2019 Tour of Brittany (France) Part 21 Saint Nazaire - Saint Georges sur Loire

Thursday 19th September 2019 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🔥
Mileage  from Saint Nazaire to Le Barre du Monts
Parking Co-ordinates 46.88571, -2.15145

This morning as we left Saint Nazaire Mrs Snoopy (sat nav) got her knickers in somewhat of a twist!!  She LOST HER WAY and this resulted in having to listen to her constant binging and bonging some of which she managed to do at double time!  Then when she did manage to spit out some words of direction we'd have ended up right back where we'd started from if John had listened to her😱😡!  Instead he employed his own built in sat nav (and maybe an occasional road sign) and he soon had us flying high in the sky as we crossed over the Loire via the 2 mile long Pont du Saint Nazaire - and to say the least there was plenty of turbulence up there!

We  crossed the Pont de Saint Nazare Today

But once we were on the other side our journey was another easy one to a lovely Camping Car Park Aire near La Barre de Monts which lies almost at the foot of the Pont Noirmoutier that will take us over to the Ile de Noirmoutier  tomorrow.  The site sits under tall pine trees and is within spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Fromentine Bay on the other so we're quite happy for it to be our home for the next 3 nights.  

Once settled we dined in our T4rdis2 bistro on duck, salad and crusty bread, and then went for a potter along the sea front into the town of La Barre de Monts.  Along our way our views were filled with The Pont Noirmoutier and also some old wreckage that emerges from the water at low tide!

It seems that the wrecks are from the 'Four Aces' German warships which took refuge in the Fromentine Bay on 8th August 1944 to escape from an allied submarines.  However, they avoided one enemy but only to fall prey to a Canadian squadron of 24 Beaufighters.  Today only one entire wreck remains and that is used as a pontoon by spear fishermen!

Friday 20th September 2019 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🔥🌞🌞🔥

Mileage - 32 🚴🚴 miles.

The Ile Noirmoutier is a small island which lies very close to Brittany's coastline and protrudes out from it into the Bay of Biscay.  It's connected to the mainland by two ways of passage;  the ancient one is the Passage du Gois  which is a causeway that is only accessible at low tide and which has refuges along it's way in case you make a mistake!

In the pic it looks fairly flat but it had a right good
hump in the middle🐪

But that wasn't our choice!  We picked the bridge which has a sectioned off cycle way along it's length - the only problem was that the cycle lanes were closed because they were a parking place for heavy plant machinery that was being used for bridge maintenance!  However, there was a diversion that we had no choice but to take and that committed us to travelling along the fast carriageways with all the other traffic that was crossing over😰!  

But we landed quite safely on the island and from then on the rest of our ride was entirely on dedicated cycle track so we could just sit back, peddle and enjoy the scenery.  Initially we travelled up the right hand side of the narrow lower part of the island passing lagoons and canals that were very lively with lots of water fowl, and some beautiful black swans!










However, our sea views were quite restricted because the low lying land was protected on the seaward side by a tall dyke.  But that wasn't a problem because we just climbed up and sat on top of it while we drank coffee and admired the sandy bottom of Fromentine Bay which is extensively used for the cultivation of oysters and muscles.

You could buy them here to either take away or 'enjoy' on site but
slimey oysters didn't appeal to either of us!

They just look like ordinary
spuds to me!

Another thing the island is famous for is it's claim to being the home of the most expensive potatoes in the world - the 'La Bonnotte'.  It seems that only around 100 tons are cultivated annually and they're harvested only on the Ile Noirmoutier.  The cost can reach €500 per kg (£440) and this is attributed to the fact that this type of potato is almost extinct because it has to be harvested by hand and the fields in which it's grown require fertilisation by seaweed to give it it's earthy salty flavour.  Needless to say, we didn't buy any!



Further up towards the top of the island we passed along 'Jetee Jacobsen' which is a long promontory that runs by salt pans and lagoons on one side and has several old rotting corpses of ancient fishing boats on the other.

