Tagged with "Secrets of the River Wine Tour"

Le Thoureil – a beautiful riverside village perched on the banks of the Loire – Le Tasting Room

It was such a beautiful morning that I popped down to the river early this morning to walk Sybil . Le Thoureil is one of the prettiest villages perched on the river Loire half way between Angers and Saumur and just a 15 minute walk from our home.

Yesterday was the annual Fête des Bateaux. The weather was pretty awful but this didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the boatsmen and women who gathered in the pretty riverside village of Le Thoureil to celebrate life on the river.

This majestic ‘fleuve’ gets under your skin and once you’re smitten, that’s it. Come and see for yourself and you’ll understand.

We sometimes complain a little – restaurants close on a Sunday evening and all day Monday, everything grinds to a halt during August, people don’t speak English. And then we have a perfect day like this when we go out on the river Loire with local boatsman Alain Gillot and afterwards enjoy a cold beer in the café by the church in Le Thoureil and realise that we don’t really want it to change.

The weather was perfect yesterday afternoon for our Secrets of the River tour. After a morning spent wine tasting here in our 16th century tasting room, we enjoyed a lazy three course lunch in our old barrel cellar and then went down to the river for an hour and a half on the water in an old sand dredging boat.