Walking the Chateaux of the Loire

The trains were back on today, so we took the opportunity to visit the Gare just across the road, to try and recover our lost train travel expenses, and to book a train down to Azay-le-Rideau. That all duly accomplished, we went back to the hotel to pack and then walked back to the Gare. The train ride down, a nice little local service to Chinon left the station at our scheduled departure time of 1232 hrs. It was a short 20 km trip, and a then a 1.5km walk into the village. Hotel Biencourt is right in centre ville, very close to the Chateau Azay-le-Rideau. It has a lovely courtyard garden which we have enjoyed for pre-dinner and late afternoon drinks.

We did an around the town walk as we usually do; it’s a small village so that didn’t take too long. The chateau, part of tomorrow’s viewing plans was built initially around 1506. The old town was originally walled and has a good mix of 16^th to 17^th century buildings including an old priory and a mill. There are lots of  touring cyclists and our hotel has mostly these as clientele.

Dinner was just a couple of doors down the road at La Credence, and we both chose to tackle the local beef and potato plat plus a dessert. The beef was again tasty, but a little tougher than I’d choose to serve up. The 2005 Cabernet Franc Cuvee Du Vieux Chene was a lovely wine, and definitely the feature of the event.

The “aperitif” Rose we’d had earlier in the evening was an interesting local wine as well, bought at a local cave and made from a blend of cabernet franc plus a local white grape.

Our first walk was just 7.4 km, and programmed for the afternoon. So for the morning we visited the Chateau, and spent some time around the grounds and gardens and looking through the splendid building.

 It was built by Gilles Berthalot, a prominent member of Francis I’s treasury, but he ran out of money due to the complexities of building on marshy ground on an island in the middle of the Indre River. Turns out also that he was helping himself to funds from the King’s treasury and had to go into a self-imposed exile to avoid being dealt to by the King. So the building was never finished and remains an unusual L shape, but with lovely grounds, lakes and moats and an enormous roof and attic space. A forest of oak trees went into building the roof I’m sure.

There was a food market this morning in the local square so we wandered through and got some fruit and avocado for a picnic lunch for a pleasant change. The hotel has a very good breakfast spread, so that gives a very good start to the day and lunch can then become a minor event.

The short walk took us up through fields of grass, crops of wheat and a few other flowering crops we didn’t recognise. The track skirted some forest areas as well and was easy walking.

The walk's feature was a visit to some “troglodyte” farms. These feature limestone caves that have been used in the past as dwellings for peasant farmers. The current owner of the land has re-constructed small farmlets based around his view of the past use of these by the cave dwelling farmers. There is a collection of small animals and a huge collection of old ploughs, scarifiers, carts, drays, threshing equipment and the like. Pleasant but not inspiring walking, but a good warm up for 15 km tomorrow!

We tried Les Grottos for our evening meal, very good food and just a short walk away. It is still light until around 9 30 pm, so even though we are eating fairly late it does not seem the case.

Our Stockholm Hotel still hasn’t taken the payment for our second night there, so Ann had a middle of the night mission to ring Booking.com in New Zealand. We have a $20 pw phone plan which gives us calling back to NZ (we hope), allowing Ann to ring Megan each day to check on progress and recovery after the car accident she and Neil had on the afternoon of the day we left NZ!

Our second day of walking took us to the Chateau de Usse, in a small village Rigny-Usse. The walk wound through vineyards and orchards on a cool and overcast day. Good for walking, but a little chilly in the sections exposed to the breeze. Some of the orchards were abandoned and some very well cared for. I suspect it may be something to do with ownership, most likely the age of the owner. The plots were quite small, so once the owner is too old to tend the vines or the trees, there is no one to do the work, and the adjacent owner probably isn’t interested in doing more work. The land use then moves into broader acre pursuits like wheat and barley cropping.

