The Wild Success of a Village Guinguette Started by Two Friends

In the Sud Touraine Loire Valley, in Preuilly-sur-Claise, a pretty, no-frills guinguette run by two friends is giving the whole village a boost. A guinguette is an informal outdoor bar, usually on a river, where there is live music, space to dance and simple light snacks and meals.

  

One of the guinguette's excellent mocktails.

You've heard of Tic and Tac, Elsa and Anna or Asterix and Obelix. But in Preuilly-sur-Claise, the best known duo (after Maria and Christian from Les Bodin's, of course) is Arthur and Anatole! The two mates, both 28 years old, run Le Lavoir, the guinguette in Preuilly-sur-Claise, in the rural Sud Touraine.

 

Early evening at the guinguette.

On the banks of the tranquil river Claise, this festive bar-restaurant, where people come to enjoy burgers and fries made in-house with no frills or pretensions, opened its doors three years ago. On 30 April 2022, to be exact. Anatole said that they thought they would try something small, and it turned into something big in one evening. They thought they'd have family and a few friends, but it turned into a full-on rush, with three hundred people turning up! They had to immediately rethink the way they operated. All those who had looked askance and muttered that they would last about a week had to eat their words.

 

The guinguette at 10 o'clock in the morning.

The two friends, both from around here, Anatole from Boussay, Arthur from Preuilly itself, are not from the mainstream hospitality sector. They only distantly knew the hotel-restaurant business. Anatole, who has a degree in tourism, did an internship in a well known local restaurant and worked for seven years in the entertainment industry, skiing in winter and surfing in summer.

Arthur, who graduated with a degree in arts and entertainment from the Tours film school, had tentatively begun to work on film shoots.

 

In March this year the Claise flooded.  Luckily there was plenty of warning and the fire brigade assisted in removing all the valuable fridges and kitchen fittings before the guinguette was knee deep in water. The photo shows Arthur, Anatole and Louise (Anatole's girlfriend) ruefully checking their business premises after the water had receded a bit.

But for the two friends - who met as teenagers at the hairdresser's! - Covid was the catalyst. They went through the lockdowns together. Arthur had to retrain. And they were bored. So they thought, why not start their own thing?

 

 My swimming group having lunch at the guinguette.

At the time, there were no longer any restaurants or drinking establishments in the village. The Lavoir, the municipal building that had once served as the premises of the Communist Party's pétanque club, was available. Right next to a campsite and open-air swimming pool.

 

 Cheese and charcuterie platter at the guinguette.

The duo, working eighty hours a week in the summer, are now well established: Arthur in the kitchen, Anatole serving, backed up by a team of up to seven people in all. They only work with people they know, friends or friends of friends. The oldest of whom is only 31! A group of friends who serve up to four hundred people every evening during the week of 15 August (the Assumption Day holiday week).

The young team even organized a Joyce Jonathan [link] concert for its 2023 closing night, with 2,500 spectators... in a village of 1,000 inhabitants!

 

The aftermath of a quiet Friday lunch service at the end of August.

* Open from April to September every day except Tuesday, from 10.30 a.m. to 11 p.m. The kitchen is open from 12 to 2 p.m. and from 7 to 10 p.m.
* Alcohol abuse is harmful to health, consume in moderation.

13 000 -- That's how many meat burgers (vegetarian burgers are also available) were served last season at the Preuilly guinguette, consuming 1.5 tons of minced meat. Eight tons of potatoes also ended up as fries on the plates of Preuilly-sur-Claise guinguette fans.

60 -- that's how many mojito mocktails with great handfuls of fresh mint they'll make in an evening.

 

View up the Claise from the guinguette's covered terrace out the back.

If you head down there at 6 o'clock in the evening on a Friday, the guinguette won't yet be full to bursting. But there will be at least one small group already settled in for a drink in the shade of the hundred and fifty year old plane trees. Work colleagues such as groups of teachers come down here to take advantage of the friendly atmosphere, the space, the open air and the good weather. They appreciate that the food is good, fresh, cooked on site and made from local produce. Before the guinguette there wasn't really anywhere that colleagues, who might live in various locations up to an hour away, could get together like this.

Word has spread and people come from as far as Tours and Amboise, especially on the weekends and with families, as it is ideal for children, who can play and run around without annoying other patrons or putting themselves at risk. Themed evenings like the karaoke are especially popular. Being away from the tourist hotspots of the Loire Valley mean it is more affordable too.

