France Passion
We left the 'Slow Camping' site and headed down the Loire to find a nice place to walk. We stopped at St-Saturnin-sur-Loire which had a convenient aire by the church and also a clearly marked 6k circular walk - perfect! The walk took us through some woods, across fields and along the Loire back to the village. A perfect distance for Mitzi. We learnt that the village had flooded in 1910 and 1982 with a water level over 2.8m above the road level. We looked at the little popular bistro but decided with the current euro it was too expensive for lunch! So after a bread and cheese lunch in Vincent we drove to Saumur. We parked at E.Leclerc popped in and did some supermarket shopping then walked into the town with the dogs. Saumur has a school of horsemanship but unfortunately dogs are not allowed so we did not visit instead we walked round the lovely old town and the outside of the Chateau which has magnificant views over the town.
Upside down umbrellas decorated some of the main streets which was fun!
From Saumur we decided to find a vineyard with France Passion that would put us up for the night. We were lucky and found a fantastic spot thanks to Philippe and Marie Joulin (both marathon runners!). We tasted their wines, bought a few bottles then set up camp in the middle of their vineyard under a walnut tree.
Mitzi had a wonderful time exploring and we gathered some walnuts which will hopefully be edible at Christmas!
Mike had made a pizza dough before the tasting (obviously!) so we had a gorgeous home made pizza and local wine for supper.
In the morning, after watching a beautiful sunrise, we walked into town to buy our croissant and pain au chocolate. After breakfast we headed off towards Chinon and stopped at Turquant. A fascinating village with a great 2 hour educational walk around the town. We learnt all about the tufa stone, troglodyte dwellings,
windmill design, apple tappers, underground mushroom growing plus a lovely walk through some vineyards. (We also managed to collect some ripe figs off the trees).
After another (!) bread and cheese lunch we headed to Chinon, a historical Loire town with a very old cliff top chateau - built for Henry II when he ruled over England, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine. The very old town was fascinating with a huddle of medieval streets dating back to Joan of Arc in 1492 when she convinced Dauphin Charles of France to drive to English away.
We then drove to another French Passion vineyard at Cravant-les-Coteaux and set up camp. Not so much freedom for the dogs but not a bad view.
