Charroux to Sancerre

Today we have stopped at the hilltop village of Sancerre, overlooking the Loire River. Sancerre is well known  for its fine dry white wines. 

Approaching Sancerre. 

But the day started back at Charroux where we woke to a very bleak, cool and overcast  morning - we’ll take that rather than the extreme heat. 

We took the usual early morning walk around the village, revisiting some of the galleries we looked at yesterday.

The paintings in one were of particular interest - capturing some of the essence of France. 

Charroux is a village you could spend a week in, relaxing and wandering, but we are now on a fixed timetable to be in Calais within a week. So moving on was the only option. 

Our first stop heading north was St-Pourçain-sue-Sioule for some provisions for the fridge. 

From here we again headed north past Moulins and Nevers, stopping at Pouilly-sur-Loire for lunch.

After lunch we crossed the Loire and called in at a vineyard at Thauvenay where we sampled some of the Sancerre finest. A most delicately fine drop too!  Prices seemed to  be much higher  than in other outlets - a couple in a car in front of us were so impressed, though, that they required a large trolley to transfer their purchases to their car. 

From here we drove on a few more kilometres to the hilltop town of Sancerre, another very popular village for the day trippers. 

You can’t blame people wanting to spend time up in this village when you can view this type of scenery. 

Like many villages across France they welcome motorhomers by providing set-aside areas for them to stop. And that is where we stopped!