Western France 2 by Martin O'Brien

Cycling in the Sologne

There is simply nothing like it. The fresh-air freedom of cycling the open road, the exhilaration of spinning wheels and wind in the hair and, every day, somewhere up ahead, the softly seductive prospect of a picnic lunch. Indeed, when you're cycling in the Sologne the only problem you're likely to encounter is choosing the perfect spot to empty your saddlebags and spread your cloth - by a stream, beside a lake, or in the shade of ancient oaks with witch hat turrets peeping through the branches.

Here in the Sologne, no more than an hour and a half from the courtyards of the Louvre, cycling is the best way to explore this remarkable region. Apart from the fresh air and exercise, there's a real sense of intimacy with your surroundings when you travel by bike, a feeling of closeness and access that other forms of transport simply cannot provide. And with its extensive network of country lanes and leafy woodland paths, its lakes and forests, its ancient timbered villages, vine-clad inns, royal hunting lodges and grand chateaux, the Sologne was surely designed with two wheels in mind.

Lying between the rivers Loire and Cher in Centre-Val de Loire, the Sologne covers almost two thousand square miles, a perfectly-preserved country quilt of lake and woodland where nothing much seems to have happened since Charlemagne came here to hunt in the ninth century. Within easy pedalling distance are villages like Chaumont-sur-Tharonne, Ligny-Le-Ribault, Saint Viatre, La Ferté Beauharnais and Marcilly-en-Gault, every one of them creaking with age and character, their red brick and half-timbered houses huddled together, hidden away in the woods and the forests.

And here, too, are some of the Loire's great chateaux. Within thirty miles of Chaumont-sur-Tharonne, in the heart of the Sologne, are the fairytale Chambord, largest of the Loire country chateaux, classically-lined Cheverny and, further afield, the great keeps of Chaumont and Amboise, not to mention the dozen or so smaller domains like Beauregard, Villesavin, Ferté St Aubin and the fortified, moated Chateau Sully-sur-Loire.

With the cyclist in mind, a number of hotels in the Sologne have tailor-made a range of cycling itineraries to suit every taste. Using just one hotel as a base for exploration, or moving from one to another - never more than twenty miles apart - these itineraries are intended for pleasure rather than physical exertion, with baggage forwarded to the next destination, picnic lunches prepared, and every effort made to ensure you don't miss a thing.

Of course a day in the saddle means hearty appetites, picnics notwithstanding. So when it comes to dinner, remember what you have seen and heard during the day - the throaty cough of pheasant, the startled crash of deer through the bracken and the splash of trout - and you'll have a clear idea of what awaits you in the region's dining rooms. Remember too that the Sologne and the Loire Valley produce more asparagus than anywhere else in France, best accompanied with the local wines of Cheverny and Touraine.

The Gardens of Normandy

Few would argue that the most celebrated garden in Normandy is at Claude Monet's home in Giverny, its water lilies, wisteria-clad bridges and weeping willows his inspiration for more than twenty years. But Giverny is only one of many gardens in Normandy which provide a stunning stepping-stone path across this lush and fertile landscape.

On the edge of the Cotentin Peninsula, the town of Granville was once the favourite sea-side haunt of Stendhal and Victor Hugo. It was also the childhood home of Christian Dior and the house he was born in and the garden he played in still stand on the headlands above the sea. Formally laid in patterned parterres, the garden was created by his mother, Madeleine, its rose pergola, pool and sea-view terrace, its trim lawns and gravel pathways shaded by the wind-sculpted firs that rise up around the family 's rose-coloured villa.

In nearby Coutances, designated a ville fleurie, the whole town blooms with tubs of flowers on every window ledge and in every square. Only a short walk from its Cathedral are the town's public gardens, sloping down the hillside on which Coutances is built in a series of Italian-style terraces. Here are richly-planted flowerbeds, fountains, pools and promenades and an intriguing tower maze. But the real jewels are the ornamental trees - its giant redwood and Bhutan pine, Lebanese cedar, weeping ash, magnolia and Norway Maple gently shading these elegant gardens.

Far less formal but no less impressive are the gardens at Chateau de Canon, a half-hour's drive from Caen on the outskirts of Mezidon. Hidden behind the house's Italian-style facade lies a pleasing patchwork of orchards, bowers, temples and tree-lined promenades, its dappled woods laced with streams and furnished with ancient dovecotes, a Chinese pavilion and the ruins of a renaissance-style mill. Not to be missed are the walled gardens, or chartreuses, their high brick walls espaliered with peach, pear, apricot, almond and fig trees and the beds filled with vegetables, herbs and flowers for the house.

