My journey in France...
The Loire river
The Loire valley (September 17th 2000). That is where are located some of the great castles of France, surrounded by their immense gardens. It's with this assumption that we decided to visit the region.
To get to the Loire river, from Rennes, you have to go south, towards Nantes. West of Nantes is St-Nazaire. That is where the Loire river ends up in the Atlantic ocean.
Arrived on the scene we decided to ride East along the river, by the North side. We thaught that we would see the castles from far enough, and we would visit them one after the other.
After few kilometers without having spotted one from the road, we decided to get closer to the river. Here is the Oudon village. And curiously, there are some remains of a period castle at this place, among which the tower escaped destruction.
At the local touristic office, they don't know much about the castles. There are some of them, here and there, but they are either recent or in ruins. I was surprised. That is not what I heard about the Loire's castles? Finaly, they told us few places where we could visit some of them.
On the other isde of the river is Champtoceaux. On the bridge, we can see the outlines of a castle's shadow. We decide to get closer.
It's far to be the great castles we imagined, but that's a beginning. Perhaps they will grow bigger as we progress East?
Maybe not after all? There might not be any great castle around here, but there are nice panorama anyway. The landscape is magnificent... as much as can be the weather today!
The Champtoceaux village is located on top of a cliff overlooking the Loire. |
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Here is one of the several towers that we encounter regularly along the North side road. Many villages have one. This was taken from a viewpoint at Champtoceaux. |
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From the same place, here is the bridge that crosses the river between Oudon and Champtoceaux. Its enlargement is in 1024x768. |
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This one was taken in the middle of the bridge. It's the Oudon's tower. |
While going on our way, we stopped at a winemaker. The store was closed but we ask to take some pictures of the area.
Celle-ci est en 1024x768. Une autre suggestion pour votre fond d'écran!
A bit farther is Ancenis where they told us we could find some important fortifications.
As per those we saw previously, most of it was destroyed. The remaining serves as a nice and imposing finery at the city entrance. A city indeed that was practically deserted on this Sunday at noon. Time for which my stomach gurgles. And guess what? Everybody left. Strangely, that impression of emptyness remembers me something...
Still, we looked for castles for quite a while without seeing any. At Varades we decided to crosses the river again, matter of verifying if we missed anything on the other side that would look like battlements...
Around St-Florent there was effectively a tower, but equiped with a propeller. Quite a big one indeed.
I almost lost my head that day!
There too was a nice panorama over the valley.
We revert back and crossed the river for the xth times, matter of verifying if we could see a castle from the middle of the bridge. In vain.
The touristic guide told us there was a castle around St-Germain. That's close to Angers. Speaking of danger, that is about this impression we had by looking at this:
Along the road. |
From behind. |
The main entrance. |
Time was passing and we decided to go back to Rennes.
So long for the Loire's great castles. That will be for the next time. If any.
The
pictures contained in the following web pages were realized by, and
are the property of: Martin Lemieux (a.k.a. Maître Bart).
Any copy, in whole or in part, for commercial or lucrative usage must be
previously approved by the author.
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