Blogs from Pays-de-la-Loire, France, Europe - page 7

Suzy the motorhome was parked for the night on the Flower Camping Ille de Offard in the middle of La Loire. Why are we on an partial island in the middle of the river? To see Saumur of course. Winding our way home we needed to find somewhere to stop off at. And Saumur hit the mark. My first visit to the Loire was in 2002 when I got my first sight of chateaux along this popular part of France. We got chateauxed out by the time we had visited five on the trot and Saumur was one left for another trip. It has taken the best part of 12 years to get round to seeing it and that of Angers where we plan to stop off tomorrow. Our journey over the last few days has ... read more

After a meagre breakfast of one croissant & two hard biscuits we set off at 9.30am.Bought bottle of water & rillets of pork in supermarket then headed off to 44 miles of rolling hills & beautiful farmland only stopping for a water & jellybean break ! We crossed the Loire with its vineyards & hope of better weather. That was not the case our picnic was interrupted by a huge thunder storm so we had to hurriedly don the waterproofs & head for shelter in the form of a vineyard outbuilding whilst it passed over head. We had to shelter again a couple of miles further on this time sharing a bus shelter with a upper class english vagrant who stank of dirt,he had been camping & walking for three weeks.From here we made our way ... read more

Nous voilà parés pour le déménagement de Nantes vers Vouvray, demain, nous récupérons le camion et route vendredi sur Vouvray. J'en profite pour un premier essai de publication sur le blog, c'est la première, je pense que dans quelques temps nous y serons très familiarisés...... read more

Geo: 47.0746, -0.41011After such a pleasant day on Friday and despite a fabulous sunset, the weather went decidedly downhill from then on with rain over the weekend. Had the weather been kinder there would have been some biking excursions to explore this green and pleasant area that has been nicknamed 'Little England' but under the circumstances there was nothing to keep us occupied other than a drive out to Saint Junien for groceries and an indulgent chocolate overload at one of the specialist confectioners in the main street. I say 'overload' since not only did we have a scrummy, very chocolatey cake, we also had it in a cup since we generally find the French coffee, even with 'au lait' bitter to our taste.So, yesterday morning we left Limousin in a northerly direction once again - ... read more

Loire Valley, France - Abby Fontevraud, Saumur, Doue-la-Fontaine and Troglodytes, Angers, 17 September 2013 Abby Fontevraud was going to be a walled city, originating from a monastery in 1101. However, it never moved beyond a monastery and its associated buildings due to the challenges of the time. It did become the royal tomb for Henry 11, Richard the Lion Heart among others. But in the late 1700s the monks left and the nuns were expelled. In 1804 the Abbey became a prison through to 1985. Before this, in 1975, it became under the control of the Ministry of Culture of the Loire Region, so times were changing. In 2000 the entire walled town was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List which of course will guarantee its preservation of its role in history. When we arrived, ... read more