The countryside east of Tours changes dramatically and suddenly I was in hill country. . There were swallows nesting in every barn, it seemed, and on an island in the river thousands of terns had arrived from the Sahara to breed. Apparently some of these beaches and sandbanks reach a temperature of over 50˚C in the summer.

Leaving the river briefly to follow the signed path it took me up a steep hill past ancient and modern houses built into (or out of) the soft volcanic tufa cliffs. Many seemed to be occupied by incomers, and I passed one house for sale that was poignantly called “The Last Dream”. At the top of the hill the path crossed a little plateau covered in vineyards producing the Chenin Blanc variety of grapes which are used for the local Vouvray wine, in a couple of which men were pruning the vines. It seemed very late for that but they were not close enough for me to ask them whether this was an experiment or they had just been negligent. Going down a little lane on the other side of the hill past the chateau to Vouvray itself I was struck by the friendliness of the inhabitants of this small town. Everyone seemed to have time to stop for a chat. I came across one man who was cutting nettles by the side of the cycle path, which he said he was going to use as mulch for his tomato plants. The cycle path also runs the length of the Loire but follows a different trajectory from the GR3 and they only meet occasionally, usually in places where the newer cycle path has been laid down on top of the existing footpath. At this point near Vouvray I almost tripped over a young couple who had stopped their bikes in the middle of the path to examine a grass-snake which was curled up in the sun on the painted white line. They told me they had just set off from Tours to cycle all the way to the end of the path, and after I crossed the river and continued on the other side with the intention of pressing on to Amboise I was overtaken by dozens of cyclists on a long narrow road which crossed a wider plateau, in small groups among whom I detected scraps of conversation and greetings thrown out in English, Dutch and Australian tones. I passed a boy of about ten fishing in a very small pond next to a farmstead, and asked him if he’d caught anything. “Frogs!”, he replied proudly. “I’ve got nine or ten of them!”

                 The day after staying with Joel the weather forecast was grim despite the clear morning. Making slow progress on a footpath beside the river I was forced to stop repeatedly to adjust my rucksack. On one of these occasions in the middle of an ash plantation I fell into conversation with a cheerful old man dressed in the standard French countryman’s uniform of blue serge who was cutting back a roadside hedge. I asked him about the enormous amount of mistletoe to be seen in this area. He had no idea why there was so much and could only speculate that it was to do with the preponderance of ash and beech trees, but I was unconvinced. Having recently done some research into the use of mistletoe in cancer treatment I had discovered that it is predisposed to grow mainly on apple, maple, elm and birch trees, but upon reviewing the studies I find that a significant amount is to be found on ash. I wonder if some of these plantations are actually growing mistletoe for therapeutic purposes? If not then they could be. All along the flat lands surrounding the lower Loire are huge quantities of mistletoe which could be harvested and used in the treatment of certain cancers. It is interesting that initial research has concluded that this parasitic plant can help with the destruction of cancer cells as well as strengthening the immune system in some individuals, given that its structure is so similar to that of the parasitic cancer itself.

                 Passing through Souzay I came across an ancient subterranean village which had been hollowed out of the rock in much the same way as Joel’s house, but here there had been an entire community including a shopping street back in the Middle Ages. Walkers on the GR3 are directed to follow a little road which climbs above the levee up towards the white cliffs. The road dips in and out of tunnels and caves, sometimes emerging into the open air at spots where the tufa has been so riddled with holes that it has collapsed. Some of the caves were used for habitation while others were for storage of various items including silkworm cocoons. Although the secret of silk production was carried to Europe around the year 1200, it was not until the 15^th or 16^th century that it became a cottage industry in this part of France. The fascinating history of the silk industry was played out in this region for centuries until it was wiped out by a series of epidemics, but not before the invention of the Jacquard loom, which led indirectly to the construction of the first computers by the use of punched cards to control a sequence of operations. Nowadays the troglodyte caves are used for storing wine or cheeses when they have not been adapted or expanded into house extensions. Some have even been turned into cafés or restaurants or workshops for craftsmen.

Leaving Amboise there were troglodyte houses built into the rock beneath the castle walls and the path followed a road past the Chateau du Clos Lucé to which King Francis I invited Leonardo da Vinci to live for the last three years of his life and where he died in 1519. The chateau is connected by an underground passage to the royal castle half a kilometre away. Once again the path was taking me away from the Loire, first leading me across a huge cabbage-field next to a travellers’ encampment then through some woods to fields full of barley and rapeseed growing chest-high where I startled a hare and two young deer.

                               

