{"id":7613,"date":"2026-06-02T20:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7613"},"modified":"2026-06-02T20:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:55:21","slug":"5-le-loir-et-la-loire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7613","title":{"rendered":"5. LE LOIR ET LA LOIRE."},"content":{"rendered":"

Navigating the northern ring road round Le Mans, we came to one particularly dodgy and complicated roundabout.\u00a0 Going really slowly trying to change lanes, we brought traffic to a total standstill.\u00a0 Well, there were five options and we needed option three.\u00a0 But this option immediately divided.\u00a0 We needed 3b and came off the roundabout in one lane too far to the right heading for 3a.\u00a0 No doubt dead easy if you know what you are doing!\u00a0 We need a refreshing coffee!\u00a0 Urgently!\u00a0 And less than 15 kms later, we stumbled on a restaurant at a roundabout.\u00a0 The Auberge du Narais.\u00a0 We circled the roundabout fifteen times trying to work out how to get into their massive car park without leaving useful bits of caravan scattered all over the road.<\/p>\n

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I know that looks easy from this angle, but it’s quite a tight and slow turn for a caravan and NOBODY is expecting such a manouvre.\u00a0 Most normal customers turn in before the roundabout at the far end of the carpark!\u00a0 Once in, we swung around and parked ready to drive straight out later.<\/p>\n

An excellent coffee break turned into lunch stop 15 minutes later when the Auberge officially opened for the meal of the day.\u00a0 But when we came to leave we found that Les Frogs had blocked us in.\u00a0 Probably as a joke.\u00a0 But it backfired when madame la proprietaire demanded they leave their meals and move their cars out of our way.\u00a0 We left quickly!<\/p>\n

Later, as we approached Vend\u00f4me (I think it was Vend\u00f4me but it might have been Fr\u00e9teval), we missed a sign for the ring road.\u00a0 Well, to be fair we did see it, but not until we had passed the junction.\u00a0 But Madam Sat-nav had us going through the old town anyway.\u00a0 Let’s just say, the ring road would have been a MUCH, MUCH better route.\u00a0 The significant point about Vendome (and Fr\u00e9teval) is that they are on the River Loir.\u00a0 Le Loir not La Loire!\u00a0 Always a surprise!<\/p>\n

Camping Le Jardin de Sully is located, confusingly, at Saint-P\u00e8re-sur-Loire.\u00a0 Sully-sur-Loire is on the other side of the river.\u00a0 We grabbed a corner pitch with a view of the river.\u00a0 Well, a glimpse anyway.\u00a0 It’s mainly German campers here, and one British couple immediately next door, but they declined to even acknowledge us.\u00a0 So there was no chit chat on that front!\u00a0 Still, awning up and settle down.<\/p>\n

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The first expedition was to Gien.\u00a0 The campsite we stayed at last time we were here (many years ago) is just visible on the far bank of the River as viewed over the roofs of town.<\/p>\n

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We did visit the site, but it was much developed since we stayed there.\u00a0 Loads of fixed chalets have been planted and appear to be breeding.\u00a0 Our recollection was of a big field with lots of trees and camping wherever we wanted.\u00a0 Now pitches have numbers – heaven forbid!\u00a0 To be fair, had we arrived here with our caravan, we would have stayed.<\/p>\n

The bridge over the Loire with an “e” at Gien.<\/p>\n

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One of the big attractions in town was the porcelain factory and boutique.\u00a0 We managed cleverly not to have found it last time.\u00a0 This time, carelessly, I drove right past the place.\u00a0 So now we know how to get there.\u00a0 All that was needed was a 180\u00b0 turn on the main road and we were ready to shop!<\/p>\n

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The porcelain here is pretty famous (or so I have been told!).\u00a0 And the top quality, hand-painted stuff is the real deal.\u00a0 I lost count of the zeroes in the price of the biggest pieces.<\/p>\n

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I will admit they were fabulous – but were never going to fit in the caravan … for several reasons, of which the size, weight and fragility of the items were just three!\u00a0 However,\u00a0 Glenda did manage to find a screened off area where plates were more attractively priced.\u00a0 We now own six delightful, un-painted plates (very suitable for small cakes and pastries).\u00a0 They are carefully wrapped and stashed in the car in the compartment where a spare wheel might have been stored in days gone by.<\/p>\n

