To the Canal de Briare

Continuing along the Canal we have enjoyed the hospitality of a number of towns which clearly welcome the pleasure boats and their crew and make excellent provision for us, including very attractive gardens and free electricity and water. We have enjoyed Beffes, Herry, Cours les Barres, Lere  and Belleville.

Attractive Halte at Cours les BarresMost of these towns trace their history to the times of the Gauls and probably beyond. The excellent cycle track of the Valley of the Loire is well promoted and we made good use of it to explore the area.

Pouilly sur Loire. Home of the famous wine- Pouilly Fumee One day we stopped for lunch on our way home and found ourselves in a farm courtyard where the tables and chairs were set out under shady trees. It was a delicious lunch made even more interesting by the wildlife: two pigs, a baby alpaca one week old, peacocks, roosters, hens and their chickens as well as a gaggle of geese- all wandering around among the tables.

Another ride took us to the Belleville Nuclear Power station with its two reactors and an interesting description of the French electricity system including wind, hydro and coal/oil/gas fired power.

Belleville ("Beautiful town") now has these at its front door
Another highlight was a trip to Sancerre, an interesting ancient fortified town, with excellent wines. With the day forecast to be 38 degrees we set off early, up hill as is often the case with fortified towns. The town itself is 2 kilometres away from our starting point, as the crow flies, but 160 metres higher. The cycleway was a bit more gradual and took 3.5 kms to make the climb. The reward was a fantastic view over the Loire Valley and a rewarding tour of an interesting town. Sancerre is one of those excellent towns which present their important history in an accessible way, with a red line painted on the road to follow and clear descriptions of the historic buildings as the route reaches them. We stopped off to visit the Maison des Sancerre with its history of wine making in the region including very personal recollections from many of the vignerons and finished off with an excellent lunch in the main square. By then the day was getting quite hot and we were pleased to be able to free- wheel almost all the way back to the boat, a just reward for our earlier hard pedalling.

View from SancerreThe vineyards
Now the hot weather has really set in with a forecast over 35 degrees for 16 consecutive days. We seek good shade for our moorings and so far have been quite successful, currently well placed on a grassy bank under a thick grove of trees. Mornings have been moderate, about 28 degrees, with the afternoons heating up quickly to reach a peak about 6pm and cooling very slowly, with the sun finally setting at 10pm. The water in the canal has been reaching 32 degrees though it drops late at night to about 28 so we can eventually get to sleep. It takes us back to our many months in the tropics where a water temperature similarly of 28 degrees provided routinely warm nights. It is amazing what you can get used to. Still, if we choose to aim for summer all year round, we must expect hot weather!   
The towns along the Loire suffered in World War II. Lere was bombed by the Germans during the June 1940 offensive and several townspeople lost their lives. Other towns in the same area suffered either bombing or ground attacks at that time. The saddest memorial was in the town of Neuvy sur Loire. By July 1944 just as everyone was breathing a sigh of relief that the war was almost over and they had come through fairly unscathed this tiny town was bombarded by hundreds of bombs from American liberators on three separate days, not at night, July 17th and August 2nd and 7th. Of the population of 1,000 people 129 were killed and over 300 injured. Ninety per cent of the buildings in the town were damaged, 70 completely destroyed. The toll would have been greater if the people still uninjured had not abandoned the town after the second bombing- the first was put down to error. To this day, no-one there knows why this little town was targeted. This was no stray bomb dropped by mistake. Certainly there were bridges over the Loire near the town and a railway track which was carrying German troops, but these were successfully target bombed and the town was unaffected. The main bombing fell on the town itself.
The town was awarded a Croix de Guerre after the war but this was small comfort for the people of the town who had lost so many men, women and children for no apparent reason. Yet another tragedy of war. 

Best Regards,

Penny and Dave