Montsoreau was lovely, the monthly markets were on yesterday with antiques, furniture, books, food and the like. It went all day so the town was very busy. We tried our French and bought lunch and dinner which I cooked. The afternoon was spent visiting the Abbey at Fontevraud where Richard the Lionheart is buried and then returned to town to rest in a bar and have a few beers, sketch and watch the Tour on French TV. Andre, our host, gave us a bottle of local red when we left. We drove to Les Sables-d’Olonne through country roads, villages and farms. This place is on the coast north of La Rochelle and has a beach which is about a kilometre long and 200metres deep. There are thousands on the sand.
“The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson