The Loire and it’s hot

Moving 130 miles south we headed to the Loire Valley, the french proclaiming it the "Garden of France" due to its abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards and asparagus fields (much like the UK's county of Kent aka The Garden of England.. more importantly Kent has hops - essential for beer brewing!

Dictated by the sun's direction and seeking as much coolness as possible, temperatures were nudging into the high 30's, Tassie pointed diagonally across her pitch to help minimise direct sunlight, it was stifling, our campsite had limited shade, the awning came into its own.

Staying at Montjean Sur Loire, (between the bigger towns of Nantes & Angers), the site was small and quite empty of touring vans and tents, there were more longer term visitors staying in their mobile home type wooden cabins, which occupied about half of the site, the heat inside suggested why residents took them outside sitting under any shade available.

The site had a small outdoor pool, as unlucky would have it, it was just finalising its readiness for opening - on the day that we were leaving!

Spending a couple of days, there we opted to have a little drive out to check out the Loire Valley towns of Angers and Saumur, the air conditioning in the van was more preferable than the intense heat outside!

Opting to take the quieter B roads, we wound our way through the rolling countryside with vineyards on all sides, Pays de Loire and Anjou wine being the most prolific names that kept reoccurring.

Angers on first impression is a pretty town particularly the outer fringes, which are very nicely laid out, lots of greenery and pretty wildflower verges line the roads. That gives me a thought to get into a bit of 'guerrilla gardening' when home, and repurpose the grass between the pavement and the road outside Chateau Claygate, the council's verge grass cutting service may welcome one less patch to churn up!

Anyway back to Angers, we spotted a huge Decathlon, and spent a little too long inside the air conditioned building, we did buy some pétanque type game though!

With a 6.3m van, finding a parking space can be a challenge, notwithstanding any height restriction barriers for Tassie to try to limbo under! Lack of options, we decided to move on to Saumur, around 30 miles further into the Loire Valley.

Fun Fact - Angers is twinned with Wigan (UK)!

Driving along the road, we did spot a kangaroo farm as well as a camel grazing in a field with a Shetland pony.. all a bit unreal for the middle of France!

Passing a number of chateaux along the way (most reminded me of the Disney logo of a castle with round Rapunzel towers and dramatic high walls), Samour's chateau commanded a hill top position looking down the valley and its namesake Loire River.

Chateau de Saumur, now a museum which also boasts as the international horse riding capital of the world, has a huge display of old horse related items.

A wander around the chateau in 38 degrees of heat was reduced to a shorter whistle stop walk around the battlements and vineyard.

Fun fact - Coco Chanel was born in Saumur, and it's twinned with Warwick (UK), think this area of France got the end of the twinning alphabet!

The following day having slightly neglected our little town of Montjean Sur Loire, previously a famous bustling port in the 1800's due to its lime kilns, now a quiet shadow of its former self.

We took an amble around the town, it was similar to many we had driven through, despite pretty buildings, there was not a lot to life, much of the town with shuttered houses and shops all closed up.

The boulangerie also closed, our daily habit of a 'baguette a day' needed a fix. Thankfully just outside a baguette vending machine was on hand, credit cards accepted 1 euro 30! The baguette ended up being quite a decent one!

In the centre of town an unmanned petrol station bought into the deserted town five, with its arrangement of more vending machine choices, ranging from a charcuterie platter, pizza, fire wood & charcoal, and a variety of cheeses and meats plus an Amazon locker! This town really had no one around - apart from passing traffic.

An old castle which then became a church in the 1800's, sitting on the highest ground around looked imposing.

Invitingly lit up by the setting sun, up the steep hill I went to have a closer look at the church, it sadly showed it's had years of neglect. Jo opted not to go up the hill, she did not miss much!

What was once a proud imposing building now shone in the sunlight as just a stone beacon on the hilltop.

Our time in the Loire was coming to an end, the heat was dictating we head for the cooler breezes from the coast, out next stop west would be Ile de Noirmoutier.Baca lagi