Chartres to Orleans

  Orleans, France
Sunday, May 25, 2008

After a leisurely shower and breakfast
we were on our way. The night before we had passed through
Nogent-le-Roi and seen a wonderful old church and a huge chateau. We
had been too tired to bother at the time, but it was only 4 miles
back, and it was shaping up to be a lovely day.

Nogent Le roi

We couldn't find an easy way to the
chateau and made do with tantalising glimpses of it from the town
square. The church was huge and a complete mish-mash of
architecture. This is beginning to be a theme in these parts.
Almost every old chateau, church or house has evidence of doors,
windows or roofs that no longer exist, and we would love to know why. My French is good enough to
wing it with most translations but not good enough to invest in a
guide book, even when I can find one.

Some houses in the town were faced with
what appeared to be reddish coloured volcanic rock. The corners of
walls and frames of doors and windows were built of red brick and the
iron work painted dark green. It was not something I've seen before,
and it fascinated me. I wonder what the reason is. If it is
volcanic it wouldn't have been sourced locally, would it?

Local stone cladding

  They also use the stuff as a mulch round their roses and it makes borders look well-tended.  I need some urgently at home.
Today is Mother's Day in France and
they were clearly making a big day of it. All the flower
shops were open and doing a roaring trade. Everyone was dressed up
and off to visit. There aren't the huge pub restaurants that we
have, and it looked as if all the celebrations would be taking place
in family homes - nice.

The next part of our journey was
through a very agricultural landscape. This part grows cereals and
oil seed rape, so the there are no trees and hedgerows - just a
wide horizon dotted with enormous grain silos and the occasional wind
farm. A month earlier the whole place would have been acid yellow
with the oil seed rape, but thankfully the colour and the sickly
scent are all gone now.

Bongo grazing peacefully at Loury

We headed for the Loire, intending to
follow this for a while, but arriving at the village of Loury, we
found a large lake and leisure area. The sun was out, we needed
lunch so we stopped for a couple of hours and chilled. Setting off
again, we moved on to Chateauneuf sur Loire and, just over the river,
Sully sur Loire. We were stopped in our tracks by the chateau that
loomed into view on the other side of the river. It was very big,
very French and very new looking.

Sully sur Loire Chateau

Like all the other buildings we've
seen, there were bits tacked on, traces of bricked up windows and
signs of the outline of a roof that once was. We walked all around
it, ignoring the 'no camping car' signs in the car park (well, it's a
Bongo innit - just a people carrier). .As we got back to the van
we felt the first spots of rain and knew it was time to find a base
for the night.

We turned away from the river, partly
because there was a cool breeze coming off it and partly because from
past experience we know camp sites charge a premium for these
locations. We are now parked in the Camping Municipal at Coullons,
south east of Orleans. It's a nice tidy site, well planted with
shrubbery for privacy and with a back gate leading out to the lake
There is no-one in reception yet so we just picked a spot and moved
in. The tariff is half that of last night - €1.65 per person,
€2.20 for the vehicle, €2.30 for the electricity, and €2.65 for
pitch. € 10.45 in total. That's if we've read it right - the
price for the vehicle might turn out to be for when it is separate
from a caravan or a tent, so it might be less. We will have to buy a
token each for the shower. In previous sites its normally been about
20 cents.

Coullons campsite

The facilities may be a little too
basic for some. It looks as if the shower block is communal and
getting there involves a stroll past the urinals. There are 3 toilet
cubicles and 2 of them are hole-in-the-ground models. I can imagine
there might be queues for the services in the busy season. The
location is lovely though, and we would certainly use it again.

Coullons park from camp site

We've connected to electricity for the
first time ever in our camping history - getting softer by the day.
It's worth it though, my lap-top shut down on me this morning with a
low battery. I hadn't used it much either. We haven't been able to
get a wi-fi connection yet, so I'm prepping this in OpenOffice
Writer, to cut and paste as soon as I can.

We should have brought some DVDs with
us - it's bucketing down and I've lossed the urge for a
pre-prandial stroll. Oh well, we bought some nice wine in Nogent.
Cheers.