La Loire Valley - Vouvray

Our drive to Tours was un eventful, mostly just zipping up the A10 at 130kmh, with a quick lunch and loo stop at one of the frequent, well managed motorway service centres. Driving on these roads is a breeze as the law requires trucks to stay in the far right lane and travel at 110kph, thus keeping traffic flow in the other lanes fast and consistent. Its a joy, and much less stressful than an Australian freeway situation, where trucks are constantly flicking from lane to lane unpredictably.

We do a quick reconnoitre of Tours, before collecting Gavan and Elaine from their Paris train and returning to enjoy a refreshment in one of the old town squares. There are plenty of interesting windows to photograph, an impressive crumbling tower of historical note and an excellent kitchen shop, where Roger could finally procure a decent sharp knife and steel. We picked up a few supplies at the local market, think cheeses, duck terrine, strawberries and some wine before heading just along La Loire River to the delightful town of Vouvray, just 20 minutes away.

We checked into our three story apartment, overlooking the flood plains of La Loire, and then decided, some exercise was in order, exploring the village of Vouvray. It's a very well presented village, nicely landscaped and with a mixture of old and new housing, a large supermarket, schools, the ubiquitous Cathedral up on the hill, that dominates the town, and your typical boulangerie and boucherie, plus a very predictable bar/tabac, called La Haut, which just happens to be along the road from our apartment. Naturally our exercise had built up a thirst, so we stopped en route home, to enjoy a refreshing GnT/wine in brilliant sunshine on the delightful terrase overlooking the village. Rogers homemade quiche and salad made for an easy dinner.

On Wednesday, it was another beautiful sunny day so we decided to visit Chateau Villandry, known particularly for it's Renaissance-style gardens. Viewed from the woodlands above, they form a spectacular mosaic of design, and include the ornamental gardens, the water garden and the kitchen gardens. The latter are planted seasonally, in different geometric motifs, using a wide variety of colourful vegetables. The photos tell the story.

Not content with our daily steps, and a need to discover just what lies at the top of the high tuffeau (limestone) cliffs at the rear of our Air BnB, Elaine and I set of with google maps, to follow a winding path in a vertical direction. We passed by large locked gates, concealing an imposing residence, a small cave carved into the cliffs with bars at the windows and a locked metal gate and clamoured up very steep stone stairs, through the undergrowth until we come across a perfectly formed tunnel.

Its about 20 metres long and has a clear light at the end so in the absence of animals, spiderwebs and monsters, determine we could safely enter. It was only afterwards, we considered our good fortune, that we did not disturb any local bats!

The plateau we arrived upon was resplendent in grape vines and there was a beautiful 360 deg view over La Loire Valley. The uphill trek was well and truly worth it as was the GnT and wine at the bottom of the Cimeterie lane where we met the 'boys' in our local bar/tabac.Læs mere