amboise that strategically featured a wine tasting bar.   

Favorite Loire Valley Chateau Tour Memories 

• Discovering the strategic role of toll takers at the chateaux along the Loire river.
• Marveling at how the ballroom was built across the river at Chenonceau and how the kitchen was renovated when it served over 1,000 patients as a military hospital during World War II. 
• Learning how doves/pigeons lived in dovecotes and were cultivated for meat, sport, pillow stuffing, and status since the number of birds was regulated by the property’s size.
• Design details of the planting and irrigation of Villandry’s gardens that requires a staff of 10 to maintain.
• Seeing the exposed Roman aqueduct and watching the spring water flow in the cellar beneath Domaine le Capitaine before an intimate barrel tasting.
• Playing peek-a-boo on the double helix staircase which offered even more appreciation for its intricate design.
• Imagining myself actually living in Chateau de Cheverny thanks to the arrangement of family photos and heirloom furnishings that breathed life into what otherwise could be a museum stop.
• Enjoying a leisurely lunch served on modern tableware by the sister and brother who co-own Le Rendez Vous des Gourmets with a menu that included “grandma’s rice pudding” which raised what I believed was my already high standards for this dish.
• Asparagus at nearly every meal, cooked at least seven different ways.
• Meeting the husband and wife co-owners of Domaine le Portail winery and her response that “we don’t have time to age our wine” when I asked about library bottles.
• Simon’s passion for French history, his extensive knowledge of the places we visited, and how I left him speechless as he pointed out a costume’s codpiece.  
• Simon’s curiosity for how we prepared our asparagus, fish, and other market purchases with special interest in our choice of sauces.

The next two days of our Loire Valley stay were focused on visiting off-the-beaten-path wineries in private tours by Keith and Linda Mills of Loire Valley Wineries. They owned a wine shop near Boston, Massachusetts, for over a decade and now live in Chinon.  Each day, they picked us up in their van with fresh-baked croissants from “our” boulangerie, and drove us to three smaller wineries where we met with the owners or key staff, toured the vineyards and production facilities, and tasted their wines. The first tour day focused on the AOC‘s of Chinon, Saint-Nicholas-de Bourgueil and Saumur-Champigny/Saumur with visits to Domain Lambert, Domain Filiatreau, and Domain Mabileau. Keith and Linda prepared a 3-course “picnic, featuring French foods, including quiche made with their chickens’ eggs served in an upscaled dovecote.

The second day of tours focused on the Touraine Amboise region where vineyards grow cabernet franc, côt (malbec), gamay, pineau d’aunis and pinot noir as well as assorted white grapes.  We visited Caves Cathelineau, Clos Roussely and Chateau Nitray and enjoyed another 3-course lunch, this time featuring chicken orzo salad, at a picnic table in the sunshine just outside a wine cave.

Each of the winery tour days included sips of over 15 wines, not including the bottle of wine we shared at lunch. So perhaps it’s not surprising that we chose to have dinner in our apartment each of those evenings as we reflected on the wine insight we gained and the wine capacity we imbibed.  

Favorite Loire Valley Winery Tour Memories

• All the variations of chenin and vouvray white wines we enjoyed as well as an even greater appreciation for cabernet franc and pinot noir grapes.
• Insight into the 10-generation legacy of Caves Cathelineau and its cellar hand-dug in the off-season by its ancestors. Also, surprising our guides when they walked us up to the dovecote because we already knew what one was, and our surprise at how finely the one at Caves Cathelineau had been upcycled to serve as our picnic lunch spot.
• Learning what a certain winery’s export manager thought of how its overseas market prospects are today and what would make it better.
• Feeling the heartache of the Chateau Nitray owner as he described his harvest in 2023 vs. 2024, his enthusiasm for his new bladder-driven wine pressing Italian technology (“But the finger pressing the start button is French!”) as compared to his father’s hand-pressed method,   
• Candidly hearing what some expats think of the market impact of Total Wines, Costco, and Kermit Lynch, and how they learn to “glug glug” and “nyac nyac” when drinking with French neighbors.

On our last day in Amboise, we toured the Royal Chateau of Amboise which was just steps from our apartment’s front door and strolled another 15 minutes to visit Close Luce which was the last home of Leonardo da Vinci.  The da Vinci home was furnished much like it would have been in his time and the grounds had  life-sized versions of his greatest inventions and a gallery with projections of his best-known artworks. We enjoyed a 6-course dinner at Les Arpents on our final night in the Loire Valley.

Favorite Amboise Village Memories

• Walking the streets in early evening to go to and from dinner at two Michelin-recognized restaurants less than 2 blocks from our apartment door.
• Looking straight up at the Royal Chateau of Amboise’s tall spire looking over the river and village with its multi-colored uplights at dusk, and the abandoned drawbridge entrance at eye-level.
• Marveling at da Vinci’s inventions and the elaborate cave homes on the street leading to and from his home.
• Shopping like a local at the weekly market where sellers were eager to share preparation tips, and at the local grocery store where the checkout lady had to spray air freshener after the departure of an odorous, elderly patron.
• Sitting on the balcony overlooking the Loire River with our French Press coffee as we watched the hot air balloons float by.

Bordeaux

High-speed trains run between the Loire Valley and Bordeaux, but we knew someone with a very nice van.  So it was that our new friend Stephanie LeDonne of Odyssée en Val de Loire returned to our Amboise apartment to transport us and our luggage to our hotel just outside Bordeaux. The direct driving route would take about 4 hours but Stephanie agreed to make a full day of it by including a slight detour to the Cognac region.  After lunch at Comptoir du Marché in Jonzac we visited the family-owned Bertrand Cognac distillery for a tour and tasting.  Along the way, Stephanie quizzed us on our knowledge of Paris history, Loire Valley chateaus, and her beloved Joan of Arc.  She had warned us in advance that she was going to play “naughty teacher,” but we were rewarded with a personal paper certificate for our “skill and genius of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.”

As Stephanie pulled into the driveway to our hotel, she played on her van radio Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.  The place looked that spectacular. For the next 3 nights, we stayed at family-owned Chateau Grattequina which is about 20 minutes outside the Bordeaux city center.  The mansion built in 1872 along the Garonne River is now a 10-room hotel with an adjoining building that hosts special events.  As Joe remarked, “After seeing so many chateaux, it’s nice to be staying in one.”  After we checked into our hotel rooms, we reassembled on our suites’ riverfront terraces to enjoy leftover wine and cheese from Loire Valley market shopping.

The next morning, Steve Lawrence picked us up to drive to Chateau La Corne which is the winery co-owned by Steve and his wife, Diana Lucz.  After a tour of their vineyard with insight into their innovative, biodynamic practices and a barrel tasting of their cabernet sauvignon in their cellar, Diana served a 4-course meal on their patio featuring a mixed grill of sausages, chicken and duck that Steve cooked “au sarments des vignes” (on their dried vine twigs).  We learned that Steve and Diana met while working in the wine industry in California.  The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper did an article about them in 2019 that you can read HERE.  On the way back to our hotel, Steve drove through Saint-Emilion and told us about this historic city which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Although we didn’t think we could eat another bite, Steve pulled up outside Saint-Emilion Macarons and insisted we sample the specialty cookies that have been made here using the same recipe since 1620.  

After another night lounging on our terraces (did I mention we had ALOT of leftover wine, cheese and sausage), we got up the next morning and met the hotel’s owner on his dock for a personal ride into Bordeaux in the hotel’s speedboat.  He pointed out the city sights and took our photo while his grandson steered the boat.  They pulled the boat alongside a city pier and dropped us off to walk the streets where we saw the reflecting pool, food hall/market, and Giant Clock.  On our last night in Bordeaux, we enjoyed a 6-course, wine-paired dinner at La Fine Bouche and celebrated Joe’s birthday in the very grandest style imaginable.   

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and piled into an Uber to the Bordeaux train station.  Within one block of the train station, we found several municipal taxis without drivers blocking the key intersections around the train station to protest the French government’s reimbursement policies for medical-related transfers.  After walking the last block dragging our luggage, Joe and Karen boarded a train north to travel back to Paris to catch their return flight to Denver, while Tiger and I boarded a train south to Saint Jean de Luz near the Spanish border. 

Favorite Bordeaux Memories

• Exploring the downtown market, stopping for lunch in a sidewalk cafe, and meeting a staff person who spoke English but not French. When I asked her where she was from, she said Argentina and pointed out it was an Argentinian restaurant.  We ordered the chalkboard special which I thought was steak, fries and a glass of wine.  It was fried squid and it was delicious, as was the dry white wine. 
• Being the first to arrive at a small, highly recommended restaurant just as it opened at 7:30 p.m. and cutting short their staff meal at the sidewalk table.  By the time we left, the place was packed. 
• Hearing about Steve’s initial struggles to engage with his vineyard neighbors who all grow the same grape varietal and sell to a wholesaler who is currently paying less than their production cost.  He has been successful in establishing meetings where the locals share their wine and farming practices.  As Steve said, “I’m fortunate to not have a father and grandfather telling me the way things must be done in the wine business.”
• Meeting the cognac distiller from Knoxville who met his cognac heiress wife when they both taught at an American school in Costa Rica. They moved to Cognac when her grandmother announced she was going to sell the place if the family didn’t take it over.  We learned that the heiress’ father met the woman who would become her mother when her family immigrated from Spain to pick cognac grapes in the French vineyards.

