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Phillipe very kindly offered to be tour guide again today which was fantastic. We wouldn't find half the places without him. We went along the Loir valley. The Loir which is the river flowing in front of our house is a tributary to the Loire.
Phillipe makes leadlight windows and is involved with a charitable organisation that helps restore and maintain old buildings and churches. He took us to a barn from the 14th century that their group has been given to restore. Once restored, they plan to hold exhibitions and concerts in it to further help with their fundraising efforts. It’s a three year restoration process as they only gather once a week for half a day to work on it, and it seems to be more of a social gathering than a highly productive time, judging by the morning we dropped in.
Troo was an interesting quaint little village where the majority of the houses were caves dug into the hillside – as with many of the villages lining the Loir. The houses were generally half inside the cave and half a normal house outside. We got to see inside one display one that was last lived
in in the 1960s. They were surprisingly spacious, with walls far from smooth, although quite dry. There was only one road through the village, alongside the river, and all the ‘streets’ were in fact little pathways winding up down and along the hillside.
We stopped at the very tiny and old (12th century) St Jacques church which had many frescoes that have amazingly lasted through the centuries. Some of the colours were quite vivid still, particularly the blue, which was a local specialty. We also stopped at a glass blowers studio, and were able to watch him in action.
The advantage of having Phillipe is in knowing the best places to eat (although maybe a Michelin guide could do as well). We went to Le Relais D’Antan in Lavardin for lunch. It looked pretty basic from the front with plastic chairs and tables with a few locals hanging around drinking and doing their crosswords, but we got led through a rabbit warren of different dining rooms, then out to the garden room alongside the river. It was just beautiful overlooking a picturesque bridge crossing the Loir river. The food was awesome and I just love it when they
bring out all the extras between each course.
We finished the day with a visit to a mushroom farm in the caves of a former tufa stone quarry. Our guide graciously gave us an English translation but it was suspiciously shorter than the French version he obviously preferred. It was quite ‘fresh’ in the caves (the French common translation for cold/freezing) which we were not dressed for given the hot sunny weather we’ve become accustomed to. The big trays of champignons de Paris (button mushrooms) growing at different stages was interesting but the most impressive were the shitake and pleurotes which were grown on rows of little tombstone like tablets.
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