At the Arboretum d'Harcourt between Le Neubourg and Brionne the accent is firmly on trees. Planted in 1802 in the grounds of the 14th-century Chateau Harcourt and covering 24 acres, the Arboretum contains four hundred species of tree and shrub including walnut, beech, cedar, giant thuya, cypress and cork oak. As well as the Arboretum the Chateau also boasts a two-hundred and thirty acre forest, conveniently laid with pathways, comprising both native and exotic species.

North of the Seine and within easy reach of Rouen are two delightful family gardens where green-fingered owners have transformed abandoned, weed-strewn acres into magnificent grounds. At Montmain the Lebellegard's Jardins d'Angelique were named after a lost daughter, the property's two acres filled with the sweet scents of more than two thousand varieties of rose, while the Le Bret family's gardens at Le Clos du Coudray contain more than six thousand plant species artfully landscaped around a prettily-thatched and timbered cottage.

Finally, make for Varangeville a few miles outside Dieppe, and lose yourself in Le Bois des Moutiers. Created in 1898 by the Mallet family, the Lutyens' designed manor house, its sumptuous garden and rolling parkland delight and seduce at every step. From March to November the grounds are ablaze with magnolia, rhododendron and azalea, while rare trees line woodland paths that wind down to the sea. If ever there was a contender for Giverny's crown, this is surely it.

T The Wine Routes of Western Loire

Between the cobbled quays of Nantes, where once the riches of the New World were unloaded, and the fairytale spires of Saumur looming over the sinuous, sliding waters of the Loire, you will find some of France's finest vineyards.

With its rich, fertile soil and sun-drenched climate, its gently sloping hillsides and high plateaux, the Pays de la Loire has been making wine since the days of the Greeks and Romans - crisp, zesty whites; light, lively rosés; and deep, fruity reds old enough to satisfy but still young enough to serve chilled. While first-timers plan their route according to the grand chateaux that line the Loire, older hands make for the wine country around Nantes, Angers and Saumur and follow the Routes des Vignobles.

As itineraries go, they are impossible to resist and hard to beat, leading wine-lover and wanderer alike through some the country's most enchanting landscapes. Only half-an hour's drive from Nantes, and close enough to the Atlantic to smell the salty tang of the ocean, the vine-braided slopes of Sevre et Maine, the lake-side Cotes de Grandlieu and the smaller Coteaux de la Loire produce one of the world's favourite white wines - the crisp, flowery, dry-as-onionskin Muscadet.

From Oudon and Ancenis rising above the northern banks of the Loire, south to St Fiacre, Clisson and La Haye Fouassiere in Sevre et Maine, and on to Corcoué-sur-Logne, La Limouziniere and the lake-side fishermen's village of Passay, the search for a favourite muscadet is a search worth making, a perfect wine for the lobsters, crabs, oysters, mussels, langoustines and scallops, not to mention salmon, pike and perch, that typify Nantaise cuisine.

Further east the wines of Anjou-Saumur take precedence, dominating the cartes des vins in every self-respecting restaurant between Angers, the ancient capital of Anjou, and the limestone bluffs of Saumur. Here are the coral-pink rosés and fruity reds of Anjou, the sweet, succulent whites of Layon and the full-bodied reds and sparkling crémants of the Saumurois.

Though the rocky slopes of Savennieres on the outskirts of Angers produce some memorable wines, particularly Coulée de Serrant and Roche-aux-Moines, the best-known vineyards and most delightful routes are south of the Loire, along the winding tributaries of the Aubance, Layon and Thouet rivers. Choose any of them to discover the great names of Anjou-Saumur, wine villages like Rochefort, Chaume, St-Lambert-du-Lattay, Faye d'Anjou and the legendary Bonnezeaux whose sweet white wines count among the country's finest.

From here, all roads lead to the Saumurois, the signposted invitations to taste or buy its famous Champigny reds and sparkling whites a temptation always worth succumbing to. Around Saumur, some of the most interesting tastings take place underground, in the warren of tunnels and caves carved out centuries ago to provide the stone for the Loire's great chateaux. As soon as the stone-cutters moved out the wine-makers moved in, the cool darkness thirty metres below the vineyards the perfect environment for storing wine. Not to mention the perfect environment for growing mushrooms. Believe it or not, more than seventy per cent of French mushrooms are grown beneath the vineyards of Saumur.

Life Afloat in Poitou Charentes

The Charente River may not be the longest or the grandest river in France, but it is certainly one of the most beautiful. Not for nothing did Henry IV call it "the finest stream in my kingdom". And by far the best way to enjoy it is to hire a cabin cruiser and chart a course along its winding length.

The source of the Charente lies upstream from Lake Rochechouard in Limousin and though you can canoe these higher reaches, the most satisfying route is the navigable section between Angouleme and Saintes. Used for centuries by commercial traffic transporting goods from the interior to the sea, this seventy-mile stretch of river (with only 20 locks) takes in some of the region's most important towns and passes through some of its lushest countryside.

