Sometimes you go to an event, like a concert, or go to visit someplace, like the Eiffel Tower, and you expect to be wowed. And normally when the event or visit is over you can say wow, just what I expected, that was great. But other times things sneak up on you. You are kind of minding your own business and slowly you begin to think, waitaminute, this is great. Hey, THIS IS GREAT.
So it was today as we set out from St. Mathurin. We had a sour attitude to the town, because of the little jerk we had to deal with at the camping, but from across the river the place looked really picturesque.
Things picked up immediately, as we discovered a dandy shelter in St Remy. But turning from the shelter, we realized we were next to a very ancient church.
Across the river, at St Remy, there is a cyclist shelter on the trail
Slowly it dawned on us. We were on a beautiful road linking a series of incredible villages: le Thoureil, Gennes, Chenehutte, Saumur, Souzay, Campigny, Parnay, Tourquant, Montsoreau, and many other smaller ones. Each had narrow streets, amazing old buildings, churches, bakeries (almost all closed today).
The way looked like this all day: good road, the river, and hundreds of years old buildings
The bike shop in Gennes. They had a bar end mirror to replace the one smashed in the wind in England, at the reasonable price of 12.50 Euros. Marcus installed it too.
We did not boil water this morning, so no coffee in the thermos. There are no cafes in this area either. Just "Bar - Tabac". I went into this one (where they are drinking wine and liquor at 11 a.m.) and negotiated a "cafe rallonge" - 6 ounces. Sheesh.
Some places added extra zip with special features. The first such thing we ran into was La Cave aux Moines, in Chenehutte. This was the first of the extensive cave systems we encountered. Here, we are not talking about a hole in the wall where a "cave man" might have huddled. Rather, years of extraction of limestone blocks from the hills has produced hundreds of meters or even kilometers of tunnel systems.
While the Cave aux Moines was the first cave based attraction we came to, we found that caves are actually central to the whole region between here and at least Montsoreau. Cave aux Moines has a restaurant, serving mushrooms and escargots, both of which are grown in the caves. In addition, there is a tour showing how the caves were created by the extraction of the limestone for use in construction, and how the mushrooms and escargots are grown. We found it fascinating, and at only 5 euros each we thought it was a bargain.
Prying out the blocks of tuff in the troglodyte caves
To boot, we are almost 100% sure that this is the place that Trish and Ken Graham visited. We are very eager to go reread their blog and see, and also to see their other comments about this stretch that we have found so great. Right now Crazyguy is down, so this is being written offline. It feels like being blind to be offline!
Next, on the other side of Saumur was Souzay-Champigny. According to the information poster at the base of the town, there is a network of underground streets at Souzay, now filled with restaurants.
Also at Souzay was a chateau that seemed to be for sale. I thought that would be a good one for Dodie to buy me. That way we could come out here and cycle up and down what is bound to be our beloved Loire a Velo to our hearts’ content. However the chateau is no doubt a little out of our price range, if really it is for sale. An information poster pointed out that it was the dwelling of Marguerite d’Anjou, Queen of England – married to Henry VI of Lancaster. Henry died in 1482 in the War of the Roses.
We also have the fact that up on the plateau above the river there is a huge amount of grape growing and of wineries. In fact, our cycle map is strewn with little cluster of grape symbols all over the place. Along the river, numerous wineries take advantage of the caving possibilities and store their product that way. Most offer not only tasting but also cave tours.
This is winery central. There are lots mentioned on these guide signs
In the town of Turquant, the numerous buildings built in or partially into the hillside house art workshops, and they have made a good tourist setup, with caravan parking and a 5 km circuit walk to all the buildings and workshops.
Finally, though we have yet to explore Montsoreau, it gives an initial impression of a great tourist town, with the assets of the river, the caves, and the wine making it a real winner.
The campsite Isle Verte, which we found right at the entrance to town, also helps to reinforce the notion of a place with everything. Just the cyclists shelter is a thing of beauty. It is open but has four covered sides and offers counter space, sinks, lockers, and some beds. The washroom block is vast, and I have yet to fully figure it out. There are banks of shower stalls, toilets, sinks, washing up areas, laundry room, and who knows what else. There are also male and female areas, but frankly they are fuzzy and I am not quite sure what is for who.
One curiosity is that the toilets are designed with no seats. I have seen squat toilets in India, but these are regular height while just dispensing with (apparently) irrelevant seats. However, to avoid having the little ones fall in (and drown), there are miniature ones – also with no seats. Go figure.
All day we have seen touring cyclists on the road, but none seemed interested in stopping to talk. However here at the camping there are at least ten. Among these are Pierre and Sophie (from Belgium), who we met at St. Mathurin. Their tent is next to ours, and we have enjoyed talking to them, when not typing!
We often find now that we can have conversations with people and understand what they are saying to us perfectly. While Pierre and Sophie speak very clearly, we find with them that we have to listen very closely. It’s just a little shift in accent, since they are from up North, that throws us a bit. Strangely, their accent is closer to that of Quebec than that of the people we meet from here along the Loire.
With the excellent cooking shelter just beside our tent, we are planning to have a slow start tomorrow. There is a boulangerie just down the street, so we can send a rep to pick up some fresh bread. Then we can sit here beside the Loire and pretend we are French!
While we wait for Neil to bring Crazyguy back up, here is a little story about internet access:
In England we bought a USB modem (stick) from T-Mobile. It only cost 10 pounds and may have come with 10 pounds of credit. The deal for while in England was that you bought days of internet access, rather than a certain number of megabytes with a time limit for using them.
So you could buy a day, a week, or a month of access. During this time you could use (sort of) as many megabytes as you wanted. Only thing, you had to be “fair” about your use. Fair means limiting use to some set forth amounts. However if you exceed these amounts they will not cut you off, but only slow your service. For example, then, the slightly tricky variant that I went for was any 7 days in the next 30, for 10 pounds.
However, once you hop to the continent with the T-Mobile stick, fair use and whatever is out the window and they are back to selling you raw megabytes with some time limit. For example, they offer 3 megabytes for 1 pound for 24 hours. The one I went for was 50 megabytes for 10 pounds for 30 days. When you fire up your browser, a screen appears with these various offers. If you buy one, it is paid for from the balance in your account. But there is a catch: Outside the UK there is no way to top up your balance, unless you have a UK bank account. Great for tourists, eh.
Finally, here at Isle Verte camping, there is not free wifi. Rather they offer 1 hour for 2 euros, 2 hours for 3 euros, and 5 hours for 5 euros, all to be used within 30 days, presumably you hang around here that long. I am sending this out with the 3 Euro offer!
