04 August 2014
We awoke on Sunday morning with the rain pounding on our tent. We negatively thought….’our first full day in France and we are going to have to spend it in the rain’. Thankfully, by around 10h30 it had passed and we were ready to go explore the Loire Valley on bikes. We decided to drive to a small town called ‘L’ile-Bouchard’ and cycle from there. After having a chat with the friendly Portuguese man at the Tourism Bureau, we decided to head for the road on cycle route 36 (around 24 km). Our first stretch was along the river La Vienne and up to the town ‘Panzoult’. There was a big market day in Panzoult with loads of elderly people selling their old antiques and closet nik naks (Nanna would have been in her element). Just past the village we found ‘Cave des Vignerons’ which is a cave in which 18 different wine producers in the Chinon region have come to show off their wines in a ‘perfect temperature’ setting. As everything in France shuts down between 12h00 and 14h00, we were unable to go into the cave, but we later came back and even did a wine tasting and bought a bottle of Chinon from Domaine d’Etilly. The cycle route was absolutely beautiful and I had to stop constantly to look at the beautiful scenery. The houses, the farms, the castles, the history, the happy and sad sunflowers….all so amazing. The next morning we did another cycle loop around the Chinon region, mainly through the vineyards and through the main town Chinon (about 40 km). Most of the winemakers do not speak English, are closed on Mondays (or whenever they feel like it) and everything in France shuts down between 12h00 and 14h00. We therefore only had a select few to visit. While cycling around the little village ‘Cravant-les-coteaux’, a polite gentleman asked us if we needed help with directions. We later met the same gentleman again at the Domaine Gouron wine farm (he was the wine-maker), where he served us 3 different wines, sold us 1 and directed us along a scenic downhill path back home. Another beautiful day in France!!!!
Tomorrow we head for the mountains.
Some Fun Facts:
Public/Camp site Toilets do not have seats and are often just a hole in the ground.
· Everything closes between 12h00 and 14h00 (Many places open and close as they please).
· The price of fuel deviates heavily from station to station
· Richelieu Brandy is not sold in Richelieu, in fact they do not know what it is. (The cardinal Richelieu was the chief minister to Louis XIII in the 15th century and his family lived in a vast manor house in the town which was confiscated as a national asset at the time of the French revolution, badly damaged and sold stone by stone).
· A lot of the wine-makers in the region store their wine in caves to keep it at a perfect temperature. Domaine Gouron have 300 m of caves which they use to store their wines.