Chateauneuf-sur-Loire

Monday 18th August

Just travelled a little further NW today to Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, spending some time at St. Benoit-s-L on the way.  We had read about the Abbaye de Fleury there and decided to get there for the daily service at midday, sung by the monks in Gregorian plainsong.  It's a very impressive Benedictine abbey founded in C7, with most of the present building being C11.  But the marble mosaic floor of the sanctuary is Roman from a previous C5/6 abbey and rather lovely.  (Photos not allowed.)  We are very doubtful about the shiny box in the crypt supposedly containing the relics of St. Benedict, though.  After lunch we had a wander about the village and went to look for a geocache close to a house with arched windows.  The hint was 'you haven't got the right' so we were inspecting the 'no entry' sign opposite the house, when the owner came out and took the top off the post of the sign and asked if this was what we were looking for!!  He admitted he didn't know what people were looking for, or why, but had seen the likes of us before!!  We had a little chat, showed him that we just had to sign the log book to say we had been and put it back where we found it.  He shrugged and went back indoors!!

We've come to another river-side campsite to stay the next two nights and will explore Chateauneuf tomorrow. 

Tuesday 19th August

Another lovely sunny morning, but we are noticing that the nights are getting chillier.  A lone cyclist who had just emerged from his tiny tent said he had noticed that too!   We are really enjoying this cycling nearly every day, but of course we are doing it the easy way - everywhere we see single people, couples, groups and families with panniers, back carriers, handlebar carriers, rucksacks, trolleys that fix to the back of bikes which sometimes have a small child in, but often are also loaded up with stuff - doing it the hard way.  Various nationalities, but particularly Dutch.  The 'Loire en Velo' route is quite a popular thing to be doing.  Apart from the scenic river and the gardens and park surroundng the manoir (the real chateau has long gone), the town is quite ordinary.  It has a Marine Museum and we'd have liked to have seen that - but it's closed Tuesdays!  We did a little bit of caching and we have a similar story to tell as yesterday.  While wandering around a little chapel, trying to decide where to start looking, an elderly lady came out of her house and called to us.  We tried to look as though we were just interested in the building, but she led us over to a tree and pointed to a piece of green wire looped from a hollow between the branches!  She also wanted to chat and we did our best.  We are very impressed that these 'locals' don't get fed up with strangers snooping around their patch - they actually welcome them.

By a 'fontaine', working out the final co-ordinates

Le chateau

Camping at Chateauneuf

The Red Tent camp