Europe 2017 & 2019 & now 2023: A gem!

It takes the best part of the morning for the temperature to get up to something reasonable in this part of France and we suspect that will continue as we head north - it however turned out to be a very nice day both from the point of view of the weather and also our sightseeing.

First stop was Firminy which when we arrived was crowded for market day and finding a car park was a real chore so much so that after going around in circles we almost headed away only to find parking about 5 mins walk from the centre.

There were actually two markets - fruit & veggies in one area and “liquorice all sorts” in another - and we walked around both. The all sorts market had numerous shoe stalls and Sherry couldn’t resist picking up a pair of dressy sandals from one of them at a very reasonable price.

One stall that stood out because it was one that you wouldn’t expect to see in a market was that selling beds.

We left there late morning and headed to Saint-Paul-En-Cornillon, a small village on the Loire, with the intention of stopping for lunch however that was not to be as apart from some residential properties on the banks of the river there was nothing commercial there, so apart from stopping to take a couple of photos...

...it was off to Saint-Victor-Sur-Loire and this was a real gem.

The small town sat on a hill well above the Loire and was quite beautiful in comparison to nearly all the other villages we have been to.

The feature building is the Chateau

and the view down to the Loire is absolutely panoramic.

There being nothing commercial in the town proper we went to a restaurant (the only restaurant) at the foot of the hill for lunch and threw caution to the wind by ordering both L’entre de Jour & Le plat de Jour without any idea what would be served though the waitress, who had no English, when trying to explain the plate of the day rubbed her tummy but that made no sense to us as she didn’t look pregnant.

The entree was Jambon et Cru (melon and prosciutto) while the plate was a good size piece of tender liver on a small amount of peas in the pod and podded broadbeans with a couple of scoops of pumpkin - the liver was superb but we could not work out what animal it came from (other than it would have been a dead one), though the reason the waitress rubbed her tummy became obvious - she was indicating her liver.

After lunch we then drove down the hill to “the port” effectively one of the gorges on the Loire and found a very well used beach and sunbathing area again with great views of the surrounding gorge.