Back to our road trip . . .
On our next to last day on the road, we took the long way, driving through the Loire Valley. Pronounced, more or less, la waar (as in "la car" or "la bar").
Here's the map so you an see where the Loire region is located. You can also see Belgium on the map. We live about 3 hours north of the Champagne region.
The river isn't illustrated on that map of the wine regions so . . .
Side note . . . only sparkling wine grown in the Champagne region can be called champagne. I did not know this before moving to Europe. All other sparkling wines are produced with various fermentation methods and must be named something else . . . like in other parts of France they are called cremant or mousseux. Sparkling wine produced in Italy is called prosecco or asti. In Spain it's called cava . . . and so forth. So, although "champagne" may have become synonymous with sparkling wine, it isn't. Nor is Band-aid, Kleenex, Thermos, etc.
On our next to last day on the road, we took the long way, driving through the Loire Valley. Pronounced, more or less, la waar (as in "la car" or "la bar").
Here's the map so you an see where the Loire region is located. You can also see Belgium on the map. We live about 3 hours north of the Champagne region.
The river isn't illustrated on that map of the wine regions so . . .
Here you go.
Side note . . . only sparkling wine grown in the Champagne region can be called champagne. I did not know this before moving to Europe. All other sparkling wines are produced with various fermentation methods and must be named something else . . . like in other parts of France they are called cremant or mousseux. Sparkling wine produced in Italy is called prosecco or asti. In Spain it's called cava . . . and so forth. So, although "champagne" may have become synonymous with sparkling wine, it isn't. Nor is Band-aid, Kleenex, Thermos, etc.
At Tours, France, we got off the interstate and drove a couple of hours toward Orleans (south of Paris) on Highway D952. It runs directly along the Loire River the entire way.
Most of my pictures were taken from the car window as we passed through little small towns like Amboise, Blois, and Beaugency (where we spent the night) .
The Loire Valley is about 300 square miles of land along the Loire River in central France. It is considered the "garden of France". In addition to vineyards everywhere, I read that asparagus and artichokes are also grown here. We didn't see any, but . . .
I DID see these in a garden right here in Hasselt. I had never seen artichokes growing.
Back to the Loire Valley . . . this road we took is a two-lane with very little traffic which was nice.
As you would expect, there are castles (chateaux in French) along the way - more than 50 famous ones. This one is the Château de Chaumont and dates back to the 10th century.
This is that castle before I zoomed in on it.
We definitely could have spent several days driving around these small towns. Maybe next time!
We decided to stop and take a walk along the river.
The banks are sandy with a lot of rocks.
This was the view from where we stopped for our walk. That's the Château d'Amboise and dates back to the 11th century.
Loire River Valley, France
We said if didn't know better, we'd say that looks a lot like Louisiana.
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