Читать книгу The Loire Cycle Route. From the source in the Massif Central to the Atlantic coast онлайн

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Stage 20 leaves the Loire briefly, following its Cher tributary past the châteaux at Villandry with an immaculately kept 100 hectares of formal gardens and Ussé, inspiration for the story of Sleeping Beauty. There are more riverside cliffs, with the route going underground through the caves of a troglodyte village, and hillside vineyards before Saumur (Stage 21). Entering Anjou, heartland of Norman-English France during the Hundred Years’ War, an excursion can be made to visit its capital, Angers (Stage 22). Stages 23–25 follow the river through the Vendée – an area that provided the greatest level of resistance during the French Revolution – and the Muscadet wine region to reach Nantes, a city that grew rich on profits from the African slave trade. Finally the generally flat coastal plain of Loire-Atlantique is crossed (Stage 26) to reach Brevin-les-Pins, opposite the shipbuilding town of St Nazaire.

Natural environment

Physical geography

The Massif Central mountains are the oldest in France, formed mostly of gneiss and metamorphic schists. When the African and European tectonic plates collided approximately 30 million years ago, pushing up the Alps and raising the eastern edge of the Massif Central, they triggered a series of eruptions that formed a chain of volcanoes in the eastern and central parts of the range. Subsequent erosion and weathering have exposed the central igneous volcanic cores, and these dot the landscape through which the first part of the Loire flows – Gerbier de Jonc being a particularly well formed example. This collision of plates also caused rippling of the landmass to the north, creating a series of calcareous ridges. After leaving the Massif Central, the Loire flows down between these ridges, forming a wide basin with outcrops of chalk and limestone. Where the river has cut down through the ridges, tufa limestone cliffs abut the river and these have been extensively quarried for building stone.