A burger and French fries costs €12, a PFC ("Preuilly fried chicken") €10, and a mixed charcuterie and cheese board €12. Service is at the bar!

Source: Article from the Nouvelle République (in French) https://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/indre-et-loire/commune/preuilly-sur-claise/on-va-guincher-a-preuilly-sur-claise-le-succes-fou-d-une-guinguette-de-village-lancee-par-deux-copains

My Shelf of Memories

After the most recent of our renovations were finished I moved a bookcase into the dining nook for stuff we needed to hand. The top shelf is awkward for Susan to reach comfortably, doubly so because there's a chair immediately in front of it.

That gave me an opportunity to get some of my momentos displayed. Most of these are gifts, and just as many are from previous times.

Left to right: in front is a piece of terracotta I found in the Mediterranean at whilst swimming at Sanremo last year (I'm claiming it's Roman). Behind that is "Dog" from Footrot Flats which was bought for me in 1982. The ceramic beer stein (with lid) is a 21st birthday present from Hugo and the South Pacific Lager glass and tray were part of a party pack I bought in 1982 (the beer was dreadful). The Olympic Phryge is a lot more recent, fron Niall and Antoinette. The Queen's Silver Jubilee beer glass I bought in 1981 in Carnarvon (it was on special, having been on the shelf for 4 years). The sports cup and the medal on the right are from 1968, when I played soccer with the All Saints Hunters Hill Soccer Football Club in Sydney (we lost only one game all season and were Under 8A champions). The Bavarian beer mug was a gift from my parents in 2003 and the Viking is from Peter Panda, and I think was a 25th birthday present. The hedgehog was a thank you gift from Donna, who I showed around southern England in 1998.

Centrakor

Centrakor is a store selling household goods and decor items. It positions itself midway between the discount stores like Gifi and La Foir'Fouille, and the home decorator shops like Maisons du Monde. The Centrakor chain has 450 shops (345 of them franchises), averaging 1500 m² of floor space. In 2020 the chain's turnover was a billion euros and they employ 5000 staff.

 

The  Loches store.

The business was created in 1990 by an entrepreneur from Toulouse, initially as a central purchasing and distribution unit. By 2004 they were supplying 40 shops and in 2006 bought another chain of shops, doubling the number of outlets the business supplied. In 2007 the business adopted the name Centrakor and came under new management as part of Cargo, who were expanding their network of indepedent stores in out of town shopping centres. In 2011 Centrakor opened its two hundredth store.

Between 2013 and 2018 Centrakor steady bought up regional decor chains. Then they took over Fly, franchising their stores. Since then they've concentrated on opening stores first in the French overseas territories, then Belgium, and most recently, Spain.

 

The Loches store sells these quite nice posters of the Touraine Loire Valley towns.

We have two Centrakor stores within easy striking distance -- one in Yzeures sur Creuse which is in the process of doubling its floor space, and one in Loches. We shop in them several times a year for this and that. The last item we bought in there was a length of 'waxed' cloth to serve as a picnic tablecloth, and the time before that we bought lampshades.

Source: Wikipedia https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrakor

Look Out for Sweet Chestnut in the Touraine Loire Valley

Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa (Fr. Chataignier).

Sweet Chestnut is a deciduous tree with fruits that are widely consumed by man. It is often cultivated.

Chestnuts are mostly eaten in areas where cereals cannot be grown and they are valued as a food source, nicknamed 'arbre à pain' (bread tree) or 'pain à pauvres' (poor man's bread) around the Mediterranean because chestnuts replaced cereals in times of shortage.

 

 

 

Sweet Chestnuts are magnificent trees, with big canopies and rapid growth. They can be up to 35 metres high and can live more than a thousand years. With age the trunk develops a twist and often becomes hollow.

 

 

 

It flowers from mid-June to mid-July, with the male flowers forming long cream honey scented catkins. Pollination is by insects (not wind as was previously believed).

 

 

The fruits are enclosed in a spiky husk (Fr. bogue) which dissuades potential attack. Inside the husk there will be 1-3 fruits, in a hard brown skin, which can be harvested in October.

 

 

 

The original distribution of Sweet Chestnut was a narrow band around the northern Mediterranean. But humans have extended the range enormously into Central and Western Europe.

 

 

 

In France Sweet Chestnut is now present everywhere, one of the most important trees in the forests and nearly three-quarters of a million hectares is dominated by the species.

