Friday 13th September
Moved on from Civray to Bleres where we found a local
Municipal campsite and managed to blag some free electric from a hookup that
the previous person had not used up. Also found the showers were not only open
but hot so each had a welcome douche. Had lunch there then moved on to a little
independent wine producer on the outskirts of Amboise where we parked up in the
corner of the car park for the night all on our own. It seems funny the sorts of quiet little
places you get to stay on this France Passion guide we certainly seen a bit
more of rural France.
We cycled down into Amboise a town on the Loire about a mile
and a bit a way but all downhill and had a wander round and found an internet
café for a beer and chance to review e-mails and update the blog. The Loire is
really wide here and splits around an island, the view from the bridge back
across the town is quite impressive with the big Chateau on the hill.
Apparently Leonardo Da Vinci saw out his last few years here before he died and
there are various streets and places named after him.
It was lovely warm evening so we sat outside and ate until
well after it had gotten dark before bed. We couldn’t go to bed too early as
the local Gospel Singing group was meeting in the wine building for their
weekly singing practice but they did make quite a nice background.
Saturday 14 September
Started raining during the night and has been pouring all
day, we packed up and moved on to another Independent wine grower, Antoine
Simoneau just outside a little village called St George-sur-cher and spent a
very pleasant hour sampling about 12 of the local wines produced in the fields
around where we are staying, so nice in fact Viv is currently sleeping off the
effects of nearly half a bottle of wine. We bought two bottles of white and one
red so the young sales guy earned his keep.
We are just waiting for Gareth and Vicky to arrive now as by
chance they are booked into a hotel in St George to split their journey back
and we are planning on going for a meal of Mussels and Chips later.
Met up with Gareth and Vicky and went for a meal,
unfortunately no Moule and Frites but we did have a rather large steak that was
delicious.
Sunday 15th September
Moved off and found a lovely little farmers market in St
George so stopped to buy a pot of honey, some vegetables and goat’s cheese all
produced locally by the people selling it.
Stopped off on the outskirts of Loche and cycled into the
town centre, it has an impressive chateau, keep and dungeons dating back to the
1400s and today was a European cultural day so entry was free so seemed rude
not to visit. We stood in the room where Joan of Arc pleaded with some duke to
return with her to claim his right to be King and visited the dungeons, summer
houses and keeps where various nobles
lived, plotted against the king and were imprisoned at various times. Part of
the castle was a prison right up until 1926.
Tonight we are camping at an Angora Goat farm in
Chapelle-Blanche St Martin about 520 miles south of Nottingham. We met
Bridgitte the farmers wife who looks after the goats and shears them, she
showed us her workshop were she spins the fleece into wool and dyes it herself
from local roots, plants and leaves and had just been skinning onions to make a
yellow dye. She also knits various garments and has a loom for making bigger
items. We had a good look around and met her herd of about 40 plus goats that
live in the barn next to where we are camping.
Monday 16th September
Rained again overnight but started to clear up by the time
we got up and packed up ready to move on. Set off and called into Liguel a nice
little town about 10 miles south where we did a bit of shopping and had
breakfast parked up in the town square. Then on to Le Grand Pressingny a small
village where we made use of the Municipal facilities to empty the tanks a job
that needs doing every few days!
We set off again and stopped on the outskirts of
Chatellerault where we parked the van and cycled down into the town but were
not particularly impressed by it, although a fair size there was nothing that
really grabbed us and it seemed a bit rough around the edges to be honest, the
river was nice though and like most of the towns and cities we have visited was
wider than the Trent with lovely walks either side and beautiful stone bridges
often set with flowers.
It never ceases to amaze us how quiet the roads are, we are
off the beaten track but quite often we could count the cars that pass in an
hour on one hand. We just pass fields of Sunflowers ripening ready for harvest
and high stands of maize followed by woods and streams and every now and then
fields of beautiful wild flowers still in bloom. Buzzards usually common but
sometimes Honey Buzzards as well with longer thinner wings and Pidgeon like
heads, Kestrels and Crows in the fields and the usual hordes of Wood Pidgeon
and Collard Doves.
We pulled into Availles en Chatelleraut for the night an oil
producing farm run by the Lepine family, they specialize in making Walnut and
Hazelnut oils and have been doing so for seven generations. It was fascinating
looking around the production room. I didn’t realize they break the nuts and
had a machine that extracts the kernels that are then crushed and cooked gently
for an hour or so. The pulp is then squeezed, 1.8kg of walnut produces 1 litre
of oil and 2kg of hazelnut does the same, I got to try some and it was so
different from anything I have tasted before, we shall be buying a bottle of
each. They also make a kind of flour from the hazel nut residue they add to
cake making. The rest of the left over nut cake is used for cattle feed.
