9 September 2022 – Saumur

Miles driven today = 128

Total Miles to date = 634

As planned, we managed to make an early start today so that we could see a few of the sights around Saumur before we moved on.  We had some early excitement almost as soon as we left the aire.  A lady in a car behind us clearly wasn’t happy with the fact that we chose to comply with the 50kph speed limit.  At the first opportunity she roared in front of us and then screeched to a halt before jumping out and gesticulating wildly at her watch whilst ranting in her finest Francais.  The irony that her protracted display was delaying her far more than she would have been if she had just sat behind us was clearly lost on her.  We just smiled sweetly and blew kisses through the windscreen.

We successfully found a large open car park close to the cavalry museum.  Saumur it seems has a large military presence but we had a couple of things higher up our agenda to visit.  We walked down to the river and took a few pictures of one of the town’s main bridges in the morning light.

Then it was on through the town’s largely pedestrianised central shopping area which looked to have some attractive retail options for those that way inclined.  We strolled past the Church of St Pierre which I took to be the primary place of worship in the town.

We then climbed the steep stepped path up to the Castle. 

We didn’t venture inside as we wanted to be on the road by lunchtime but we took a few minutes at the top to admire the views.

The river and the town looked wonderful from up there.

We then strolled quickly back to the van via a boulangerie because there was one more thing which we simply had to visit before we left Saumur.  I mentioned yesterday that Lisa and I love a spot of foraging.  Well then what better place to spend an hour and a half but an actual bona fide Mushroom Museum?

The first part of the tour took us into an old troglodyte house where the several rooms were filled with hundreds of mushroom related trinkets collected from all corners of the globe.

Then on to the mushroom museum itself which is housed in a huge network of meandering caves dug deep into the rock face.  There is a collection of more than 200 species of mushroom.  Some of them were plaster casts or models whereas others were the actual fruiting bodies preserved in resin.  There were full details given of where each of the species grows and how edible or otherwise they are.  I was really quite impressed with how many I recognised and could name.

Stop sniggering at the back there!

At the very back of the cave system is a commercial mushroom farm where they grow numerous varieties from the common to the bizarre.

They produce 12 tons of the stuff here every year.

I know this place probably wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of mushroom tea but Lisa pronounced that it was one of the best museums she had ever visited.  They even had Shitake mushroom beer for sale in the gift shop.  It’s 9% ABV so we are sharing a bottle.

So we successfully managed to get on the road for a little after midday and picked up the D938.  From our vantage point on the ring road, Thouars looked an interesting place to visit with some impressive buildings and an attractively wriggly river.

We stopped for lunch at an Aire between Thouars and the next town of Parthenay and then on to Niort, where Google Maps inexplicable sent us for a short tour around a residential area.  Then it was on to Saint Jean d’Angely and finally here to our destination of Saintes. 

Today’s journey entirely avoided any driving on dual carriageways.  Most of the roads were dead straight and presumably Roman in origin.  In many places they were widened to 3 lanes but we noticed that the overtaking lane was often on the downhill sections, which seemed counterintuitive when you really need them to overtake slow moving lorries (and motorhomes) moving uphill.

We also noticed that the buildings in the villages we passed through are becoming much more Mediterranean in their appearance with low level sandy coloured walls and clay tiled roofs.

We only got into Saintes at 3:30 and there are a few things we want to see here, including a Roman amphitheatre, so we have decided to put the anchor down and stay for 2 nights.  We are in Camping au Fil de l’Eau on the banks of the Charente river.  It’s a spacious and surprisingly uncrowded site given it’s a Friday evening and there is a music festival in town.  The sanitary provisions are a little tired but we have everything we need.  It’s €16 a night but we’ve splashed out an extra €4 on hook up as we plan to get the leccy bikes out tomorrow.

10 September 2022 - Saintes