 

 

 

In areas where the soil is calcareous or clay it is not so dominant as these soils don't suit it. It prefers light acid soils. Although it tolerates winter cold while it is dormant, too continental a climate, with late frosts, does not suit it as it leaf buds quite early. It also does not like a dry climate, preferring gentle humidity. With its Mediterranean origins it can support summer drought, so long as it gets sufficient rain at other times of the year, even if it is delivered in large quantities at a time. It needs about 700 ml a year. Those who cultivate it say it needs to be growing in an oven in August and in a well in September.

 

 

 

It needs lots of light and deep cool poor soil. In the wild it grows with bracken, heather and evergreen oak. Once cut it will come back vigorously from the stump.

 

 

The original restricted distribution in fact reflects its retreat and refuge from the last Ice Age. Potentially it once had a much larger natural distribution. But the mountain barriers and the presence of more competitive species such as oak and beech probably prevented it naturally reconquering to the north. By the Bronze Age it was present in the Dordogne, and its deliberate cultivation gathered pace in the Middle Ages. From the 16th to the 18th century chestnuts were an indispensible staple for many in France.

 

 

The wood is durable and easy to work. For centuries it has been used as firewood, fence posts, vine pickets, mine props, roofing timber, furniture, wainscoting, small sculpted objects such as castanets, and thin strips are used in basket weaving. It has a very high tannin content (higher than oak) and in the first half of the 20th century a lot of sweet chestnut was used for tannin extraction.

 

 

Honey from Sweet Chestnut is dark and strongly flavoured.

Wired Swallows

In previous years we have posted photos similar to these, taken last Thursday (29th August).

In 2020 it was on August 4th 

In 2014 it was the 18 September 

In 2010 we talked about the swallow migration on the 3rd October 

and in 2009 we did similar on the 29 September 

I'm not sure we can make even folkloric predictions about the upcoming winter, because different generations of swallows leave at different times. But it's interesting how predictable the gathering places are.

Look Out for Single-seeded Hawthorn in the Touraine Loire Valley

 Single-seeded Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna (Fr. Aubépine monogyne).

Hawthorn is a small deciduous tree that can grow up to 10 metres tall and live for 500 years. The record is a 1700 year old plant in Mayenne.

Single-seeded Hawthorn has spines and leaves with 3 to 7 lobes, which can be quite variable, even on the same plant. The white or pink flowers appear in April to June, in loose corymbs of 10 to 20 blossoms. The ovoid bright red fruits, which are called 'haws' in English and 'cenelles' in French, reach maturity in September-October. The flesh is yellow and floury, and as suggested by the name, surrounds a single seed. The fruits are rich in vitamins, but quite astringent and not really very appealing to humans. 

C. monogyna can be confused with its much less common cousin C. laevigata, but this second species has barely lobed leaves and three seeds. C. laevigata is much rarer than C. monogyna, but the two species hybridise, so it can be worth paying attention.

Single-seeded Hawthorn can be found throughout Europe to a latitude of 60 degrees north, and along the Mediterranean in the Middle East and North Africa. It is abundant up to 1600 metres above sea level (higher around the Mediterranean). It is not at all picky about soil type, temperatures or humidity levels. You will mostly find it in hedges, woodland edges and deciduous forests.

Hawthorn is pollinated by insects, especially bees, and the seeds mostly distributed by birds (and some mammals such as foxes or goats). Because of its spines it doesn't get browsed much except by Red Deer (and rabbits will rase seedlings). Mistletoe will parasitise hawthorn.

It is very prone to Fire Blight Erwinia amylovora (a bacterial infection that can attack all members of the Rose family). Hawthorn used to be used as root stock for apples, pears, quinces and medlars, but due to the risk of Fire Blight this is now forbidden.

Hawthorn is the food host plant for many caterpillars, including the Black-veined White butterfly and lots of moths.

 

It is an important hedgerow plant, providing shelter for nesting birds, and food for over a hundred species of insect, such as the Hawthorn Bug in the photo below. The fruits are important winter nourishment for several species of bird.

The wood of hawthorn is hard, dense and white, with medullary rays. In the past it was used for moving parts where resistance to wear was needed, and for small turned objects such as barrel taps.

Foraging for Juniper Berries in the Touraine Loire Valley

I used my last juniper berries in a batch of boar bourguignon, but since juniper grows wild on every limestone slope here it is not a problem. Simply go out and pick some more.

European Juniper Juniperus communis, with berries in different stages of maturity.

