Saturday 26th April 2025
We were down for breakfast on the dot of 0730 as we had a time constraint today; the vineyard we are visiting in the Loire Valley closes around 1700hrs and if we don’t get there, “tough” as they are not open on a Sunday, hence our early start!!!
Last night’s wind had disappeared and the sun was coming through, it was a promising start to the day. Though we are in the back-of-beyond, it wasn’t too far to pick-up the motorway; peage all the way today, my-my how the costs seem to have escalated since our last visit.
Naturally we had to stop to stretch all “12” legs a couple of times but refrained from too much lunch as we had booked a table in a small restaurant we know in the village we are staying in.
We headed straight for the vineyard, parked up and started “Degustation de vins” , didn’t want to miss out!!! The 2022 vintage of pouilly-fume we were after had all gone🥵🥵 it was very “quaffable” too, perhaps we should have bought an extra dozen or so cases,last visit. Oh well keep an open mind and enjoy the new vintages, which we did and eventually left with a fine selection of Loire wines.
Job done so headed to our hotel, “Le Bon Labourer” in a small village called “La Charité-sur-Loire” a couple of miles away. We’d stayed there on a previous occasion and though not “top notch” comfortable for one night; well it was. Bare in mind we have two dogs so the rooms are not always the best but tonight we’d seen it all. Two singles (which we’d ordered), but no top sheets, just a blanket! Of course we didn’t know this when we arrived as once we’d dumped our cases we went for a walk along the river.
After a wash-and-brush up, we headed into the “town”, we had booked a table at a small restaurant “The Auberge de La Poule Noire”, the day before and what a good job we did, being a Saturday night it was very busy, they were turning people away!!! This is a very popular restaurant and highly recommended,
Back at our hotel and now realised about the lack of sheets, but too late to do something, we went to bed, another early start tomorrow as we head to Brittany, a drive of about 6-hours plus stops.