Before we tell you about today, we need to share details of our ferry crossing. Brittany Ferries hadn’t paid the heating bill and the whole ferry was freezing. Not only that, it was full of people having a good time. The noise in the bar drove us to bed after only one beer.
The crossing is too short for a decent rest, but is good for an early start ahead of the long drive to Oradour sur Glane. Despite knowing this route really well, we misread instructions for leaving Ouistreham and made a wrong turn driving towards Caen. We went past Pegasus Bridge, Benouville and Cafe Gondree the first French house to be liberated on D-Day.
Our first stop was between Alencon and Le Mans, a lovely patisserie located in a disused filing station. Fortified with caffeine and sugar, we whiled away some time in the morning sunshine before heading on.
Negotiating Le Mans was our next big challenge. The annual 24 hour race is next weekend but preparations are well underway with signage and barriers already in place. In fact, if it wasn’t for the barriers we would not have noticed that we were pottering along the famous Mulsanne Straight – proud to be testing the road surface ahead of slightly faster cars due next week.
Lunch beckoned and you can’t drive through the Loire Valley without stopping by the river. A slight detour and we were sitting on the beach at St Cyr sur Loire, looking over the river towards Tours. The beach cafe supplied more caffeine to keep us going and then we noticed the table tennis…..
Our chosen route took us along many miles of empty roads which led to a lot of chuntering about awful roads at home.
Unexpectedly, we discovered a museum dedicated to Rene Descartes the philosopher who was born in the town of La Haye en Touraine. Confusingly, the town is now named Descartes in his honour.
The museum occupies the home Descartes was born in and provides an interesting insight into his life, education and popular beliefs of the time. His thinking, and methodology, seem to have been at great odds with his faith. His first method of reasoning is ‘to believe nothing except that which is clear and certain’. We’re not sure how he managed to align that with his Catholic beliefs.
Not only were we treated to the Descartes museum but also one dedicated to the French author, journalist and critic Rene Boylesve. We had never heard of him but he led a very interesting life until his death in 1920
Finally, there was a small exhibition dedicated to Gustave Trouvé, an electrical engineer who invented, amongst other things, a battery powered tricycle in 1881.
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