Travels in a Campervan: le coudray macouard

Wednesday, 21 September 2022

Fantastic Caves and an empty river

Tuesday 20 September 2022

Nido's parked up on an aire in Dampierre-sur-Loire. It used to be a municipal campsite, so there are no pitches, just park where you like, under the trees or in the sunshine. Its €6 per night including services (no electricity); the servicing point to empty the loo and grey tank and fill up with fresh can be accessed without entering the aire. It's about a mile east of the town of Saumur.

The last couple of days have been fairly quiet, with short hops to the next park upa. Sunday was admin day. Before we left Romagne Cathy emptied out the mats and covers and gave the van a really good clean, while I did the emptying and filling when we moved over to the service point. We found a Super U with a laundrette to do our fortnightly (and last of this trip) laundry session. What should have taken about an hour took three times as long though! It's great having so many outdoor launderettes in France, many available 24/7. The downside is they all seem to have their own, unique complex instructions as to how they work! This wasn't helped by my thinking the 18kg washing machine was a dryer, so we sat there for half an hour waiting for the other washing machine to finish. Once I'd worked this out I then realised these machines were cash only payment. So we had to drive off to find an ATM! Luckily there was one just around the corner so, once the instructions had been translated , we fed our €10 note into the machine, received our change and all was good. Forty minutes later, the washing was in the dryer and turning. I'd pressed the button for medium heat, but it took a couple of drying sessions to finally work out there was a particular sequence for selecting the heat, which entailed starting the dryer first, then stopping, then selecting the heat! But three hours later the washing was all done, folded and put away.

Sunday night was spent on a free aire at Saint Loup-sur-Thouet. It was a good spot in a long grassy field, but with some road noise, which died off later. The next morning Cathy and I had a walk around the town and its medieval buildings and narrow lanes, before he moved on. The plan was to spend the next night in the town of Thouars and explore the medieval walls and centre, but Salty was starting to get a bit freaked out by the noise of the vehicles (he pretends to be tough with other dogs but really is a bit of a softy!), so we opted for a much quieter stop in the countryside at Le Coudray-Macouard, parked up amongst the trees. We've actually stayed here before - back in October 2014.

After lunch and a snooze we all went for a walk, along some lanes then into explore the village. This is another lovely place to wander around, with honey-coloured sandstone buildings, narrow lanes and high walls. Some of the houses even have caves underneath. Back at the van we ate and spent a quiet night, waking to a chilly morning but again with clear blue skies and the promise of a warm, sunny day.

This morning we stopped off at a Decathlon store. We'd never been in but had heard good reports from others using them in Europe. This was a large store that had pretty much everything you need for outdoor life - clothing, boots, climbing, kayaking and canoeing, cycling. We've been looking for some outdoor and walking clothing for some time and found everything we needed at a reasonable price - think Go Outdoor prices but much better quality. Cathy prefer to buy men's tops and jackets as they're longer in the body and have loads of pockets! A huge Le Clerc hypermarket in Saumur - within a big shopping centre - was next door so I popped in for a couple of things. It also had a Culturel Centre (technology stuff) and, if we've been at the start of the trip, I'd have bought a REGLO data sim to go in the Mifi - 120 Gb for €15.99. We're getting by on the SMARTY SIM with 12Gb per month (plus our Tesco phones with 12Gb each) but are having to watch our usage and we have no capacity to catch up on our favourite YouTube channels. I've had a couple of online meetings with Môn SAR and Cathy has two online Welsh lessons before we go home We should have enough data, but some additional interweb juice would have made life a bit simpler.

After lunch we took a walk along the cycle path that runs alongside the Loire, heading east towards Saumur. It was quite shocking to see how low the river is. On the section by the path it was completely dry and we were able to walk on the riverbed which, in normal times, would have been 6 - 8 feet underwater. Even the navigable section of the Loire looked very low. Worrying times in this year of drought and a further indication of climate breakdown.

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and snoozing, watching the tree creeper birds and a couple of lively horses in the field next to us. We enjoyed a lazy dinner tonight will be halloumi burgers, sauté potatoes and green beans. We still have a craving for pizza and/or chips; we're still looking for the next pizza machine! We'll also be tucking into moules-frites when we get to the Normandy coast in a week or so.

Our evening walk took us in the opposite direction to this afternoon's along the cycle path running adjacent to the road. There was a low wall that dropped down about 20 feet, with steps down at regular intervals. It was clear this was once the original quayside with ships tied up alongside and the steps down to lighters to move goods around. The houses on the opposite side of the road were made mainly of sandstone and some were built into the cliffs and caves. We took one path up and disappeared into an amazing maze of cave tunnels, with houses tucked away, the path slowly making its way up until we came out on a huge vista of vines as far as we could see. As the sun started to set, we stood and soaked in the atmosphere. We had no idea these paths and caves were here; sometimes it's good just to follow your nose.