In the village of Marney we passed the bread delivery lady dropping off le pain to the local women working in their vegetable plots, in a very French way of life. Bread is very important to the French diet, in fact as already noted it was a factor in the French Revolution. At Usse there was even a fresh bread dispensing machine in the main street!

At Marney there was also a small memorial to two aircrews who died when their aircraft collided over the village when 100 Lancaster bombers were travelling through on their way to bomb the railway yards at Nevers, after the D-Day landings. The crew listings are a collection of names from around the Commonwealth , but no Kiwis in this incident.

The walk continued along the Marney stream and the associated river flats, we then followed the river Vieux-Cher and finally the larger Indre River to Rigny-Usse and our hotel Clos D’Usse. The river flats were mainly planted in cereal or maize crops. The area used to supply hemp fibre for rope making in an industry that was hundreds of years old, and continued up to the 1960s when nylon, polypropylene and other extruded fibres killed off the hemp industry.

We did our tour of the Chateau d’Usse when we arrived, as the walk the next day was about 17 km, so we’d be walking a little longer in weather predicted to be a bit warmer than the 12 degrees when we started out today. The chateau has its origins back in the 1500’s and is a very grand affair. It is reputed to have inspired Charles Perrault to write the story we all know, Sleeping Beauty.

This is acknowledged here in a Stations of the Cross type presentation of the story in a series of rooms as you walk around the battlements at the top of one of the main towers. The walk also gives spectacular views out across the valley, and takes you through the attic space in the chateau, full of ‘yet to be restored’ paraphernalia. The roof space area is cavernous, it would be a great alternative to a more conventional garage or shed type “man cave”. The gardens, stables, limestone cellars, and the chapel are also very impressive.

We have a couple more visits, but this is our last single purpose chateau (there are over 200 in the Loire Valley, so plenty of choice). After our next couple of walks we have a castle and an abbey to visit and a day to immerse ourselves in either wine or the old town of Chinon.

The walk from Rigny-Usse was 17.5 km, at first through the Forest of Chinon. France was covered in forest after the last Ice Age but agriculture and population growth have decreased the forested area to about 10% of the land mass. There has been a conscious effort to increase plantings in the depleted areas of forest. The chateau at Azay-le-Rideau used logs harvested from this forest for its immense roof structure. (See above) We walked through areas sometimes dominated by oak, sometimes pine plantations, and a few beech and lots of poplars. The walking was reasonably flat after an initial uphill, and the trees kept us out of the cool NE breeze. As we approached Chinon, we were looking out over the large valley, from up on hillsides covered in grapes, with scatterings of poppies.

                             

The hills have the limestone outcrops, and the vineyards have plenty of limestone in the tilth. The Loire is not a noted wine area globally, but it produces about 30% of France’s vintage. Cabernet Franc is the main red variety with a little bit of Gamay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The main white varieties are Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon. I like the Cabernet Franc style, a very dark wine, with gamey notes in its nose and quite subdued fruit which opens up as the bottle sits open. The Chenin Blanc has some very striking fruity notes, not at all as you would expect from that variety in NZ. Chinon is quite a large town, the biggest we stay at on the walk. We walked in up on a limestone ridge past many abandoned dwellings hewn out of the limestone escarpment alongside us. This includes the "troglodite" chapel of Sainte Radegonde. 

We had the option of extending the walk a little and going direct to the castle, Fortresse Royale de Chinon, but decided a change of footwear and a break were in order after the 17.5 km, so it was down the hill to the Hotel de France. We found a very convenient watering hole just outside the door so a bit of rehydration was easy to achieve. 

We are again in the middle of the old town so did some roaming to absorb the flavour, and to get a perspective on how to approach our (walking) free day tomorrow. The houses have a lot of history from mediaeval times. Winding narrow streets often pedestrianised, which pose the odd problem to those unfortunate drivers who get tangled in their midst!

We didn’t have far to go for dinner which was right next door to the Hotel. Again the Plat menu, and very nice food with a 2014 Bois de Beaumont Cab Franc.

