Troglodytes

Woke up to no rain this morning and by the time we set off on our bikes the sun was shining.

When I woke this morning as well as all the normal birds chattering away in the trees there was a cuckoo who was having a lovely time. If it was a cuckoo clock it would be at least 50 o’clock by now.

Had to reacquaint myself with my bike as we hadn’t ridden for 3 days. Oiled the bike chain and put on the riding gear and now we are off to see Troglodytes.

There is a tourist destination about 3kms out of town which we rode to called Troglodyte Valley. The Goupillieres which was also on the name plate is the old language name for foxes. The beautiful little red ones which are virtually extinct now.

Well what an amazing place. They were troglodyte caves built into the side of hills They were peasants from the Tours region who possessed nothing but their physical strength to dig into the hills of tufa to turn them into dwellings and to extract the limestone that was used for centuries in the construction of 200 chateau, 700 churches and many houses in the Loire Valley.

We were there for quite a few hours as it was so interesting. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.

We headed off down the road to Sache which was the home, outside Paris, of Balzac.

We had coffee in the square and the boulangerie was open so fresh pastries with our coffee before we moved on to the museum/house.

Another fabulous house and the site where Balzac wrote The Human Comedy where he combined human bodies with animal heads. He wrote 27 volumes of the Human Comedy and after they were published he went through them again and made more edits but only for himself.

Out in the barn/shed of the house was a fantastic display of photos of the animal heads with human clothing. One was a cassowary. Very interesting

From there we cycled back through Sache to Villaines where there was a co-op where basket weaving is a huge industry. We watched the craftsmanship of the artisans as they wove all sorts of things from baskets to chairs and tables. They even had a tea tower.

As we were leaving I discovered I had a flat tyre and of course had left my spare back at the house. We pumped it up and it seemed to be ok which was a relief as we had 4kms to go before we were back at La Jagee.

Luckily it seemed that the tyre was just flat and needed pumping up as we got back to our place and it was still ok.

Jane and I decided to go on to another chateau we wanted to see which was l’islette built in the 16th century. Another beautiful chateau with exquisite gardens and a mill house beside it which was built before the chateau.

What I am finding very interesting is how deceiving the size of the chateau’s are. L’Islette is only one room wide and as all the rooms are so large there are only about 3-4 rooms per floor. Very deceiving from outside. They are all set on parkland which are flowers, trees big chestnuts and conifers. Very beautiful

So now we are sitting in the mill house having a big glass of rose before we head back to La Jagee.

We left and in the way home thought I would stop into the bike shop to check my back tyre. The man was gorgeous and it turned out my actual tyre had worn through so he fixed both the slow leak and replaced my outside tyre.

Jane and I popped into town while my bike was being fixed had a glass of wine and did some shopping, picked up the bike and headed home.

It was a quick change and we decided to cycle into town for dinner.

Had a fabulous french dinner at a wonderful bistro in town

So dinner is over and we are heading home after another wonderful day in the Loire.

Tomorrow another amazing chateau

Vive Le France 🇫🇷

Bon nuit