Adieu Loire

Monday morning I was feeling rather sad I had not overpacked my bag with more changes of clothes. Oh well.

We headed out that day on a winding way back to Lyon, stopping to see some sights along the way.

We made a quick stop in Germigny-des-Prés to check out the 11th century Carolingian church. It was built by Theodulf of Orléans in 806 and is one of France's oldest churches.We then cruised through St Benoit dur Loire to check out the 11th century romanesque Basilique, which unfortunately was closed.Although the cathedrals today are monuments in plain gray stone, in fact, all these medieval churches were once elaborately painted. I've been feeling very curious about what the painting originally looked like. There are only a few places here and there that you can see paint on these old churches, and most of it is really faded, but you can get the idea of how they used to do it. This picture shows some remnants of the paint job.We then stopped in Sully-sur-Loire to look at the chateau there, which is your basic medieval fortress, moat and all, which was built to defend the river crossing there.
After lunch we made our way down to Bourges to admire the gothic cathedral of St Etienne, after which we hit the road home.