From Angouleme, a hilltop town crowned with medieval ramparts and dominated by a magnificent 12th-century cathedral, the river is your guide. In a series of graceful loops it winds past ancient paper mills like Fleurac, still producing paper in the traditional 18th-century manner, charming villages like St Simon, where river barges were built until the turn of the century, and grand abbeys like St Etienne in Bassac - every riverside hamlet, it seems, clustered around a chateau, a mill or medieval church.

At Jarnac, where President Mitterand was born and buried, and further downstream at Cognac the real business of the Charente becomes apparent. Suddenly the wooded hillsides are ribbed with vines and the cobbled quays of Jarnac and Cognac crowded with the merchant warehouses of great cognac-makers like Courvoisier, Hine, Martell and Otard. One of the oldest names in Cognac is Hennessey, founded by an Irishman in 1765 and still under family control, its traditional riverside chais and recently-opened museum well worth a mooring.

Finally, two locks down from Cognac, you'll cruise even further back into history when you reach Saintes, capital of the Saintonge in Charente-Maritime and hometown of Dr Guillotin himself. Established on the banks of the Charente in the First Century AD, Saintes makes a delightful mooring, its sloping main street, elegantly canopied with shade trees, its maze-like old quarter and roman ruins - the 20,000-seat arena and soaring Arch of Germanicus - all within easy reach.

Not as well known as the Charente River, but no less beguiling a waterway, is the Marais Poitevin where every house has a weeping willow in its garden and its own mirror image. Known as Venise Verte, or Green Venice, and reminiscent of America's waterlogged southern bayous, this extraordinary 200,000-acre national park stretches from Niort to the Bay of Aiguillon, a web of man-made canals and winding waterways best explored in the local flat-bottomed boats called plattes. Easily hired at the landing stages of picturesque villages like Coulon, the district capital, Arcais or La Garette, they will take you into a watery wonderland of green woods and isolated pastures where the only sounds are the splash of kingfishers and the lazy slap of your paddle. And not a parking meter in sight.

Brittany's Religious Enclosures

As signposts go, there's nothing clearer nor more eloquent to point the way ahead than a church spire rising above the landscape. But in Brittany, more than anywhere else in France, you'll soon discover that where you see a church spire you'll often find far more than you bargained for.

Fringed by a wild and rocky atlantic coast, at the country's westernmost edge, Brittany has always been an isolated land, a region that kept itself to itself. In its time it has seen off Charlemagne, resisted the Vikings and Normans, kept the English at bay and only came under French rule in the middle of the sixteenth century. Proud and independent, the Bretons even have their own language which is taught in schools and still spoken by many country-folk in preference to French. They are also deeply religious, as people generally are when their roots are celtic and the sea is their livelihood, and for generations Bretons have expressed their faith by building and decorating an extraordinary number of 'enclosure' churches.

Named after the wall that encloses the church and its grounds, there are more than forty of these churches in Brittany. Spread across the Finisterre peninsula from Locronan and Ste-Anne-La-Palud on the Bay of Douarnenez to the cathedral town of Tréguier, the greatest concentration of enclosures is found along the Elorn River in the countryside south of the Morlaix to Brest highway.

What first impresses the visitor is the size of these churches, given the tiny villages they tend to be found in, and the wealth of exterior decoration. Within their boundary walls are richly-sculpted calvaries portraying scenes from the life of Christ and Breton legend, towering triumphal arches, ossuaries, porches and sacristies built in a glorious amalgam of architectural styles - Romanesque, renaissance, gothic - as each generation added to the original.

And if the exteriors astonish, the interiors simply stun. Here are extravagantly decorated ceilings painted with stars and angels, sweeping, canopied pulpits, polychrome baptistries, intricately carved cross-beams, filigreed rood screens and gilt-encrusted reredos usually depicting the lives of the saints the churches are named after. And if the workmanship lacks a certain finesse and elegance, there's no denying its glorious abundance, its boldness and vibrancy.

St Thégonnec is one of the largest and best-known of Brittany's enclosures, its triumphal arch and 17th-century calvary a powerful signal to other parishes, and to future generations, of the town's prosperity, the skills of its masons and carpenters, and the healthy state of its communal soul. Indeed it was this artistic and spiritual rivalry between villages that accounts for the sheer extravagance of their churches: Guilmiliau's 16th-century calvary covered with two hundred carved figures; Sizun's monumental gateway; the italianate facade of La Roche Maurice's ossuary; the carved polychrome reredos of Loc Melar; the glorious baptistry of Lampaul-Guilmiliau, and the painted porch of La Martyre, oldest of all the enclosures.

If you are searching for the soul of this region, simply follow the signs marked Circuit des Enclos Paroissiaux. Or look for a church spire.