Saumur and Aubigné

On the weekend we went to a Brocante or boot sale at Saumur, a town not far from here right on the Loire. The first year we came here we went to the same one and got great bargains . This year we didn't really need a badger umbrella standor a stuffed red squirrelWe did have a lovely lunch though and a chance to do some more market research on Ile Flottante .... this time Ricardo was the taster.
Afterwards we went to a festival of wine art and music at a nearby village called Aubigné. The area around Aubigné on the Layon river is famous for a wonderful dessert wine called Coteau du Layon. This year at their féte they had a font made specially by an Italian sculptor named Claudio Parmiggiani that dispensed the wine. Here Ricardo got to be the taster again..... In most of the photos lately you may notice that Ricardo wears a rather charming hat. It was given to him by my lovely sister for his birthday and never a more perfect present has there been. He hates taking it off to sleep and always leaves it somewhere where he can see it first thing on awakening. So you can imagine our suprise and delight when we bumped into an equally stylish stranger who happened to be wearing the same hat! It is indeed a small world.