25/06/2010 47:27:39N 02:51:86E
A bright sunny morning saw us cast off the mooring at 08:30hrs and head
for the first lock. As we thought, as the morning progressed, we saw
more and more boats. Fortunately none impeded our progress. At
12:15hrs we stopped at La Chapelle Montlinard (a wonderful name but
this consisted of a few old dwellings and a derelict warehouse), had
lunch then cycled into the old fortified town of Charite sur-Loire.
They boast that their church, when it was first built in the 11th
Century, was the second largest in France, it still is a large church
but looking at the ruins at the back of the main building that was
destroyed by fire, you can see it was no idle boast. We had a walk up
on to the high ramparts and overlooked the Loire, well half of it, the
river splits into two very wide torrents (shallow normally)at this
point and the town has to have two bridges over it. The river is still
in flood and running at around 8 knots. The town is renown for the
number of bookshops, both old and new. Returned to the boat at 15:00hrs
and followed the Yacht “Jay” and shared several locks with them. We
stopped for the night at Cours les Barres. Today has been one of the
hottest so far. We have covered 39 kilometres today and passed through
10 locks.
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