Journal Sunday 24th August 2025

Unusually, I am writing this, not on the day itself, but I’m in our hotel room at Les Jardins Du Beauval, with an hour to kill because we’re bushed after an 18k steps day. There will be a dedicated Zooparc du Beauval Blog, but for now, stick with me as I try to remember what we did on Sunday…..

We rammed everything that was required into the car in the morning. I had (as ever) overpacked, but the beauty of going on holiday with your own car is that you don’t need to decant things into tiny bottles and worry about luggage scales, and that is a very good thing.

Zooparc du Beauval is in the Loire Valley which was a very easy 2.1/4 hour drive from home. The parking at the hotel was plentiful, but we couldn’t check in until 4.00pm, and as it was just before 12.00 we decided to head straight into the park. We thought we could box off the 2 big shows in the afternoon, freeing up our 2 full days to just see the animals. The hotel is a 5 minute walk from the entrance (although it feels much longer on your way back). I won’t go into too much detail about the zoo in my journal posts because I will write a proper blog, but the Sea lion show was cute, but just OK, the bird show however was phenomenal, and I can’t choose between it and the show at Puy du Fou. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about , you can read my Puy du Fou blog here https://rosbifblog.com/2022/06/14/puy-du-fou-the-best-theme-park-in-the-world/).

We had a snack in a restaurant within a massive covered aviary. The waitress said she loved my hair, but for a moment I thought she said she loved my horse, (the old cheveux vs cheval thing). This led to me having the “My Lovely Horse” song from Father Ted in my head for the full afternoon. I also had my first ever Brookie, which as it turns out, is cookie/brownie hybrid. Remember when we all lost our minds over Whoopie Pies for 10 minutes?

We explored for a good few hours, but on a hot afternoon there was a lot of seemingly empty enclosures and sleeping animals, so we headed back to the hotel to check in. Not before purchasing a vulture plushy from one of the gift shops for my birthday because they’re my favourite. It has a name, and I shall reveal this name, in tomorrow’s blog.

There are multiple hotels you can stay at, ours is Balinese themed, with tiki style covered walkways, and beautiful landscaping. After check in, we had a drink at the bar (Saint Germain Spritz of course), before the hotel’s buffet dinner and crashing out, ready to go again tomorrow, when I shall be celebrating my 50th trip round the sun.

TTFN,

V x

Subscribe because you know you want to know what my vulture is called.