Day 80: Saumur to Angers: C'mon Mairie de La Dagueniere, get serious!

October 9, 2015

Except for the square we looked at last night, we never did get a handle on where the heart of Saumur is. So we pretty much just booted it out of town.

The bridge out of Samur (actually we stayed on the south side).

From Saumur heading west the bikeway passes through a series of towns, though some of them seem to be just names along the road, to be replaced by another name in a km or so. Things start off with many wine production and tasting places. We don't know wine, but we have to assume that the names are well known to those who follow the subject. What interested us more was something else that likes the constant cool temperatures of the caves cut into the tuffeau: mushrooms.

Four years ago we had found a place called La Cave aux Moines, which not only grew mushrooms but escargots also, and had a cave based restaurant. This year we found that they are mostly closed for the season, so we fell back to the Mushroom Museum. Although styled as a museum, it really mostly features live mushrooms.

The site is clearly a former tuffeau mine, and goes way, way back into the mountain. Tuffeau is the soft limestone that gives all the villages hereabouts their classic white and crumbly appearance, and that was used to build literally all the chateaux in the area. The mushroom museum (like the cave the other day) has a demonstration area showing how tuffeau was cut out of the wall and allowed to fall onto "pillows" of stone, before being cut into chateau building sized blocks.

The mushroom display is divided into an area for wild mushrooms and one for mushroom cultivation. The whole thing was set up by a very serious mushroom scholar, and has lots of wall panels crammed with biology lessons. These panels overloaded our circuits in a minute or two. It would be better to reserve such things for the pages of a book.

The next bit of the display had a zillion varieties of wild mushrooms, mostly real, fresh ones, laid out on moss and named. Again, for me, pretty instant overload. The part that was the most fun was the areas where "domestic" mushrooms were being grown. In this one could see the media being used - beds of compost, bags of compost, trees, hanging rectangles of growing medium, and so forth. And here were familiar (more or less) varieties, like the common white Paris button mushrooms, Shitaake, Blue foot, and so forth.

At the reception area there was the possibility of buying some of the production, and also of tasting some cooking. Cooking did not seem to be much in operation and we were not clear on exactly what it would be, so we did not press the question with the man in attendance.

Overall it was a fascinating visit, even if we would have needed days or weeks to really get something out of it. Here anyway, is a glimpse of what we saw:

The mushroom museum is in an extensive cave cut into the tuffeau

Demonstration of cutting out tuffeau blocks

Pink oyster - looks great, does not taste so good

In this region we seem to be stopping for long visits at local attractions, while still planning to reach fairly distant daily objectives. Today Dodie bragged that she is much stronger than at the beginning, and could easily while away more than half the day and then nip over to (in this case) Angers - 60 km away - in her spare time. Hah - maybe so - but as you will read soon, La Loire a Velo had other ideas!

Meanwhile the road beyond the mushroom museum continued on the south side of the Loire, past white villages, and also many houses that looked big enough to be mini chateau. This inspired me to speculate on which might be just the right size to buy, and sink our meagre fortune into renovating. There was one likely candidate that someone had already grabbed, and turned into a B and B:

Our typical road as we headed along the south shor eof the Loire

There was a display in the church on Gregorian chanting. This is a photo from that display.

Nice play of light in the Notre Dame Priory.

There seems to be dozens of graphics for these signs. In this one, the cyclist is clearly making room by having no handlebars.

At a distance we thought this was a parade. But it was kids returning "from vacation". We think this must be a residential school, at St Maur.

Finally, at St Mathurin, the time came to cross the Loire and begin to zero in on Angers. Almost immediately we noticed that the character of the land had changed. The mini-chateaux were gone, as were any hills that could have tuffeau or caves. Now it was open farm land, with corn (mostly still standing), and scattering ordinary farm houses.

Before long, another change filtered into the Grampie consciousness. Things were no longer built of tuffeau, but rather walls and barns were constructed of stacked slate. Soon we would discover that this is the "famous" slate of Angers, and we would run into mountains of it, old quarries, and a slate based natural park. Who knew!

Quite small new suburban houses in St Mathurin

Ordinary farms and buildings on this side of the river

Angers is not strictly on the route to Nantes, but represents something of a detour. La Loire a Velo gives you a choice at a critical point - head for Nantes, or go to Angers train station. If you choose the train station you leave the Loire and head north west. If you choose Nantes, you stay on the Loire and head west. Dodie seemed to favour the Loire, but only far enough to turn at Bouchemaine and head back to Angers. Bouchemaine is at the point where the Maine, the river that Angers is actually on, joins the Loire.

