Walk: 19km; total: 125km
Greg was up with the sparrows and went for an early morning walk, whilst Wendy relaxed in bed for a few more minutes. After breakfast, we hit the town to do the Historic Town Centre Walk. We saw most places/things listed, but weren’t too fussed on finding every one of them. We happened upon the market that was in town. The markets here are different to most Aussie markets in that they have food (fresh and cooked), clothes (lots), and plants. No junkie stuff. Wendy bought a pair of light shorts to wear around the hotel (she had a packed a pair at home and then removed them) for €6. Other markets we’d been to were selling similar shorts for €30! We also bought some Portuguese tarts for mornos; (€2.40) real big spenders we are.
It was then up the hill (they have an elevator for that, well 3/4 of the way), to do the Royal Fortress. As large structures of these sorts go, this was on the lesser of the awesome scale. It was obviously once splendiferous, however, a good portion of it has been destroyed over the years. With your entry ticket you get a ‘Histopad’, a tablet that you scan a sign in the room (not a QR code), and it tells you all about that room. It also shows a pano of what it may have looked like back between the 11th and 15th centuries. The towers and keeps were all accessible and we certainly felt it in the the knees by the end. The Bell Tower has 75 steps in the spiral staircase.
As we were turning left out of the elevator to the Fortress, we spied a Loire a velo sign (yes on the hill), so we realised we had to come this way tomorrow to get to Tours. Oh joy!! It was hard enough to walk up the hill without a bike, let alone pushing one loaded with 10kg of luggage. We found a slightly more suitable alternative, stay tuned for the verdict.
When we were finished with the Fortress, we made our way back to the markets to see if we could find lunch. Greg had seen a paella cooking and thought he might like some of that. Unfortunately, it was all gone and most of the stalls were packing up. We tried to find a boulangerie for a baguette but didn’t like the look of them, getting fussy. Our fall back option was the Carrefour where we found some fresh chicken sandwiches on wholemeal bread. We took these down to the river and had them along with an apple. Funnily enough we ate lunch in the very same spot as Bob & Greg did in 2019. They had also purchased theirs from Carrefour. At this stage Wendy suggested we retire to our room for a rest before attacking the Cave Dwellings and Nature Walk. A 12km walk for the morning is a pretty good effort.
About 4pm we ventured out again for the above mentioned walk. Again, we weren’t too fussed on finding everything listed, but we got pretty close. We had to climb the hill again and did it without the elevated passageway, aka, elevator! On the way home, we stopped by the Carrefour again and purchased dinner and drinks and made it home just as the fuel in Wendy’s tank (read knees) hit the red line; Greg and a few meters left, but not many. A bus load of school kids had just arrived at the hotel and were lining up to use the lift, so, we had another two sets of stairs to negotiate. An afternoon walk of 7km with several monster hills was enough. We believe we have conquered Chinon to the best of our abilities in a day and a half.
MORE PHOTOS TO FOLLOW WHEN WI-FI IS MORE RESPONSIVE
The Elevated Passageway
Entering the Fortress
The paella
The Fortress earlier in the day
I remember that climb well. Awesome to see these places that we only stopped at for a break in 2019.
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