{"id":187,"date":"2018-09-14T15:54:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T15:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=187"},"modified":"2026-08-17T06:04:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:04:55","slug":"fra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=187","title":{"rendered":"FRANCE 2018. 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

I booked (and paid for) a river-view pitch at Chantipie (now known as Huttopia Saumur) at the exorbitant price of \u20ac29 per night. \u00a0For this I was roundly criticised by one and all. \u00a0After what seemed a long 150 miles towing, we hauled up the hill to the campsite. \u00a0Glenda tried her very best negotiating skills to try and get the management to accept our camping vouchers in payment for our river-view pitch. \u00a0After a three hour battle during which Brexit was mentioned several times as were “libert\u00e9” “\u00e9galit\u00e9” and “fraternit\u00e9”, she had to concede defeat. \u00a0However she managed to transmogrify our booked pitch for one a row back from the front with a view down an access path. \u00a0Her expression was “half the view for half the price!”.<\/p>\n

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Nice one. \u00a0Now we won’t go bankrupt – at least not this week! \u00a0We can still get the full view by moving our chairs onto a vacant front pitch!<\/p>\n

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Sunrise this morning from our front window was pretty spectacular too…<\/p>\n

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Today is the first exposure we have had to proper shops on this trip.\u00a0 (I use the word “we” very loosely in this context!) \u00a0Saumur seemed delightfully quiet and peaceful with relatively few tourists milling about.<\/p>\n

While Glenda hit the shops (conveniently with no money or credit card!!!), I circled the town centre by car 23 and a half times before I found an escape route but this was soon blocked by a massive coach stuck under a low bridge. \u00a0Engine off and chat with the locals in the cars in front for 15 minutes. \u00a0Sadly, there was no cafe at that particular point but, unbeknownst to me at the time, there was one the other end of the coach which could be my most favouritely named establishment ever…<\/p>\n

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After parking the car on the outskirts of town, I climbed the 2 million and 4 steps up to the front door of Saumur’s chateau. Quite a spectacular view back over the river and bridge…<\/p>\n

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Between the castle and the city is the Maison des Compagnons.\u00a0 It is one of the only surviving buildings of the ancient quarter from the 15th century. \u00a0Surviving, but much restored!<\/p>\n

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Apparently this building is home to l’Association Ouvri\u00e8re des Compagnons du Devour de Tour de France. However, I suspect this is not a lot to do with cycle racing!!! \u00a0And probably more to do with tradesmen’s associations and guilds throughout France. \u00a0But that’s a bit of a guess!<\/p>\n

We had arranged to meet later under the colourful umbrellas for a coffee.<\/p>\n

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Un bonne id\u00e9e! \u00a0Except there were two lots of the perishing things – situated about 10 minutes walk apart!<\/p>\n

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Fortunately we both chose the same lot!<\/p>\n

The local church – as in local to our coffee stop was St Peter’s. \u00a0Originally built in the 12th century, the facade was reconstructed in the 17th century (probably to meet the new EU standards).\u00a0 Magnificent internally:<\/p>\n

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I put that photo in specially for Geoff – who is something of an expert on cathedrals and big churches of the world. \u00a0I hope he’s reading!<\/p>\n

We eventually left Saumur without a single purchase!\u00a0 Excellent budget-wise – but not for long! \u00a0As you may discover in the next exciting instalment …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I booked (and paid for) a river-view pitch at Chantipie (now known as Huttopia Saumur) at the exorbitant price of \u20ac29 per night. \u00a0For this I was roundly criticised by one and all. \u00a0After what seemed a long 150 miles… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8092,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/8092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}