Saint Loup sur Thouet

A long-closed boulangerie

Dampierre sur Loire

There should be about 6 ft of water in there

Even the main Loire channel is well down

Now I know why the people in Le Courdray-Macouard are so happy!

We found these amazing caves on our evening walk from Dampierre

House with a pool and caves!

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Day 11 - Bouchemaine to Le Coudray Macouard

Monday 13 October 2014

It was very, very windy last night - all outside. Apart from the wind waking me occasionally I slept well, although Cathy didn't. It was a still, clear morning though and I was up by about 0830, shaved, showered and out to get breakfast. I could hear the children playing in the école across the road and the bridge was quite busy - must be Monday morning commuter traffic! I walked into the village and bought a Bluette, the equivalent of a banette here, a croissant and two small pear tarts. Across the road was the bar/tabac, so I walked in, offered a "Bonjour" to all inside and ordered un café. The TV was on and I caught the weather forecast - not bad in our area but bad floods in the south east of the country. Coffee paid for, I walked back to the get the kettle on and prepare breakfast. We opened the blinds, skylight and windows to let some fresh air and sunlight in to the van. All done, Cathy did some washing while I disconnected and stowed the EHU cable and dropped the vans off the levellers.
Once all secured we drove over to the exit, Cathy punched in the code and we drove under the raised barrier and over to the service point. We planned to drop waste and take on fresh water - two out of three wasn't bad I suppose. Our fresh water jinx hit us again as the pressure was too low to make it through the hose pipe - if only we had a water container and funnel!

So we headed off to our next stop, the riverside town of Saumur. We found some parking about 5 minutes walk from the town centre and adjacent to the School of Cavalry. Saumur is the HQ of the French equivalent of the Royal Armoured Corps and Household Cavalry. It was lunchtime so most of the shops were shut; even some of the restaurants were shut! We walked up the hill to take a look at the view from the walls of the chateau, but there wasn't much to tempt us to stay in town. Our original plan was to use an Aire just outside the walled medieval town of Richelieu, but now all 'towned' out, I looked for a quiet, peaceful alternative - I'm so glad we changed our minds. We ended up at an Aire de Service on the outskirts of the village of Le Coudray Macouard. This is deep wine country and the Aire is in an isolated oak tree glade, surrounded by fields of maze and vineyards. It is so quiet. We were the only ones here and we parked on the grass, under the huge oak trees, but still in hot, bright sunshine. Cathy sat in her chair to read and I took a walk a walk into the village looking for a shop, but only found a bar, hairdressers (open) and a butchers (shut). But in the walk back to the van I found some rosemary to throw on the charcoal to flavour our Bavette steaks and also loads of ripe walnuts.

Back at the van, I decided to combine victuals hunting with exercise, so prepared my road bike, changed, grabbed the rucksack and headed off towards the next village called Bron. I rode past vineyards and fields of ripe maize. Bron was a small hamlet with no shop, so I continued on to the next town, which also has an Aire - Montreuil Bellay. I stopped at the river bridge to take some photos and eventually found a large Super U. I'd forgotten to take my bike lock, so I quickly skidded around in my cycling cleats collecting some bread, butter, tomatoes, shallots, water and wine. The red wine, I discovered when I opened it back at the van, came from a small producer in the town I bought it from, bought in a large supermarket in the same town.

Thankfully my bike was still in the rack and I enjoyed a fast ride back on empty country roads, albeit with a heavy rucksack. On my return I prepared dinner, sampling the red wine which was smooth and delicious. Cathy had cracked the walnuts so we had a small bowl of fresh, oily, tasty nuts. I used these to make a salad, with mixed leaves, fried lardons and goats cheese. I also made a sauce with the shallots, butter, garlic and a splash of white wine.

The steaks had been marinating in a little oil and rosemary and I threw the remaining sprigs on the BBQ so the smoke infused its flavour into the meat, which only took minutes to cook. We enjoyed this with a glass of wine and some bread, before leaving the washing up and heading out for a walk around the fields as the sun set in a clear, cloudless sky. It was lovely, quiet and peaceful. Back at the van Cathy washed up while I coaxed the BBQ back in to life with some dried oak twigs and small branches. It smoked for a while (we now both smell like a bonfire!) but the flames were soon up and we sat in the dark with a cup of tea, watching the flames and listening to the owls and frogs. We were next to a sewage works, which sounds dreadful, but it was an eco-friendly reed bed style so attracted the frogs to the ponds. It's now just past 2100 and we're back in the van. The quiet outside is deafening, the night is very still and I hope we both sleep well. We'll decide on where to next to tomorrow, but I suspect we'll make an early start and sprint for the coast again - we miss it too much!