Tuesday 31^st  May

Les moulins d’Ardenay. 

There is a good walk up the river from the campsite and I caught this Coypu sunbathing very early this morning.

Breakfast was served on the river bank. The local waitress was a bit sloppy and as you can see the milk has been presented straight out of the bottle. Not a jug in sight. I couldn’t say too much as I was balanced on a chair inches from the river.

We toured the local countryside “en velo” today; first photostop the bridge over the River Layon, close to the campsite. The French are quite good and give the mad English cyclists a wide berth.

Next stop the Windmills of Ardenay, perched on a hill about a km from the campsite; as you will see from the picture of me looking very camp in my smart jumper, it was a bit breezy and more the weather for cycling than sunbathing.

We moved on through the vinyards to a viewpoint at the top of a old disused windmill in the middle of masses of vinyards (did some French medieval venture capitalist get it wrong, and predict a local explosion of wheat cultivation? “Zis wine stuff will never catch on”).

We cycled on past the chateaus (chateaux?) and into St Aubin de Ligne, by now well warmed up, particularly those of us on rickshaw duty. And then back to Chaudefonds past numerous caves de degustation enticing us to taste their wines.