Part 5: Saumur
by Steve Wells
There are two places in Europe where you can find fairy-tale castles. In Germany, in the Black Forest, there are castles on the tops of hills with high towers gleaming over the pines. In France you visit the Loire. The castles here are more domestic, but no less grand. These are the castles of the well to do who want to live comfortably.
For me, the castle at Saumur is special. This is the castle which has been celebrated in illustration since the middle ages. The fifteenth century illustration of the castle from the Ire's Riches Heures du Duc de Berry has become a staple of post-card illustrations. There are guided tours round the castle; don't forget that they are guided. When we first visited Saumur, many years ago, we went on the tour but didn't keep up with the party. We were only saved from spending the night in the darkened galleries by yelling out of a high window at the guard who was locking the front gate.
Castles are above ground, but the real glory of Saumur lies underground, in the tunnels. The stone under Saumur is sedimentary and lends itself not to open quarrying, but to tunnelling. Stone has been dug from these tunnels since at least the fifteenth century (the guide books differ - one claimed that digging started back in the 11th century). The stone for St. Paul's Cathedral in London came from here. There are about 1000 kilometres of tunnels, most of which is used for growing mushrooms. Should you happen to be hungry, a large mushroom grilled with goat cheese is superb.
For those of you who like the idea of a glass or two of something, there is a more interesting use to which the caves are put; the storage of wine. Saumur has the same kind of soil and grows the same kind of grapes as the Champagne region further to the east. What is more, the wine makers of Saumur use the exactly the same methods as are used in Champagne. The result is an excellent sparkling wine which is distinguished from Champagne by just two things. First, it doesn't have the word Champagne on the label and second, it is cheaper. We visited Ackerman, one of the oldest makers. They use 7 kilometres of tunnels to store over 10,000,000 bottles of wine.
There is one final use of the tunnels which should not be ignored; people live in them! Often the fronts of the caves have been built over with modern frontages, but inside, the living quarters go back into the hillside.
The land round here is fairly flat, so don't expect too many spectacular landscapes. For your photographic exploits, concentrate on the man made features; the castles and the caves.
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We stopped only briefly at Saumur on our drive home. For the final night before rushing for the early morning ferry we stopped on the coast near Le Havre. Many of the towns in this area were built up during the nineteenth century as watering holes for wealthy visitors from Britain. It shows in the architecture. Many of the buildings seem to be a combination of Gothic and Elizabethan. Half-timbered constructions with turrets and gables and tall pinnacles on the ends of the roofs.
The weather on this north coast of France was superb; far better than we had found on the Mediterranean!
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We left for the ferry in the early morning, There was a deep mist and as we approached the port through the industrial areas, the towers of an oil refinery floated above the mist. We were late, however, and we couldn't stop for a photograph.
One final observation. Every camp site we visited had a swimming pool, and every summing pool had a notice giving the depth of the pool. These notices must have been produced centrally because on every one of them, on every camp site in France, the word ‘depth’ was spelled 'depht'.
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