Basque Country

Tiger and I arrived at the Saint Jean de Luz train station and made the short walk to Hotel de la Plage which is directly on the beach of Bay of Biscay. Although it had rained off and on throughout the trip, this was the only time we were out in it, rather than observing.  After checking into the hotel the rain let up and we ventured out for dinner to Pil Pil Enea where we enjoyed an authentic Basque meal of grilled, whole Hake fish with some hyper-local white wine.  We were the first ones seated when the restaurant opened at 7:30 p.m. and when we left the 12 or so tables were full with local couples.       

The next morning we walked through the weekly street market of tables that surrounded the permanent Les Halles market building.  Our breakfast at Kako Etxea was a set menu of a cappuccino with a croissant and baguette with yogurt and jam.  Then we walked around the village and window-shopped (did you know the French term for this is window licking?). That night we enjoyed a plate of thinly-sliced Iberico ham and other tapas with Campari spritzes at a sidewalk table at Pub du Corsaire. On our last day, we walked along the bayfront to Pointe Sante Barbe for a view from the highest spot that overlooks the city and bay, and then returned through the village with a stop for a couple cappuccinos and a croissant at a sidewalk table at Café Vauban. Later that afternoon, we had wine and leftover snacks on our beachfront balcony, then dined at La Vieille Auberge where we enjoyed another traditional Basque meal of a whole roasted turbo fish with octopus ceviche to start, and koka flan for dessert.  

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and Zachary of The Best of Basque picked us up with our luggage and delivered us to our hotel in downtown Bilbao.  Along the way, we stopped for a walking tour of the Hondarribia fishing village on the France-Spain border and a visit to the Petritegi Cider House in the hills of Astigarraga, Spain.  After a tour of the apple orchards and production facility with tastes of several ciders, we were ushered into the dining hall for a family-style meal that included chorizo, salt cod, and ribeye steak. Dessert was cheese with quince jelly, walnuts, and cookies. Throughout the meal, we followed the common practice to leave the table and go into the adjacent room to pour cider from various 55-gallon wooden barrels.  By pour, I mean that an attendant would open a spigot when we signaled we were ready to catch the cider in our glass before the next person moved their glass into position for a refill.  It was as exhilarating as it sounds.  Our tour guide Zach is a Michigan native who moved to Bilbao over a decade ago.  We hired his company in 2024 to transport us from San Sebastian, Spain to Bilbao with a coastal tour and lunch.

We chose NYX Hotel in downtown Bilbao for our last night in Spain because it was adjacent to the Casco Viejo old town area we enjoyed during our last visit.  After checking in, we headed first for an apéro (before dinner drink) at a sidewalk table at Baster Bar behind the Bilbao Cathedral which was a favorite people-watching spot last time.  It didn’t disappoint. After closing our tab, we marveled at all the pintxos and tapas choices in the surrounding bars, but chose a more sedate approach by getting a quiet table just as the doors opened at the upscale Asador Sutegi steakhouse which had a gorgeous raw seafood display.  We chose grilled shrimp and scallops with sweet peppers.  Our enjoyment was disrupted as the restaurant filled with noisy British soccer fans celebrating a regional tournament victory.  After dinner, we exited for a short stroll through the city streets and a cocktail in our hotel’s quiet lobby lounge.

On our final morning in Bilbao, we walked through the La Ribera market and snagged an outdoor table in the Plaza Nueva for a breakfast of cappuccino with morning pintxos that included small iberico ham sandwiches on baguettes and Tiger’s favorite Gilda which is an olive, sweet pepper, and anchovy served on a toothpick that is named for the 1946 film noir starring Rita Hayworth.  Then we caught a taxi to the Bilbao airport for our return flight to San Francisco.   

Favorite Basque Country Memories

• Sitting on our hotel balcony watching the ships, beachgoers, and boardwalkers.
• Challenges of finding morning coffee that wasn’t just espresso in a small French town and how I ordered a “coffee creme” in Bilbao (after living for 2 weeks in France) only to be told by an upset waiter, “no, cafe con leche!”
• Infectous good humor of the man in the market selling us fresh prunes as he asked me after I paid him, “oh, would you like your remainder?” meaning “did I want my change?”  He enjoyed his joke and my confusion.  That experience mirrored the restaurant owner who I asked if we could have a seat although we didn’t have a reservation and he said he only had an outside table to which I agreed even though the sky was overcast and the storefront had no outside tables.  And then he giggled, and waved us inside.  I later watched him play the same joke on another arriving couple.  
• Snickering with our tour guide about how loud and obnoxious the British soccer fans were in their short pants and jerseys, and then experiencing them for ourselves.
• The seemingly endless variety and freshness of the products in the ultra-modern Bilbao central market.. and the shock of seeing cow snouts, chicken feet, and other assorted animal parts in the display cases.

We thought our 2024 trip to France and Spain was the trip of a lifetime. This journey proved we have alot more living to do. Next up is an AMAWaterways riverboat cruise to castles in Germany and Luxembourg in October 2026 with Joe and Karen and another couple.

Paris Photo Gallery

Loire Valley Photo Gallery

Bordeaux Photo Gallery

Basque Photo Gallery