Friday 20th July 2007
Day's Progress: 37 kms : 12 locks (Total 300kms : 152 locks)
There was a huge storm last night, thunder, lightening and it was cold. And cold and wet this morning and we waited until just after 9.00 when the weather had cleared a bit to get going.
Even with rain and cold for most of the morning we travelled through some really lovely country side. The land was a bit flatter and we had lovely views of fields and the distant hills.
· Passed through fields of maize, wheat and sunflowers
· Lots of fat butter cows again
· Numerous villages alongside the canal
· Lots of lovely little old houses and lots of really large ones on big estates.
· In the harvested wheat fields, the stalks of the cut wheat have been swept into rows and there are hundreds of black crows foraging about! They look as happy as anything – there must be lots of nice goodies to eat in the hay.
· As soon as the sun comes out the fisherman are on the banks of the canal fishing.
· We saw our first vineyard this morning.
· We stopped at another converted lock house for lunch. It was very much a local place with trucks parked outside. In the bar part of the restaurant there was a dog sitting on a chair at the table with its owner and they were both eating off the same plate. I found out when we left that this in fact was the own and chef.
· I ate that funny sausage thing called “audillate” or something like that – had seen them in the butcheries and they look really awful – like something diseased but it was remarkably tasty. Some sort of skin around fresh herbs and shavings of smoked pork. It was served with shallots and red wine sauce and mashed potato. Very yummy. It may have been wrapped in chicken skin.
· I picked some more wild flowers – the previous ones have had it now and need to chucked.
· The houses have different shaped terra cotta chimney pots to previous ones we have seen.
The town we have arrived in for the night looks very quaint. It is at the foothills of large hill that has Sancerre on top of it. We have a spectacular view of this fortress town from the canal. We will be going into Sancerre for lunch tomorrow – it is about 2km from where we are.
Since leaving Desize we have been on the Canal Lateral which runs laterally to the Loire River. The rivers are huge and pumping water from all the rain we have had.
At 20h30 we are 205 m and temperature is 30 deg.
Day's Progress: 37 kms : 12 locks (Total 300kms : 152 locks)
There was a huge storm last night, thunder, lightening and it was cold. And cold and wet this morning and we waited until just after 9.00 when the weather had cleared a bit to get going.
Even with rain and cold for most of the morning we travelled through some really lovely country side. The land was a bit flatter and we had lovely views of fields and the distant hills.
· Passed through fields of maize, wheat and sunflowers
· Lots of fat butter cows again
· Numerous villages alongside the canal
· Lots of lovely little old houses and lots of really large ones on big estates.
· In the harvested wheat fields, the stalks of the cut wheat have been swept into rows and there are hundreds of black crows foraging about! They look as happy as anything – there must be lots of nice goodies to eat in the hay.
· As soon as the sun comes out the fisherman are on the banks of the canal fishing.
· We saw our first vineyard this morning.
· We stopped at another converted lock house for lunch. It was very much a local place with trucks parked outside. In the bar part of the restaurant there was a dog sitting on a chair at the table with its owner and they were both eating off the same plate. I found out when we left that this in fact was the own and chef.
· I ate that funny sausage thing called “audillate” or something like that – had seen them in the butcheries and they look really awful – like something diseased but it was remarkably tasty. Some sort of skin around fresh herbs and shavings of smoked pork. It was served with shallots and red wine sauce and mashed potato. Very yummy. It may have been wrapped in chicken skin.
· I picked some more wild flowers – the previous ones have had it now and need to chucked.
· The houses have different shaped terra cotta chimney pots to previous ones we have seen.
The town we have arrived in for the night looks very quaint. It is at the foothills of large hill that has Sancerre on top of it. We have a spectacular view of this fortress town from the canal. We will be going into Sancerre for lunch tomorrow – it is about 2km from where we are.
Since leaving Desize we have been on the Canal Lateral which runs laterally to the Loire River. The rivers are huge and pumping water from all the rain we have had.
At 20h30 we are 205 m and temperature is 30 deg.
The canal front of this village is beautiful but the buildings one street back are decaying and uninhabited. The shops, and not many of them, are only open in August and there is a bar and restaurant open. No bakery or supermarket. We walked around a bit and went into the church which was built in 12th to 14th century. It was quite small but very beautiful and fortunately in good repair.
We spent the night here to see the glass blower but he is also closed until August!!!!
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