It really is fascinating the different places we have visited
so far and people we have met, hardly anyone speaks English so it is really
putting our French skills to the test but good fun.
Tuesday 17th September
We set off intending to stop off in Poitiers but couldn’t
find anywhere relatively close to the city to park up and didn’t fancy a long
cycle ride of a few miles on the busy roads back so gave up! On the way out we
did spot a supermarket and stopped to buy a kilo of mussels and a bottle of
white wine so I could make Moule en Vin for tea.
We stopped in Vivonne for lunch and chatted the attendant up
in the Municipal camp site who let us have a shower each for free, nice chap.
As we set off to explore the town a crowd of people arrived at the site as it
was the over 50s boule meeting, shame we left our set at home as we could have
joined in. Vivonne was a very pretty town with lots of rivers and weirs running
through the middle of it.
We spent the night on a goat farm at Celle L’Evescault in
the middle of a small forest area. The farmer Msr. Granger showed us round the
farm, he didn’t speak a word of English so it was not the easiest of tours but
interesting none the less. He has 300 goats that are milked twice a day, quite
a bit of the tasks are automated but the cheese making is still done by hand.
We tried some of the cheese and bought a lump that even Viv who generally
doesn’t like goat cheese liked. The goats seemed to attract loads of flies and
a fair proportion followed us back to the van and took up residence in it!
The mussels were delicious by the way for tea.
Wednesday 18th September
We spent most of the morning killing flies even after
opening all the windows and shooing hundreds out along the road!
Stopped off and explored Lusignan an old medieval town that
used to have a fortifications all around it but most were destroyed at some
point in the past. There was a nice church and a beautiful market place with
stone struts and an old wooden roof over it.
We were intending to spend the night on an Ostrich farm and
parked up outside but it is shut at this time of the year except for weekends.
We looked over the wall and inside when we first arrived but a bit later we
cycled about 3 miles into the next village for a beer and discovered a nice
little municipal camp site with a free hook up to the electric and facilities
to empty out so moved on to there for the night.
Cycling back just as it was getting dark we disturbed a deer
browsing in the sunflower crop right next to the road and watched it for a
while before it ran off back towards the woods.
Thursday 19th September
Where else but France could you find a really nice little
campsite on the edge of a village with free camping, water, service and
electric hook-up? It felt so nice we decided to stay an extra day and visit La
Vallee des Singes or for those without a French bent the Monkey Sanctuary. The
only thing you have to watch is that you do not draw more than 5 amps as it
then shorts out the system for everyone on the camp site and the electrics have
to be reset.
We cycled the 3 kilometres to the site and thought the entry
price was a bit steep at first but well worth it, as there were 30 different
sorts of monkeys and apes on show plus a few goats, cattle, donkeys, geese and
capibara. The park was divided into about 15 different areas each one
surrounded by a small moat and the various monkeys and apes lived in a mixture
of large trees, bushes and large grassy areas with climbing frames and rope
walkways. Some of them you could walk through and monkeys, lemurs and apes
would walk right up and climb on you or sit next to you. Others such as the
larger apes like Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Baboons were the other side of the
moat but no more than 3 or 4 yards away. It was a lovely setting and great to
be able to walk right amongst them. We might have another “You’ve been framed”
moment when a few Squirrel Monkeys tried to steal my camera and eat it along
with the mole on my neck. I kept my distance from the Barbary Apes after my
last encounter with them in Gibralter when I got bitten by one.
Gareth would have loved the little moats around the
enclosures as they were full of fish, some really big grass carp over 3 feet in
length at times, perch, chub, roach and rudd and easy to see as the moats were
clear and often only a few feet deep.
It was really funny watching the Bonobos a sort of chimp
that is closely related to us and that the French text said share the same
attitude to sex as humans. When it got close to food time they all got quite
excited and some couldn’t contain themselves and it became something out of the
60s with free love all around with no regard as to who you were having free
love with!
There was a little farm area as well with animals in it you
could stroke, I sat next to a miniature goat for a photo and the next thing I
knew I had a whole herd around me with a few geese as well for good measure
that Viv thought was really hilarious.
We spent all afternoon nearly five hours in all just
wandering around and watching the various animals, really great. We hadn’t
taken any food in and came out ravenous but fortunately found we had parked
under a hazel nut tree and feasted on nuts before we cycled back.
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