Aiming for Nantes

Having booked into Nantes for two nights to catch Bastille Day, or 'La Fete Nationale" as it's called here, we had two days to travel the distance from Angers (~100km). It was overcast and perfect for cycling so we took it easy and had a leisurely ride to Ingrandes, leaving us around 60km to travel tomorrow. There was plenty to see along the way and this part of the Loire is very interesting, both with respect to the landscape, nature and the buildings. Just out of Pont de Ce at Ste-Gemmes there was a large psychiatric hospital built in 1710 that still operates today. It stretches along the quay and the old buildings have been maintained with new additions. Most buildings in this part of the Loire valley are faced with a pure white stone, called Tuffeau, which is easy to carve as it is fine grained and soft. We found an old machine that looked like an early steam engine, but it was an alembic, used for distilling fruit and invented by Arabs in the 10th century.


At Montjean sur Loire there were lots of sculptures by the road. It was an old industrial town and had several ruins of coal workings and kilns from the industrial revolution era. This sculpture was constructed by welding together reinforcing rods.



Montjean sur Loire



After we arrived in Ingrandes we had a look around the village. They had a famous church which was destroyed several times, the last time was during a bombing raid in the second world war. They completely rebuilt it in the 1950's in a modern style with abstract stained glass windows. It did not look particularly interesting from the outside, but inside was a different story. These are a couple of pictures of the windows but the whole effect from inside the church was serene, with classical music playing in the background.







It is light now until quite late in the evening and when we walked along the quay there were children swimming on the opposite shore, fishermen sitting on their boats with several rods and terns diving into the river also trying to catch fish. The riverbank is littered with old broken glass bottles, from a glassworks that used to be here and exported to the USA. We found a small bottle intact and will take it home as a souvenir.


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Location:Rue du Pont,Ingrandes,France