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12.06.08
Thursday Montsoreau to Chinon
Started early to Boulongerie outside campsite open at 07:00hrs and, after breakfast of a very crisp baguette and ham, headed off up and down the escarpment past more troglodyte houses and up on to top, with a good view of the confluence of the Loire and the Vienne. The GR3 then visits a very old abbey at Fontevruade l’Abbaye about 3 miles south, this involved us missing a turn and trying to get back to the route via a wood with bramble undergrowth and little path. We eventually disentangled ourselves, thank you GPS, and reached this nice little town dominated by a huge abbey with parties of school children about to go round and a Biochemistry conference. We had a coffee and left to follow the GR3 back to the Vienne around the end of a large wooded Military Zone from which strange rumblings were coming. We stopped for a sit down and a bar to eat, and then spotted a TANK in a clearing behind us, we thought better of trying to photograph it and it soon rumbled off,
Three miles across fields took us back to the steep descent to the flood plain of the Vienne and a fairly pleasant 6 miles up the bank to Chinon.
Throughout the day we have had occasional views of the nuclear power station near Chinon. This was one of the first commercial reactors opened by the French in 1957. I don’t know if it is still so, but in France it used to be that if you could see a nuclear power station then you got all your electricity for free. If that rule was applied in the UK then I suspect that the approval process for new reactors would be shortened considerably!
The day has steadily clouded over and we now await the rain stopping before going into town to find a restaurant to eat in with the ladies who have now left Guernsey on the route altered ferry and should be with us for nine this evening.
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