This town is where Joan of Arc met with Henry VII in 1429 and convinced him to get off his dejected chuff, throw the English out of France and claim his throne. It worked to some degree, but for all her patriotism and good work, she came to a very fiery end when burnt at the stake in 1431, in a persecution which I think was generated by the church keen to nail the girl for heresy. It’s a story I don’t know much about, and I couldn’t buy a good history book in English at the castle, so it’s on the list for when we get home. I’ll be trying to find a book, Jeanne D’Arc by Colette Beaune, preferably in English

Our free day started with a tour of the Fortress Royale, built on a prominent site 100m above the town, (accessed by a lift fortunately) and like all these things, built and rebuilt from very early times. Some of the construction is remnants of Rome’s occupation of Gaul but it's predominantly from the 10^th century with remakes every couple of hundred years. Spectacular views, one we noted was towards L’Abbaye Fontevraud about 15 km away which is our destination tomorrow.

The fortress has three sections: Fort Coudray (12-13C), which contains a series of towers like the Mill Tower and the Boissey Tower, a middle chateau which has the Royal Quarters (12C), home in particular to Charles VII, and the Clock Tower (14C). Separate from this is the totally derelict Fort St George, which Henry II built in the time the British occupied Chinon as capital of their large landholding in France. The whole complex certainly holds a dominant position above the town.

No Saturday market but the town was pretty lively with several brass bands competing in some sort of tournament keeping the crowds entertained while we had our morning coffee and they perambulated around town.

Further evidence of the town's connection with Joan of Arc with a ferocious looking Joan exhorting the French troops onward at La Place de la Republique.

We did manage a wine tasting in Chinon in the caves of M.Plonceau. These are right under the Fortress and in fact have two 'wells' that go up to the fortress. Apparently the stone (tufa) carved from the underground cellars was used in the construction of the fortress. We tasted three whites and a couple of reds. That Chenin Blanc can really produce some fruit, and the Cabernet Franc delivers a very nice style of wine for my taste. We've definitely left behind the lighter Pinot Noirs of Bourgogne.

Sunday’s walk was the 17km from Chinon, along the south bank of the Vienne and then up through the forests of Brion and Fontevraud. We’ve been very lucky; another beautiful day and very pleasant walking conditions. We walked alongside paddocks of crops and a few cattle, with occasional glimpses of the river.

 The air was full of poplar seed fluff that covered the ground like snow, almost burying what we think were sunflower plants. Fields planted with these were very common so no doubt this walk will be equally spectacular in a few months' time. 

They have obviously experienced floods recently as there is plenty of debris accumulated in the fences and in the trees alongside the river. The river must have been about 7-8 metres above its current level and would have been fairly spectacular. Probably this was the same event that wrecked some of the Canal de Nivernais which changed our canal boating from the planned trip from Corbigny to Joigny. It was also still evident at the bridge crossing the Vienne in Chinon. 

As we left the river we found a café for coffee and a short break in the village of la Chausee. We were pleased to see it open on a Sunday. We then headed up the limestone escarpment, past the many excavations, where the locals have or had at some stage additional storage for their possessions.

The views out across the valley are expansive and mostly picturesque. The Chinon Nuclear Power Electricity Generation facility is a very big industrial complex in the middle distance. I read somewhere recently France has about 50 of these - someone dug that one up in response to Jacinda’s eloquent support for France’s renewable energy targets that she thinks we in NZ, should be emulating!

Paddocks are mainly wheat and barley and some seeding brassica, and it’s very easy walking through fields and small hamlets with the occasional mansion and chateau in the picture as well. We lunched on the picnic provided for those days when there is no lunch opportunity on the walk. The only difference today is we had our lunch sitting in a foxhole just outside a "Terrain Militaire" area. According to Maps.me we were well outside the restricted area, so not sure why the soldiers would have dug a foxhole there. Maybe they don’t have Maps.me, or perhaps it’s about their territorial ambitions. We had a lovely view of the next item of interest on our visiting list: the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud.

