Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Mon 28 Jun 2010 08:48
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.