A Saturday Afternoon Drive in the Loire River Valley

Mosaic Clock on Church Exterios

Today I was a tourist and my plans got jumbled just like last time I tried to leave Sancerre on the weekend.  Remember Bourges?  Well this weekend another student decided that we should rent a car and go somewhere.  I suggested a castle since this area of France is full of them, including the one that Walt Disney used as a model for Cinderella’s castle. (Wait, last year when I was in Germany I was told a German castle was a model .  .  .)  Back to my story, she agreed to one day at a castle and I agreed to be the driver.

So Saturday morning we were all set.  Hertz in Cosne-sur-Loire had a car for us (I had a confirmation at least).  We had a taxi at the school to drive us to  Cosne-sur-Loire and we were both there on time.  Away we went.  Cosne-sur-Loire is one of many cities with the name of “____________” sur the Loire.  “Sur the Loire” is on the Loire, meaning that the city is on the Loire River. Including “on the Loire” in its name initially made sense to help people know where the city was – that was before maps.  But since there is not another Cosne, you might have thought over time they would have dropped the “on the Loire” but no.  And from the signs I saw today neither did Bonny-sur-the-Loire, La Charite-sur-the-Loire nor a few others I can’t remember.   

Loire River from Briare Canal Bridge

The second interesting thing about Cosne is that it is pronounced “cone” ie as if it had no “s.”  One thing that really gives you away as not being French is if you pronounce the “s” in Cosne. 

Enough for city names, back to the rental car.  The Hertz car rental agency was in Cosne’s car dealership as they sometimes are in the U.S.  Surprisingly, another couple got there to rent a car at exactly the same time we did.  So we waited a little bit and then I gave the clerk my name and said I had reserved the car online.  He didn’t seem to have my information and slowly began to fill out a blank reservation form.  He got my name from my driver’s license.  He had trouble with the information because, of course, we no longer have the social security numbers on our driver’s licenses.  Also, because we do our dates month/day/year rather than day/month/year he filled the information incorrectly the first time.  But in typical French efficiency, he had a white-out pen to correct it.  Also, the city of my birth not being on my driver’s license was also a problem.  He didn’t speak a lot of English, but my newly acquired French filled in the blanks.  When he gave me a piece of paper for writing the city of my birth, I wrote Salina, Kansas and then added (ville and etat in the proper place) so he’d know which was the state and which the city.  I was so proud my French was working. 

Canal Bridge Crossing River

Now we had a car and immediately, I was going to learn whether driving a stick was like riding a bike (ie once you know how, you never forget).  I think it has been 20 years or so since I drove a stick.  (And for the smarties in the audience saying why did she rent a stick, they only offered sticks.)  I did get out of the parking lot without the car dying, but I killed it shortly thereafter.  A kind French person did honk their horn to let me know that the middle of the street was not the place to stop.

In no time at all I was driving the stick as if I always had. I almost went down a one-way street the wrong way but a shout from my navigator avoided the error and we were off to the castle.   By the time we neared Bourges (about 40 kilometers), my navigator had been sick several times. It was clear that she was too sick to make a day of it, so I drove her back to Sancerre.  I even tackled the hilly, narrow Sancerre streets and drove her directly to her home. 



Mosaic Floor in Briare Church



I then decided that since I had a car, I should go somewhere.  The castle seemed too far away to tackle on my own and it was now too late in the day to head there, I decided that perhaps an afternoon in Briare on the Canal was the ticket.  As you can tell from the name Briare is on a canal, but what it is most famous to me for is a bridge over the Loire River that allows canal traffic to cross over the river.

 
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Our Boat Heading into the Bridge



On the map Briare appeared to be a little north of Cosne.  I headed out of Sancerre and down the hill.  I knew how to follow the street signs to Cosne.  I was hoping when I got to Cosne there’d be a sign for Briare.  I also had a road number that I thought would get me there.  As I crossed over the Loire in to Cosne, there was a sign for the highway I wanted and I turned. I ended up in the traffic for a local church fair, which seemed quite large.   After ending up at a dead end, I turned around and took the next street parallel to the river.  It was a winner.  Every few minutes I came to a little city, had to slow down and  proceed through a roundabout.  At each round-about I was reassured that I was going the right direction.  And I did end up in Briare. 

I tried to find the Office of Tourisme to get oriented but that was not to be.  Well, that is not entirely true, after parking the car and walking the direction I thought I needed to go, I found the Office of Tourisme, but it was closed for lunch.  Rather than wait, I just headed towards where I thought the stuff was.

On the way, I found a beautiful old church decorated inside and out with mosaics.  It was built in the 1800s, when famous mosaics and enamels were made in Briare, and thus not considered too old in this area. 

I found a tourist boat and took a cruise on the Briare Canal, including going over the Loire River on the famous bridge.  Yes, the bridge contains water so that boats can cross the Loire River.  I am not sure why the water traffic can’t cross in the Loire River itself, but apparently a bridge is needed.   Some claim the Gustav Eiffel of the tower fame had a lot to do with the bridge, others claim he just provided some parts.  Although built for commerce, there are pedestrian walkways in addition to the water bridge so it is fun to walk across the bridge.  While the canal dates to the early 1600s, the canal bridge was not completed until 1896.  It is the longest canal bridge in the world.  (For those of you having trouble imagining this, just think of a normal bridge going over a river, except the bridge has water instead of a street so that boats can use it rather than cars.  Similar to many car bridges, it has pedestrian lanes on each side.)  What a great view of the Loire you get when you walk across.

The Lock on The Canal Lateral to the Loire after We Passed Through



We then came back across the bridge and headed up stream (at least it seemed up stream to me) to the point where the Briare Canal joins the Canal Lateral to the Loire (yes, that’s really its name) for a trip through a lock.  For those of you not familiar, a lock takes a boat from one body of water to another that is either higher or lower than the one the boat is in.  The bridge takes the boat completely across the river, never bringing the boat in contact with the river water.  It was a lovely ride. 

The moral of this story seems to be that if I stay away from Bourge I don’t have any problems.