Juniper has berries at all stages of development all year round, so you can usually find some ripe ones to pick. The best time is autumn though, when a lot of berries are ripe, but haven't been eaten yet by hungry wildlife over winter. Juniper is viciously prickly, so if you are organised you will have remembered to take a bucket and thornproof gloves on your foraging mission (or if you are like me you just stop on the way home from some other errand and pick a few with your bare hands and bad language).

Juniper scrub on the Eperon Barré de Murat. Sheep are traditionally grazed on these steep limestone sites, and juniper is one of the few plants they won't eat, so it proliferates.

You need to pick berries that are black and ideally slightly wrinkled looking. They impart a spicy herby flavour to casseroles and dry salt cures for pork or duck and they are best if crushed a bit to release their flavours before putting in the mix.

Plane on a Stick

We (I) love a plane on a stick. This is a Dassault Mirage IIIB two seater training jet previously of the French Air Force, now a roundabout decoration in Saint-Amand-Montrond. Susan photographed it last year on our way to Italy.

There are a number of planes on sticks near Tours, but they are all commercial propeller craft. The most notable is also on a roundabout: near the Tours Airport is a Beechcraft 99 that was once flown to Miami and back. It's not as exciting as a jet capable of over twice the speed of sound, though.

French Red Underwing

A few evenings ago Simon called out to me 'Quick! there's a huge moth in the laundry. Get the camera!' My first thought, if it was really huge is that it would be a Convolvulus Hawk Moth, especially since one had leapt out of my swimming bag when I opened in the changing room a few days earlier. It must have been on my towel on the line, got folded up, and only escaped when I unzipped the bag.

But it turned out to be a red underwing moth, and subsequent requests to mothing friends indicated that it was specifically a French Red Underwing Catocala elocata (Fr. la Déplacée).

French Red Underwings are found in central and southern Europe, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. They are the biggest of the ten red underwing moth species that can be found in France, with wingspans of 80 mm. The adults fly from July to October, in wooded habitats, including towns and villages. The caterpillars eat the leaves of poplars, or sometimes willows. 

This species can be very easily confused with the Red Underwing C. nupta. There is a very good comparison photo and list of characters to check on Lépi'Net if you ever need to distinguish between the two.

French Red Underwings are warmth loving creatures that live along the banks of rivers. But they are very commonly encountered in urban locations too. They will occasionally be attracted by a light, but usually quickly back off and sit motionless in the shadows, exactly as happened in our laundry.

It does not appear to be threatened, as it favours landscapes which are stable and very common caterpillar host plants.

One of Darwin's Mysteries Solved

Charles Darwin, that global household name, loved orchids and was intrigued by their many mysteries. He famously predicted that an unknown hitherto unobserved species of long tongued moth must be the nocturnal pollinator of the orchid Angraecum sesquipedale, a species with a particularly lengthy nectar carrying spur, endemic to Madagascar.

But one mystery, much closer to home, eluded him, and has only recently been solved. It concerns one of the most common wild orchids in Britain. We get it too in the Touraine Loire Valley but here it is not common, especially in the south where we live. I find it more on our travels especially in the mountains.

 

What Darwin never figured out was why the Common Spotted Orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii (Fr. Orchis de Fuchs) is not scattered about everywhere. After all, their seeds are nearly microscopically small and can be easily dispersed by the wind. In the end though, it is their tiny size which provides the clue as to why Common Spotted Orchids grow in clumps and close knit colonies rather than in the more isolated and scattered way that one might at first think should be the case.

 

Common Spotted Orchid seeds are so small that they don't contain the supply of nutrients that the seeds of other plants tend to hold. That means to survive they must fall near enough to their parent plant to latch on to its network of mycorrhizal fungi, which will then supply the necessary nutrients. Common Spotted Orchids can be seen in large dense colonies, but few of the individual plants will be more than a few centimetres from an older, more established plant.

Further Reading: Dactylorhiza fuchsii on Loire Valley Nature 

Taking Care of the Forests

Due to the severe fires that hit the Gironde region over the past couple of years, Indre-et-Loire has appointed a Forest Fire Defense Coordinator. Though still part of the ONF (National Office for Forests), the mission is led by the Prefect of Indre-et-Loire. There was an article about it in the Nouvelle République yesterday, and we learnt quite a lot.

 

Smoke from the Gironde fires photographed in Libourne when we stopped for lunch in July 2022.

