3 Cycling routes of the Loire Valley which offers a great deal to see and experience. St Nazaire on the Atlantic at the mouth of the river was the site of Natzi submarine pens in WWII. They remain.
4 Oyster fossils left from the sea that once covered this part of France left behind a thick bed of white stone called tuffeau. It was mined to buld chateau and lesser buildings in the area. The resultant caves which stay at a constant 12ºC have been used for wine cellars and dwellings. Lots of cave space is still available. When I asked the vinter at Langlois-Chateau winery if they still mined cut stone from the caves he replied there was no need as everything is already built.
5 House built of tuffeau beside a trglodyte cave.Vinyard above.
6 From the caves to the vinyard.
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8 The Château de Montsoreau is a Renaissance style castle directly built in the Loire riverbed in the market town of Montsoreau, in the Maine-et-Loire département of France, in close proximity to Saumur and Fontevraud-L'abbaye. The château has an exceptional position at the confluence of two rivers, the Loire and the Vienne, and at the meeting point of three historic regions: Anjou, Poitou and Touraine. It was reconstructed in a Renaissance style between 1450 and 1460 by Jean de Chambes, one of the kingdom's wealthiest men, a senior councillor and chamberlain to King Charles VII and to King Louis XI. The château has been immortalised by Alexandre Dumas in his novel La Dame de Monsoreau.
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11 The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault (in French: abbaye de Fontevraud) is a complex of religious buildings hosting a cultural centre since 1975, the Centre Culturel de l'Ouest, in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in Anjou, France. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preacher Robert of Arbrissel. The foundation flourished and became the center of a new monastic Order, the Order of Fontevrault. This order was composed of double monasteries, in which the community consisted of both men and women--in separate quarters of the abbey--all of which were subject to the authority of the Abbess of Fontevraud. The Abbey of Fontevraud itself consisted of four separate communities, all completely managed by the same abbess. Wikipedia
