I've never been to the Loire valley... But I've been to the Midi region years ago... Nice weather and very good food!
That snow picture reminds me of the first snow we get. When you go out to the country, it looks just like that. Snow pictures are quite hard. Contrast is always either too much or too little. The landscape ends up being monochrome and getting the correct exposure is a real nightmare. Also, battery life gets to be a lot shorter.
If I could, I would send over a few shovels of all the snow we got! Since the beginning of December, Environment Canada calculated we got 118cm of snow. And when they said that, Winter hadn't even started! Its been a week since the last storm and the streets of Montreal are barely accessible in some Burroughs.
There's even a guy who's selling his snow bank on eBay. He started it as a joke asking only 0.99$ for the whole thing which is about as big as a house! This morning, the bids were up to 2500$... I'd really love to see how the buyer will transport it