The 32 miles of our ride allowed us to almost entirely circumnavigate the whole island, and I suppose for our return crossing we could have chosen the Passage du Gois instead of facing the fast traffic on  The Pont Noirmoutier but that would have added quite a few more miles !  Therefore we just tuned the power up on our e-bikes and went for it - and the sideswipe from a fast lorry only made me wobble once😂😂!  


Saturday 21st September 2019 🌞🌞🌞🌞⛅⛅⛅
Mileage - 25 🚴🚴 miles.

Today's ride wasn't particularly spectacular but it was very pleasant as it took us mainly along sandy tracks through the forest of Pays de Monts and onto the long promenade of the glitzy Saint Jean de Monts resort.

As we went one of the info boards along the way informed us that the forest could be described as 'Monotonous and without interest' because mostly all that you see is maritime pine that was planted to form a man made forest who's purpose was to stabilise the dunes, and that within it we wouldn't find any bears or wolves🙈!!!

Part of a 2 mile stretch of sand at Saint Jean du Monts.

Another Floozy in a Jacuzzi - the last one we saw was in Valencia!

We did find a turtle!

After the beach we were soon back on the track that was undulating and sun dappled, and as we went we made quite an interesting 'little' find in the form of a very long tall staircase that terminated at the top with a tower that provided very far reaching views.

I went right to the top of the 'hill'!!

But John was much more sensible!  He saved his energy and stayed at the bottom!


Sunday 22nd September 2019  ⛅⛅⛅🌞🌞⛅⛅⛆
Mileage 121 from Le Barre du Monts to Saint Georges sur Loire
Parking Co-ordinates 47.4057, -0.76317

Today we planned to move on but at 10am our destination was still undecided!  However, we'd earlier agreed that we wanted to visit a garden called Terra Botanica at Angers but our plan was to leave that till early next week to avoid any crowds, but when John checked their web site he discovered it was closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so without hanging about until Thursday today was our only option!  Therefore we put our skates on and skedaddled on our way!

A tethered hot air balloon that will fly you high up over the park 😠

We arrived about 2ish, coughed up our €20 each entrance fee and then started our visit to what is described as a 'Theme Park Devoted to Plant Life'

The info we were given informed us that we could tour a 'Mini Loire River', we'd find 275,000 different plant species that included orchids, roses, dahlias, myriads of bedding plants and also bamboo and paddy fields, and that there would be several tame rides we could enjoy! 

So was it worth it???  It has to be said that it was expensive for what it was, but we had a laugh and passed our afternoon quite happily!  The flowers were beautiful but lurking amongst them was the creature above and also a large mammoth who nearly caught John with his spit😂😂😂!

We enjoyed a ride in a flat bottomed barge with past tales from the Loire region, and another in a walnut shell - but I think they must have forgotten to pay the leccy bill cos we had to peddle like mad to get round!

The dinosaur 4D movie was also amusing and luckily our jeep driver was quite nifty at dodging the snapping monsters that kept trying to attack us!

Then another show that we attended told how plants have evolved through extreme climate changes but as that was all in French we could have just nodded off and still learnt as much!  However, it was a compulsory part that we had to endure to gain access to the 4 greenhouses that simulated the climate changes and they ranged from boiling to freezing!

Finally came the butterfly house and there we saw something that we've never seen before!

Bonking Butterflies😂😂😂

After we left the park our evening was spent on a close by small but free Aire at Saint Georges Sur Loire, and while we were there we tried to make our minds up as to how we're going to spend our last few days of this tour.  So far we've been really lucky with the weather but the predictions for the next week are for quite a bit of the wet stuff - thus our outings might be a bit restricted. 

Therefore, we've hatched a loose plan for maybe returning to one of our favorite Park Night Aires at Villandry, and then possibly making our tour a full circle be returning to Honfleur to finish it off. 

But who knows?? All that could change in the blink of an eye 😉

Bye for now 😗😗

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