We are, once again, in the port de plaisance at Nevers. We last visited here almost 2 years ago when it was a little colder but not by much. Then we watched stonemasons working on the restoration of the cathedral tower and we can now see the completed result. It is quite beautiful.
Nevers is the capital of the Nivernais region of Burgundy but has been an important city since Roman times. Its position on the opposite bank of the Loire makes it similar to the other lovely old cities we've visited this year ie a long trek across a busy bridge. It is also at the end of the Loire Velo route. There have been lots of exhausted but happy looking cyclists passing us over the past few days.
Despite having visited before we are always happy to wander through the narrow winding streets of ancient buildings marvelling that people have been living and working in some of them for 5 or 600 years.
Some are grander than others of course. This is the Ducal Palace.
We stopped off at La Charité-sur-Loire en route to here which we hadn't visited previously. The lovely, slightly shabby town is situated on an island in the Loire and grew up around an important priory. The town and priory suffered greatly during various wars and by the end of the French Revolution there were only a dozen monks left there. The priory fell into disrepair and was sold off piecemeal to various indivuals. It has been declared as a World Heritage site and it now being slowly restored.The town is also on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compstela.
PS. to last blogpost. I managed a successful visit to the Orange shop which has to be a first for us so perhaps my French isn't as bad as I thought.
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