Over the bridge by our current campsite, we visited Sully-sur-Loire.\u00a0 Lunch was taken at the busiest tavern in town, Le P’tit Sully.\u00a0 Excellent.\u00a0 But now we need a 25 mile walk to deal with the calories consumed.\u00a0 Sadly, they don’t do miles here, so instead, we settled for a three km route round the lake behind the chateau.<\/p>\n

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Then to make our walk more calorie-consuming we walked through the town, past the Centre Fran\u00e7oise Kuypers.\u00a0 Fran\u00e7oise was a doctor, a chemist and a benefactor, but the statue out front is clearly not of her.\u00a0 Clearly male.\u00a0 In fact it’s of Maximilien de B\u00e9thune, the first Duke of Sully who, as Superintendent of the Nation’s Finances, was France’s answer to the UK’s “Rachel-From-Accounts”.\u00a0 (Sorry Maximilien, I really shouldn’t compare you with Rachel.\u00a0 I’m sure you properly understood the Nation’s finances!)<\/p>\n

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We extended our walk downstream on the riverside path until we were opposite our home on wheels.\u00a0 Then back to the car.\u00a0 That was our three miles for the day!<\/p>\n

Travelling around the French countryside, we have gradually worked out what constitutes a French village or small town.\u00a0 They all have a number of things in common.\u00a0 For example they all have at least two dynamically unstabilising speed bumps.\u00a0 One at each end of town.\u00a0 Often with dozens of the blighters in between, and they are all denoted 30 kph speed zones.\u00a0 All villages have additional traffic calming measures where the road width is dramatically reduced with priority randomly allocated to traffic coming or going.\u00a0 They all have no significant, moving, local traffic.\u00a0 All the town’s cars are parked randomly on pavements, junctions and pedestrian crossings and look as though they’ve been immobile for decades.\u00a0 All villages have at least one bar\/tabac, almost always closed.\u00a0 By law, no residents are allowed to be seen by visitors during daylight hours.\u00a0 All towns appear to be ghost towns, but compulsorally have a magnificent hotel de ville (town hall) with flags and well maintained flower beds, a mairie, a notaries office and a central market area.\u00a0 There used to be a legally binding requirement for all communes to have a boulangerie or, at the very least, a depot de pain from which the ghostly residents could obtain their twice daily fix of baguettes.\u00a0 (But this no longer applies.)\u00a0 There is almost always a free-to-use public loo and a DAE point – a defibrillator.\u00a0 And lastly, they all have a super-massive church!\u00a0 Some examples follow.<\/p>\n

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Churches in Guerlesquin, St Ben\u00f4it-sur-Loire, Lorris, and Sully-la-Tour respectively.\u00a0 I think the catholic church has about five basic designs and ALL of them have seating capacity for 200 to 600 worshippers.\u00a0 I’ve counted!\u00a0 Where these people would come from nowadays, I haven’t a clue.\u00a0 I find it hard to believe that they were ever filled to capacity.<\/p>\n

Apparently, there are 100,000 churches and chapels in France.\u00a0 And VERY few would be classed as anything but large!<\/p>\n

You might wonder why I’ve been researching village churches so determinedly on this trip.\u00a0 The answer lies in the laws of thermodynamics (or at least, in my interpretation of them!).\u00a0 It’s blinking hot outside.\u00a0 A church is a massive object with a huge volume of air enclosed.\u00a0 Let’s just say that churches retain the coolth imparted to them when they were first built.\u00a0 They remain beautifully cold inside during heatwaves!<\/p>\n

“Glenda let’s go check out the church in the next village!”<\/p>\n

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Navigating the northern ring road round Le Mans, we came to one particularly dodgy and complicated roundabout.\u00a0 Going really slowly trying to change lanes, we brought traffic to a total standstill.\u00a0 Well, there were five options and we needed option… <\/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":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613","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=7613"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7642,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613\/revisions\/7642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}