The first thing we learnt is that it's illegal to camp overnight in a state forest. A group of young campers were recently found near Pas-aux-Anes étang in Sennevières. It never occurred to me that wild camping is illegal. It's not something we're likely to do, but it has been known in the past in Australia.

 

 

The Etang des Pas-aux-Anes, in the Forest of  Loches, photographed by Susan in October 2022.

Next... He’s sworn in, and armed. We've seen armed conservation patrols in the Pyrénées, but we didn't know we had them locally. He is able to initiate patrols to ensure that visitors know and follow the current regulations and works closely with the prefecture, the Departmental Directorate of Territories, the local fire department (SDIS), the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), and the police (gendarmes).

 

 

Armed conservation protection officers in the Pyrénées National Park, photographed by Susan in July 2023.

Fire risks are assessed using a fire danger index from Météo France, which is checked daily. He also contributes to it each week by taking vegetation samples from a fixed spot to measure water stress, data he then sends to Météo France.

Typical mixed broadleaf managed forest in the Touraine, dominated by Sessile Oak Quercus petraea (Fr. Chêne rouvre).

The Fire Alert Levels:

- "Low to moderate": No restrictions apply. Burning, barbecues, and fire pits are allowed except in high-risk areas.

- "Severe": Burning is prohibited. Chipping and chainsaw activities are banned in the afternoon. Off-road travel is also restricted in classified areas.

- "Very severe": All open flames are banned. Gas fueled activities are suspended, and agricultural harvesting is regulated. There was a Very Severe fire warning locally in June 2022 [link to our blog post about it].

 

 

Mixed broadleaf forest, dominated by European Beech Fagus sylvatica (Fr. Hêtre), Forest of Loches.

 

Walking From Chaumussay

Here are some photos from a walk I took on a fairly hot day in August. It was two and a half kilometres around Chaumussay, and took me half an hour.

 

European Peacock Inachis io (Fr. Paon-du-jour) and Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (Fr. Vulcain) butterflies nectaring on Hemp-agrimony Eupatorium cannabinum (Fr. Eupatoire à feuilles de chanvre) by the side of the greenway (Fr. voie verte).

Naturalised apple tree by the side of the voie verte.

Soapwort Saponaria officinalis (Fr. Saponaire), a wild plant once used to make suds to wash hands and delicate embroidery and lace in the Touraine.

The village church.

A charming garden gate, made by Michel for his house in the village.

This rose was feeling the heat.

Public planting at the end of the bridge.

Ronsard's Melons

The modern variety of Charentais melon, with its yellow netted skin and green ribs, was developed in the Poitou-Charente area, just to our south-west, in the 1920s, but the original Charentais Melon goes back to the 15th century, brought here by Charles VIII as a prize from his Italian campaign. He had them grown in the Touraine Loire Valley, close to the many chateaux which were now serving as luxury country residences for the King and his courtiers. By the 16th century the court poet, Pierre de Ronsard, was moved to write a hommage to eating melon in the summer by the side of a stream.

 

Pierre de Ronsard, regarded as "the Prince of poets and the poet of Princes", was Prior of the Priory of St Cosme from 1565 to 1585.

 

 Pierre de Ronsard's private apartments at the Prieuré de Saint Cosme.

 
Pompons (or pepons), imported from Italy during the Renaissance, are melons that Ronsard, a keen gardener, grew himself at the Prieuré de Saint-Cosme. Behind his house, built in 1348, there is an 'exotic' kitchen garden dedicated to Ronsard's taste for the new fruits and vegetables that were appearing in France at the time. In 1565, Ronsard offered a basket of his melons to the royal family (Charles IX and Queen Mother Catherine de Medici), who were stopping off at the nearby château du Plessis-Lès-Tours, with this poem for the occasion:
 

Vous qui semblez de façons et de gestes

Aux immortels, imitant les Célestes,

Prenez de moi ces pompons et ces fruits.

Les-vous offrant, je ne crains que personne

Blâme mon don : car, Sire, je vous donne

Non pas beaucoup, mais tout ce que je puis.

 

A la Reine, Pierre de Ronsard, 1565

Col d'Aubisque

This is the road at Col d'Aubisque in the Pyrénées. We were there last year, and also in 2022. In 2022 we sat on the terrace of Les Crêtes Blanches, eating ice-cream and watching Vultures. It's one of the big iconic climbs.

The writing on the road is because the Tour de France went over the pass a couple of days before we visited in 2022, and supporters paint the name of their favourites on many of the big climbs.

Six weeks later the Vuelta Espana travelled across the same piece of road.