As we got closer to the Loire valley the countryside started to change from fields of corn to fields containing vine after vine of grape… both red and white. We couldn’t have timed our visit better as looking at the size of the grapes we may still be in the region for harvesting which I understand is a bit of an event.

As you rarely get the opportunity to visit friends whilst away we took a slight detour from our planned route and popped in to see Dave and Nicky in Brem-Sur-Mer and were lucky enough to be shown around the area and can only say that we were thoroughly looked after for four days…. Quite a treat!

 The weather was kind to us and we managed to take advantage of one of the regions’ fantastic cycle routes, cycling along the coast to la Chaume (across the estuary from Le Sable D’Olonne) with Dave, we walked along the local beaches as whilst also taking in some of the local cafes, markets and playing some tennis 🙂

 We were spoilt by Nicky’s wonderful cooking and the families hospitality and were also introduced to some lovely local sparkling red wine and a fantastic restaurant on Saturday night where Keith Dave and Nicky all had Sardines three different ways…… tasty and definitely interesting!

Hopefully they enjoyed the time as much as we did and feel as relaxed as we do coming away from their house….although we have to apologies for the hole we left in the driveway when Keith spun the wheels whilst trying to reverse off 😦

We look forward to coming back and seeing more of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie in the future as we only got a little taste and hope the driveway is big (and possibly hard) enough – we could quite see ourselves living there 🙂