Aubigny-sur-Nère is the town of the Stuarts, so John was wearing his Stewart tartan bow tie for the occasion. Aubigny-sur-Nère has a long Scottish tradition: John Stewart arrived in Aubigny in 1419 with a contingent of Scottish soldiers to fight with Charles 7th of France. He was rewarded with many titles and the family stayed for 400 years, and the chateau is known as Chateau Stuart.
We started by walking through the picturesque town to the church where we heard a long presentation about the town and probably the church. Unfortunately, echoes meant that neither of us could hear clearly enough and so most of the information was lost. In addition, various people were wandering around getting ready for mass, it being Ascension Thursday and a bank holiday in France.
The phone box seems to have been presented to Aubigny - it may be one of the few that hasn't been turned into a library.
A man in a kilt playing bagpipes on a roundabout.
After the town tour, it was time to see the castle.
The castle is now used as the Mairie (town hall), so we only saw the courtyard and the room that is used for marriages.
This has some magnificent tapestries.
and this was in the fireplace.
We returned to the hotel for lunch and then set off for a cruise down the Canal de Briare, which was built in the 17th century to link together the rivers Loire and Seine, thereby supplying Paris with food and goods.
The escalator was used to pump water up the Loire into the canal.
This is the motorway to Paris crossing the canal
We went through a lock, turned round and then went back again. This is us going down
And here we are with the water streaming in as we go back up.
In fact, there is another canal, one on each side of the Loire and these are linked by a bridge, built by Eiffel, over the Loire which links two canal networks.
Our final stop of the day was to a museum devoted to the river and the canal. Here we saw how goods were carried to Paris along the Loire, years ago and how the canals were built. The presentation was excellent and we could both understand it well, unlike the morning experience. We saw some excellent needlework there, depicting the river.
- Pat and John on tour