So after a short refresher in the village square we entered the huge Abbaye complex. The original church on the site was built in about 1101, and grew like topsy over the next 800 years, with separate institutions housing monks and nuns. The complex was run by abbesses, women of great power and influence. The abbey paid no taxes, and had fishing concessions and all the privilege associated with rank and power, so it was a large financial force and well supported by the aristocracy.

When the French Revolution came along, all the assets were confiscated and sold off. The facility was looted by the locals, and laws were passed to allow the monks and nuns to renounce their vows and 'leave the job'. Most did. 

In 1804 Napoleon turned the facility into a prison which eventually housed 2000 prisoners whose life expectancy once in there was about eight months. It was a harsh place for prisoners - next step after this was further west and onto a ship for transportation to Guiana. The use as a prison was continued until 1960. The Nazis used it to imprison resistance fighters and ten were executed by firing squad in the grounds.

It was recognised as a national heritage building around 1860 and some restoration was done then but most has been done more recently than that.

Remnants of the prison have all gone, and while the buildings are being restored, they have lost the richness of decoration and carving because of all the travails since 1792. It is now a very grand physical space, but without much evidence of the lavish trappings that would once have been part of the very rich 800 year old Abbaye. Pretty much all the actual church contains are the sacophagi of four Plantagenets, Henry II and his wife, Eleanore of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart and another relative.

Our stay here includes meals which are half board, which means you pay extra for your drinks. That’s fine except the white wine I picked was a bit ordinary and quite sweet. But the food was very good, apart from the challenge of three courses that is. Anyway it’s a longish walk tomorrow! The town is again very charming with its white stone buildings, painted shutters and doors and roses rambling up their walls; lovely scents.

We departed about nine again heading back up into the forest with lovely views over the abbey and then generally north towards Candes St Martin  at the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire rivers. Walking was again through forest to start and then wheat barley, and maybe sunflowers or broad beans or sunflowers. Very pleasant walking conditions, and some great views over the valley again as we approached the rivers.

The nuclear power facility was a reasonably dominant presence and we were walking back towards it once we came out of the forest this morning. As we got to the panorama point looking out over the confluence we started to run into the rest of the tourist crowd walking up from the village for the view.

The village is reputedly one of the prettiest in France, and we enjoyed a wander through the church and the village and the riverside areas.

This was a favourite place of St Martin, Bishop of Tours who converted most of this region to Christianity, and who died in the village of Candes. However the monks from Tours spirited his body away, down the river,  to Tours. Everywhere is evidence of the religious wars, and the French Revolution. Here the statues of saints in the church portal have had their heads smashed off for the most part as part of the revolutionary zeal.

A little further down the river and part of our walk was Montsoreau, also with a chateau and on the river. Once these were important ports for movement of wine, wheat and tufa, the local limestone. The vessels were quite large and drifted downriver with the current and sailed upriver on the prevailing westerly breezes. The boats are flat bottomed, black and the style has stayed with fishermen who still use punts to access the waterway.

The Loire is a mighty river, it is one of France’s few remaining wild rivers, and there are no dams on the whole of its 700 mile length.

We had a picnic lunch on the banks and then headed through the vineyards then fields and forests back to Fontevraud. This was the last walk, it’s been an interesting combo of views, the history of the Loire valley, the agricultural and viticultural production here and of course the food and wine.

Tomorrow is more about the logistics, train back to Tours to regroup, then a drive to Charles De Gaulle airport for a short flight to Stockholm the next day. So it's au revoir once again to France.

The trains let us down again, but just a 1.5 hr delay today, and we didn't get to the station we wanted, so when we arrived at Tours it was straight into a taxi to get to the other station to pick up our rental car. We've had to change a 62 Euro train ride to Charles De Gaulle T2, for a 175 Euro one way car hire. C'est la vie!