Well I hate backtracking, so I insisted on the direct route to Angers. Dodie accepted, and we set off. Very soon we came to the river Authion. At the Authion la Loire a Velo has a little surprise. The river is to be crossed with a little ferry. The ferry is floating a bit offshore, and no one is around. No problem, there is a sign. It says (effectively) the ferry is operating, but if there is a problem phone a hot line number at the Mairie of the nearest town, La Daguenaire.

Ok, I phoned, being one of the foreigners who more or less has a phone that will work here. The girl who answered made me explain at length where I was and what my problem was. Finally a light went on, and she put me on hold (presumably to figure out what to do with me). Then she came back on the line and said she would put me through to ... someone. There was some ringing and I got a ... message machine, that said (gabble, gabble, gabble). I hung up.

But, no problem, there was an explanation of what to do next. Face the river, it said, (in English, even), and turn left. Go down the path (an indeterminate distance) and come to a bridge. Then take care on the bridge, which is deadly.

So we did that. We headed down the track a half km. It was a bit hard, because the single track was almost overgrown with stinging nettles. I went ahead and tried to pack down the nettles a bit for Dodie to follow. But soon the track disappeared, swallowed entirely by brush.

But, no problem. The former track was running beneath a dike, with a grass track on top. The only thing, "beneath" means that the dike was a semi-vertical wall. I climbed up, grabbing the grass and nettles, to report on what was up there. I claimed I could carry the bikes up, if mostly unloaded, but Dodie tried and declared the climb too hard for her knees.

So, we turned and began to trudge back. Clearly we were not going to Angers, or maybe anywhere much, in the approaching evening. However after a bit the slope eased, and Dodie saw a traverse she could get up. So up she went, and I followed in several trips with the bikes and gear. Now we were on our way - except for it being along a 3 km grass track! And oh, that bridge was a bug. La Loire a Velo provided a nice sign before it, it said "Warning, you arrive on a way at high traffic, are all eyes!". Thanks!

To which I say - Get serious, la Dageuniere city hall! This is an international cycle route! Not everyone has a local phone! Not everyone has an unloaded VTT (mountain bike) and infinite time! (Writing this now from the comfort of our hotel room in Angers, we are looking at the literature from Tourist Information. They brag about the new circuit, the Authion a Velo. They actually have a photo in there of the ferry. Grrr.)

After checking the dike top, gotta go down and get the bikes and gear

after the bridge, it's not as if the path is great!

On the other side of the bridge, we quickly entered something called the Parc des Ardoisieres. So here was the heart of the Angers slate thing. Ardoise is slate, and it is commonly used for roofs. Clearly (and from the illustration) an Ardoisiere is someone who chips out roofing tiles. We passed mountains of slate pieces, probably waste from the quarries. There were also larger blocks, some set up as benches. I was surprised to find that the stone was warm, even in this coolish day, and pleasant to sit on, as we searched Booking for a place in Angers, which now we were clearly going to reach.

Ah, the same Tourist Information literature explains about the slate industry and heritage here. They call it blue gold. In fact the colours of the region are white (tuffeau) and blue/black (slate).

As we came in to Angers, La Loire a Velo led us along a road that was quite narrow and only sporadically marked for bikes. But the town began with an aggressive sign that I liked a lot. It said basicallly "This town belongs to people on foot and on bike, the speed limit is 30 kph, got it?". Later there was another similar sign, on the street with our hotel. It said basically "You are entering the heart of a city. Pedestrians, bikes, cars - share the space! (Speed limit 30 kph.)"

The hotel that we found, sitting on that slate block, is on one of the main streets of the old city. (Hotel Delice - 50 euros). Across the street there is a Chocolatier. Guess what, it is also in the Tourist brochure. They make a chcoolate coated nougatine, tinted purple/blue - to resemble the colour of ardoise. They seem to call this colour "bleute".

Guess where we will be first thing tomorrow!

See the bike symbol on the road? But no room for bike if a car comes.

The window says they have been making bagels since 1789??

also from our room, we can see this chocolatier.

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 3,894 km (2,418 miles)

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