From Castle to Cellar
Chateaus and vineyards in the bucolic Loire Valley.
On ever-longer bicycle rides, Nicola Walker and her family explore chateaus and vineyards in the bucolic Loire Valley.
We are cycling down a narrow ribbon of road amid a swathe of grapevines. It's harvest time in the Loire Valley. Our hosts have sent us off to La Cave du Pays de Bourgueil to help celebrate the first pick the old-fashioned way. We clip the fat bunches of grapes and toss them into buckets, which are emptied into a wooden press atop a horse-drawn cart.
An accordion player serenades us, picking out the chords of Waltzing Matilda, and the representative here on Earth of the patron saint of wine and vinegar makers, St Vincent, is sternly resplendent in purple robes. We can barely communicate but are united in homage to the grape.
After we confirm our booking for a five-day cycling jaunt, we receive a "route design" questionnaire from Debbie Wilkes, the co-owner, with her husband, Mark, of Loire Valley Breaks B&B. We tick our preferred daily mileage, 30 kilometres-plus, and choose our preferred activities from a list including chateaus, family-friendly or sporty activities, wine tasting or things gourmet.
Accordingly, on our first morning, after croissants in the dining room, we discuss the itinerary designed for us. It proves a triumph, as indeed does the whole place. We are very pleased with Ete, the spacious upstairs suite of the old stable block, which dates to 1820. Five-year-old Iris has her own wee bedroom and the bathroom has a generous tub to ease the aches of a long ride.
We take it easy at first, whizzing to the Loire River (on a 20-kilometre route) down quiet laneways, past pretty, low-slung stone farmhouses, haystacks, duck ponds and market gardens ablaze with pumpkins and tomatoes. It is mercifully flat as a tack. Astride her tagalong, Iris bursts into song, as charmed by this bucolic landscape as her parents. The river, the longest in France at just over 1000 kilometres, is surprisingly broad, fast and prone to silt. It was the main, if unreliable, means of transport to the Atlantic until the advent of rail in the mid-1800s.
Seeking a bottle of red for the evening, we call at a winery on the way back. This region of the Loire is populated by smallish family-run vintners, most of whom welcome visitors at the door. Monique Bernier, a chipper grande dame of at least 70, beckons us into her tiny living room adorned with the heads of startled deer and a snarling boar. Perched in a row on the sofa, we sip from antique glasses while she pronounces Iris "tres belle" several times and we admire the photographs of grandchildren. Then it's time to head to the cave, a dim, dank cellar filled with boxes of 2008 Bourgueil cabernet. A bottle costs €5 ($7.55).
Being ignorant about Loire wines, we randomly pick a different winery each day. There are those, like Madame Bernier's, with only one vineyard release, and others like the excellent Taluau-Foltzenlogel with several on offer - and each time the welcome is sincere and the value almost indecent. It is a world away from the "boutique" wineries of Australia.
Over an aperitif in the garden with the four other guests, a cheerful bunch of Aussies, Debbie tells us the grapes around Bourgueil, the nearby market town (an hour's drive from the provincial capital, Tours) are 100 per cent cabernet franc. She also says it is illegal to irrigate the fields, the theory being that this produces sturdier, fuller flavoured fruit. She then disappears to cook our dinner, this being an option for several nights of the week. It's a convivial evening and clear that the Australians are delighted with their tour of some of the region's chateaus. Mark ferries them around in a minivan to the most famous - Chanson, Villandry and Usse - as well as to notable local restaurants.
We have to get on our bicycles to dine out, either two kilometres to little St Nicholas de Bourgueil or four kilometres to Bourgueil, where there is more choice and better food. It's no hardship. Drunk on a sublime red and moonlight, we weave back through the ranks of vines.
Our first chateau is Montsoreau, a multi-turreted castle right on the river, less famous than the rest and therefore deserted. There are stupendous views from the top parapet. Less romantically, we discover the commodes jutting out over the water. Given a complicated treasure hunt, Iris badgers us until, thank heaven, we locate the X in the courtyard and win our prize.
Further down the road is Candes St Martin, an exquisite village dominated by a monumental 12th-century chapel. Following Debbie's excellent bike maps, we return via a different route but have gone further than we intend and it's a slog up the gentle incline to base.
Iris can't wait to see Chateau Usse, an inspiration for Disney's trademark castle and Sleeping Beauty's resting place, so Debbie helps us rejig the itinerary. Our route takes us past the nuclear power station, built in 1958 and soon to be decommissioned. We pass several horse-drawn gypsy caravans and outpace a tractor, until our lunch stop in Avoigne. Here we join the workmen in an excellent sandwicherie and pig out on baguettes and quiche.
The path turns into the woods alongside the river, with the trees creating a shady arbour. At last, the 16th-century Usse, aka Chateau de La Belle au Bois Dormant, appears like a fantastical mirage and we ride straight up the road towards it. In the left-hand tower lies Sleeping Beauty and various other tableaus, enough to make Iris giddy with joy. She is less keen on the rest of the castle, with its tapestries and ornate furniture, but we can play hide-and-seek in the ornamental garden for what seems like a hundred years. We must force our weary legs on to the town of Langeais, where we catch the train back via Port Boulet.
Tuesday is market day in Bourgueil. We buy from the affable stallholders, first a transforming woollen beret, then saucisson, fois gras (a slice for €1.50), little crimson radishes, pears and fromage de chevre for a picnic lunch. Spotting a paella dish at the fishmonger stall, I line up with the good women of Bourgueil and buy dinner.
Day five dawns as sunny as the rest. We cannot bear the idea of leaving and cancel our hotel in Paris and, ah bliss, stay on until Saturday. It is sunny, our muscles have hardened and there is still so much to see. The mediaeval chateau of Langeais has a split-level treehouse in the garden, while the chateau of Villandry, with its restored Renaissance gardens, is so enchanting we visit twice. It's a little more than 50 kilometres away but the ride along the riverbank through sleepy hamlets is a constant reward.
Villandry's kitchen garden is a sea of purple basil, silvery cabbages, parsley and sage, laid within shallow box hedges, their ranks broken by standard roses and wild late-summer flowers. You have to stand on the belvedere to appreciate the layout of the love gardens, divided into four red and green squares symbolising tenderness, passion, adultery and calamity. Twelve gardeners manage the seasonal flower beds and the garden is open all year; in the winter it is sometimes blanketed in snow. Now, in September, the ornamental vines are pale yellow, heralding autumn.
Iris runs amok in the children's garden with her father while I tour the buildings, the home of Henri Carvallo whose great grandparents, Joachim Carvallo and Ann Coleman, bought the abandoned chateau in 1906. He was a penniless Spaniard studying medicine and she a wealthy Pennsylvanian medical intern when they met in Paris. They were free-thinking socialists on their marriage in 1899 but restoring Villandry, which became their life's work, gradually turned them into Catholic royalists. Each room is an intimate expression of some facet of their family life, with portraits and photographs of the couple and their six children.
Reluctantly, we leave. I snap photographs all the way to the doors and we have to pedal hard to the station for the last train to Port Boulet. The narrow platform is empty, only the odd bird tweeting until an express zips through, nearly knocking us off our feet (it is just over an hour to Paris). A friendly guard ensures we have safely loaded our bikes and waves away our money.
At the Cafe la Promenade in Bourgueil, the proprietor, hearing we are guests of Loire Valley Breaks, patiently explains the menu and recommends a first-class local red. We hoe into brochettes, escargot and smelly cheese (Iris is given pizza) and sail back through the moonlit vineyards to bed, wishing our time in the Loire would never end.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, May 2010.
All pictures © Nicola J Walker.