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The Loire is the longest river in France and one of the longest wild rivers in Europe. One of only five which are known as fleuves as opposed to rivières – the others are le Rhône, la Seine, le Rhin and la Garonne – it is hardly navigable at all due to its shallowness and its irregular course, which has often been altered by flood over the centuries. The lack of traffic such as barges and motor-boats encourages a great deal of wildlife and the whole course of the Loire has been designated as a national park. Like the Rhine, which runs through half a dozen countries and forms part of the border between France and Germany, it is always familiarly called by its proper name - la Loire - and you are often met with blank looks if you ask directions to ‘the river’. Actually the term le fleuve sauvage is poorly translated as ‘the wild river’: that may be as close as we can get but it lacks the subtlety of the original. The word fleuve is described in hydrological terms as a ‘main stem’ or ‘trunk’, belonging only to that which flows uninterruptedly from source to sea, whereas in English there is no distinction between the ‘River’ Wharfe, for example, which is in fact a tributary, and the ‘River’ Thames, which is a fleuve. Confusingly the five fleuves are not all masculine despite being each called un fleuve; nor are the rivières all feminine, and there is no linguistic rationale behind why it should be le Rhin but la Loire. Le Rhône rises in Switzerland where it is masculine in the local patois but has become feminine in German. Again, while the word sauvage is literally translated as wild or savage and although a better term might be untamed, that does not fully do it justice either, as numerous attempts have been made to tame it, some of which have been successful. There is another definition of the word: someone can be described as ‘il est sauvage’ meaning ‘he is unsociable’, with the underlying sense of being eccentric or shy and retiring. Perhaps this is closer to the truth. The Loire is not bold like the Rhine, which bowls and rolls its way through mountain ranges and national boundaries to spill into the North Sea in a rage. Nor does she forge a deep channel and invite traffic like the Rhone or the Seine which snakes its way to the English Channel through the orchards and dairy-farms of Normandy. The changeable nature of the currents combined with the shallow depth of the water creates an ever shifting picture where sandbanks can come and go from one day to the next. The attempts to form a deeper channel in the middle of the course by means of laying stones as épis or spikes reaching out perpendicularly from the banks to force the flow into the centre has created an additional danger to boats trying to navigate the river in times of flood, which can be any time of year other than July and August when great areas of the riverbed are exposed by lack of water. In addition there is the tide to consider. Those who wish to navigate the Loire by motorised pleasure-boat or fishing-boat are advised that from the mouth to Nantes the tide is strong enough to reverse the flow of the current while from Nantes to Ancenis the current is neutralised;

at any point you will need a boat capable of a minimum speed of 10 km/h when cruising and 15 km/h to counteract particulary strong currents, e.g. at St Florent-le-Vieil;

it is not advisable to take a motorboat on the river if there is any risk of flooding: there are often small floods or flash floods in autumn and spring and occasional heavy flooding usually but not always in winter. The river is only navigable between St Nazaire in the estuary and Bouchemaine near Angers.

Graffiti seen daubed onto the wall of a cellar-cave beside the Loire:

Milagro milagro! Estoi en vida de mi lagro!

De milagro no me han matao

(Somewhat incorrectly spelt: A miracle, a miracle! I am alive by a miracle! Miraculously they have not killed me).

Who knows how long ago this was written or by whom. Maybe it is a quote from a poem or a modern Spanish pop song, or maybe it dates from the days of the Spanish Civil War or the Resistance during the German occupation, which may have had some Spanish recruits hereabouts (the romantic option as it seems very personal and poignant, being the work of someone who is not used to writing but has heard something intensely meaningful to them).

I came to a little town called Candé-sur-Beuvron which looked closed, which was not surprising given that it was still quite early on a Sunday morning, but I waited for a moment as it looked as if the congregation might be about to leave Mass then tried the café next to the bridge, whose door was closed and barricaded shut by a chair inside. The room was occupied by three large dogs but the window was wide open. When I spied an elderly woman inside I hailed her and she told me the café was open, unlocking the door. The bar soon filled up with people coming in for their Sunday paper, their tobacco or their morning glass of wine. Climbing a hill past the church I come out onto another hill-top plain with the east wind whipping into my face. Taking the decision to walk upstream rather than going with the flow as most walkers and cyclists do was originally because it seemed sensible to gradually break myself into the rhythm of walking by starting off on the flat for a good portion before tackling any serious hills rather than immediately begin with several days of steep downhill walking which attacks the knees more viciously than climbing. However another consideration was that I calculated the prevalent wind is likely to be coming from the west so it would be pushing me along for at least the first half of the journey before I started to drop down southwards. Unfortunately this was not the case and for much of the first half the wind has been blowing out of the east. This is slowing me down slightly but is also pleasantly cool since the temperature is still well up towards the high twenties. At lunchtime I come across a homemade roadside sign on the outskirts of a small village advertising drinks for thirsty travellers, and find a couple in a cavernous barn full of tractors and other farming implements giving away cold drinks for a donation.

 A serene stroll through a majestic pine forest later I was arriving back at the Loire near Blois and after hiking along the top of a high levee for a couple of miles, with allotments on one side and a noisy fairground on the other, found myself walking down a main road empty of traffic but lined with excited crowds, many holding cameras or banners and wearing brightly-coloured T-shirts and caps. I was wondering how they knew I was coming but the dream is shattered when I reach the end of the street just as the leaders swoop round the corner from the left to cross the bridge leading to the centre of town and I discover it is the closing stage of the Tour de Loire et Cher. Following the multi-coloured cyclists across the river with the magnificent cathedral and massive castle ahead of me, I climb the steps to the spacious square beside the main entrance to the royal residence, park my bags beside a café table and watch the dragons poking their heads out of the windows of the Museum of Magic opposite, above a statue of Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, the great 19^th century illusionist (after whom Harry Houdini named himself), who was so famous that he was recruited by the French government in 1856 to show the tribesmen of Algeria that French magic is stronger than the magic of the marabouts. Among other tricks he astonished them with The Light and Heavy Chest and by apparently catching a marked bullet in his teeth. The art of misdirection or “my magic’s stronger than yours” was used again in World War I when a dummy Paris was built 15 km from the centre to fool German pilots in 1918. Similarly the British Army’s self-styled ‘Magic Gang’ under Jasper Maskelyne succeeded in Egypt in 1941 in deceiving the Nazis into bombing the wrong targets by a series of clever illusions involving dummies and mirrors, which makes one wonder how many ex-Hollywood technicians are now employed by various governments in the War against Terror, or whatever it is called these days. War against Extremism? (2015). But I still don’t know how he did that trick with the bullet…