A walk by the Loire

What with all the Christmas meals we’ve had, we figured it was about time to do something vagely sporty, so we decided to go for a walk. Francoise had picked a nice, decent-length (6 hours) walk through some typical Angevine countryside, starting in the village of Saint-Martin-du-Fouilloux, about a 20 minutes drive west of Angers.

We’d certainly picked the right day for the walk - as all the days of the gone week had been either cloudy or windy. Today, we were blessed with both blue skies and no wind well, not much anyway). But it has to be said, the sun doesn’t warm up the winter days quite as much as they do down here in the South of France – it still most definitely felt like winter.

Anyway, the walk took us from Saint-Martin-du-Fouilloux (a typical, rather charming, Angevine village), down towards the Loire river, through some very typical rural landscapes. We even came across a fair few farms and sheep (who were strangely curious, by sheep standards, and actually approached us – probably in the hopes of getting some food). And of course we passed by a proper Chateau (there are quite a few of those in the region – this being the Pays de Loire region after all – with the Loire valley and its glorious castles not too far away) – unfortunaly it was a private one, so we couldn’t visit.

Our brisk pace brought us down to the midoiint of our walk – which was the Loire River, a bit ahead of schedule. What a great day to walk along that magnificent river it was, with the sunrays reflected in the still waters, a few abandonded barks lying on the shores, and the odd heron taking flight as we approached (those binoculars we got from Santa Claus came in handy).

Eventually we reached another pictureseque Angevine village, La Possonière, where we had our picnic lunch, by the tiny port. It was all very filling, with some sandwiches, pate, cheese, fruits, piparis - all washed down by a couple of bottles of beer. After our lunch stop we did a quick tour of the village and then carried on, heading back to Saint-Martin-du-Fouilloux.

All in all, it was a very nice way to spend a beautiful winter day, and a nice change from the walks we do here in the South of France. The landscapes are perhaps slightly less impressive, but it makes a nice change to see some real countryside, rather than villas and swimming pools.

The rest of our stay in Angers was quite uneventful. Mathilde’s oncle Jacques came over for lunch with his wife, and we also took the opportunity to visit Delphine and Christoph and their little ones, in their nice house near the centre of Angers (where we were treated to some absolutely delicious, home-made Madeleines – yummie…).

And then it was time to head towards Brittany, to celebrate the arrival of 2009…