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And this is the magnificent château of Saumur, perched up on a cliff on the Loire river. So many stories! But a fun fact: it was first built around 950 by a guy called Thibauld the Trickster, the local count and lord. Nice name to have… 📍 Saumur, Loire, France 🇫🇷

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The Loire is really wide at this point! I’m at Saumur, exploring. The river has some 200 km to go before it reaches the sea - it’s just over a thousand km long in total! A couple of years back I biked from the tiny source (in the Ardèche on the massif central) to Orléans, it was much narrower then!

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Stumbled into what was once a whole underground village, really quite bizarre. Started in the 10thC as a quarry for the soft, white, tuffeau stone in the area and grew over the centuries. There was even a Rue de Commerce. Have to say it was a bit creepy. 📍Souzay-Champigny, Loire, France 🇫🇷

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Selma the e-bike and I are out exploring, and look what we found! Lots of these houses, shops, garages dug into the cliffside. They call them trogdolyte dwellings, for some reason that makes me think of Shrek. Actually it just means houses built into caves in the rock. 📍Turquant, Loire, France 🇫🇷

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French kids learning history. Saw several groups while I was wandering at Fontevraud Abbey today; animated teachers and (mainly!) interested students. The Loire valley is home to so many stories, but here is one of the most remarkable women ever - Eleonor of Aquitaine. 📍Fontevraud, Loire, France 🇫🇷

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Eleonore of Aquitaine, forever with a book in her hands. Biked up to Fontevraud today her to see her effigy in the chapel - alongside her husband Henry II of England and their son Richard I - yes, that Richard! The one we know as the Lionheart. 1100s at best! 📍Fontevraud l’Abbaye, Loire, France

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It’s spring! The wisteria are out here on the Loire and they smell heavenly. Perfect match to the smooth, local stone that all the buildings around here have been made of - for centuries. It’s so easy to cut and carve that people have long built houses into the cliffs. 📍Montsoreau, Loire, France 🇫🇷

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Stumbled over this little château close to my van park, and it turns out it’s the first renaissance château to have been built in France! Started in 1453, just as the hundred year war with the English ended and the king called for beautiful new palaces to celebrate 📍Montsoreau, Loire, France 🇫🇷

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I just parked up on the banks of the Loire, off-season you really can do things like this! It’s the sweet spot just now, not yet Easter, warm enough for shorts, campgrounds are starting to open, and still there are no tourists. Châteaux within biking distance! 📍Montsoreau, Loire Valley, France 🇫🇷

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I was looking for a nice quiet place to park my van for a few days on the Loire. And ended up here, in Montsoreau, a cute little village with the first renaissance château in France. 1450s or so, at the end of the 100 year war between the French and English. 📍Montsoreau, Loire Valley, France 🇫🇷

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Medieval kitchens look so charming when they’re recreated, but imagine the organised chaos of feeding everyone! The wine cellar alone must have been enormous in this formidable castle, perched up on a cliff overlooking the river 📍Château de Beynac, Dordogne, France 🇫🇷

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This local market hall is really old! It used to be the medieval grain hall, the measuring vats in different sizes would mean that people got the right amount of wheat, barley, rye and corn. And that the right amount of taxes were paid, in kind. Charming history! 📍Martel, Dordogne, France 🇫🇷

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Bookshops are called ’librairie’ in France, and this one is a real cutie. The town is perched up high on a hilltop, and was protected with walls and lookout towers and château forts back in the 1200-1300s - the wars between the french and the english were constant 📍Domme, Dordogne, France 🇫🇷

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The streets of Poitiers have been around since roman times, but now they’re putting tiny gardens into their cobblestones. With some great guerilla art! 📍Poitiers, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France 🇫🇷

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I biked past this old church yesterday in a tiny village. It was first built in the 900s or so, although this facade is from the 1600s from memory. The tower was for defence, the townspeople would shelter inside during the hundred year war in the 1300s. For real! 📍 Floriac, Lot, France 🇫🇷

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Started out on a bike ride and stumbled over a huge piece of history in the truffle woods of the Garonne valley 🇫🇷 open.substack.com/pub/jennyhar...

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Way back in 1183, the young king of England died in this very house. Stumbled over the sign by mistake and looked it up! He was Henry, son of Henry II of England, the one that was married to Eleonor of Aquitaine. Father and son were at war, but it was dysentry that did him in. 📍 Martel, France 🇫🇷

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Small town France on a Saturday morning. It’s market day, and everyone has come to town to buy their oysters, cheese and asparagus, and have a chitchat with their neighbours The world is full of the biggest of worries, but just here and just now it’s as it’s always been. Europe at best 📍Martel 🇫🇷

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French doorways in old towns are so…charming Like escaping into a parallel universe 📍Martel, Lot, France 🇫🇷

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‘More than a million of those displaced since 2021 are in Sagaing Division, where the epicentre of the earthquake was. Sagaing has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.’ Francis Wade on the aftermath of Myanmar’s earthquake, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ap...

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When everything in the lane is from the 1100s except the chairs and tables French people do lunch with such style! 📍Martel, Lot, France 🇫🇷

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Wandering in Martel, a very cute town not far from the Dordogne. Dating back to the 1100s! There were wars here constantly over the years, mainly between the French and the English. It all started when Elinor of Aquitaine married king Henry II of England in the mid-1100s 📍Martel, Lot, France 🇫🇷

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Lunch with a view! 📍Château de Montfort, Dordogne

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So I’m leaving this cute little village in the cliff, La Roque-Gageac, and have driven all of 10km to a new village with a castle, Montfort. The castle has a big story, if I have the right Montfort: crusades and cathars and crossbows But first, coffee😊 📍La Roque-Gageac

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France, Dordogne New day, new château! This one was built in 1489, after the hundred year war was done, and the renaissance had started. By the family that had the sieged-out château down the road, Castelnaud, the one with the trebuchets and crossbows. 📍Château des Milandes

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The bedroom of Richard I Lionheart! At the top of the tower at 📍Château de Beysac in the Dordogne valley

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And in another world, in another time, there’s this medieval château. Beynac, over the river from Castelnaud and bigger, higher, mightier. So I guess these guys picked up the tolls from people transporting goods down the river and made it clear who was boss Pretty, though!

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments