Enfin faire du vélo et un marché/Finally cycling and a market

Part of the market

Vendredi, comme jeudi, il a bruiné.  Donc, nous avons retourné  la voiture et puis nous avons trouvé la location des vélos.  Nous avons loué 2 vélos pour 3 jours du samedi au lundi. 

Samedi, il y avait un marché dans les rues près de notre appartement.  Nous avons passé plusieurs heures regardant les légumes,  les charcuteries, les poissonnières, et les fromageries.  Il y avais beaucoup des choses gouter et voir. 

And another part of the market

Après ça, nous avons allé pour notre première faire du vélo en France.  Nous avons fait du vélo à côte de la Loire vers Gennes et Les Rosiers sur Loire ou nous avons un café et un croque monsieur avant retournant à côte la rive gauche de la Loire.  Nous faisions du vélo 40 kilomètres.

It was a grey and drizzly day on Friday, the day on which we had to relinquish the truck and use an alternative means of getting around.  I had booked the car to be dropped in Orleans but checked with the office in Saumur and found we could drop it there.  So we filled the car up with fuel and returned it.  Whilst we had the car we also went to “Decathlon” – a sports warehouse – where we went through the painful process of finding me a pair of cheap shoes for bike riding. 

My bike and the Loire behind

After returning the car we located the bike hire place (within walking distance of our apartment) and booked the last two bikes available for three days from Saturday to Monday.  It was a long weekend and I think there were a lot of optimistic people wanting to rent bikes like us.

For dinner that night we went to a restaurant recommended by Colin and Myriam called Le Grand Bleu. It was literally almost next door.  We were nearly the first there but it filled up.  We had some very nice fish.  I had the Sole Meuniere which I had always wanted to try and I was not disappointed.  Bev had grilled sardines which she really liked as well – her only previous experience of sardines

River transport

had been out of a can. It was a night of lovely French cooking and some interesting Chenin Blanc, a sweet aperitif which was superb and a dry one to go with the fish.

On Saturday it was still cold and grey but at least the drizzle had gone.  There is a big market in Saumur on Saturday which fills the streets across from our apartment.  We spent several glorious hours wandering the market, tasting food from vegetable stalls, charcuterie, cheese stalls and there were even some fishmongers.   We bought enough food to hopefully get us through to our departure on Tuesday.  Two cheeses that we tasted we both liked and purchased were a Beaufort and Bleu de Brebis (blue sheep cheese from the Pyrenees in the south of France).  The vegetables were similar to those that we would get in New Zealand.  We also got some paté – (a traditional paté recipe of grandmother) and a salmon

Entrance to the Restaurant in the cave

pate.  It was a very nice experience. 

We then took our bikes for a ride west towards a little place called Gennes and then to a place over the river called Les Rosiers sur Loire.  It was an interesting ride.  The road was flat all the way on the right bank. We were recommended to go to a restaurant in a cave but unfortunately we were too late as the kitchen had finished serving by the time we got there. Nonetheless we were able to see the caves in which they extracted the Truffeau - the rock used to build many of the Chateaux in the Loire Valley and of which a good deal of Saumur is also constructed.  The caves, of which there are many along the right bank in this area, are also used to grow mushrooms and we have subsequently learned that Saumur supplies 54% of France’s mushrooms. 

From the edge of Saumur to Gennes we saw many grand homes lining the bottom of the coteaux. Apparently many of them are holiday

Bev at Les Rosalie sur Loire

properties owned by wealthy people  and it certainly appeared that way as many were not occupied.

We thought the whole area was very picturesque particularly the ride along the Loire which is very wide compared to anything we have in New Zealand – the Waikato for instance would need to be about three times as wide to come close to its width. 

After a late lunch in a Café/Bar, we went into a little shop and found some interesting wine of the region for us to try with our meals.  The woman who assisted was a delight and while I tried to use my French (which I think is worse than when I came here in 2011), she used her English.  I think we were about even in language skills.

On the rive gauche cycle trail

The ride down the left bank was less interesting than along the right bank.  The bike trail was below the levée but we chose to ride about half of it above the levée .  It was quite interesting as there were villages right next to the levee or built on it.

By the time we got back to the apartment we had done around 40 kilometres which we thought was not bad for a first bike ride (mind you the terrain was very easy).