Soaking up the sun in St Etienne

Thursday 12th June

A very quiet day today - laundry day. Yesterday when we were out we passed a place called Hall in One, which looked like a large shopping centre. We decided to go check it out - disappointing. It had an aldi (we checked out the middle aisle), a Chinese buffet restaurant, a medical centre and a brasserie. Lunchtime, so we ate at the brasserie.

Home early afternoon and just relaxing then watching the cycling on tv.

Friday 13th June

St Etienne is known as the city with 7 hills. We didn't count them and not sure we went up all of them, but everywhere we went in and around St Etienne we seemed to be going up and down hills. The city used to be a mining centre, now it has reinvented itself as the centre of design. Design does not really interest us so we have no photos of design elements. 

A visit to the town of Firminy where there is a large concentration of work by the architect Le Corbusier - never heard of him. Anyway the main site is the Church of Saint Pierre. Very strange - it is described as taking the form of a basic square building measuring 25.5 metres along each side and topped with a truncated 33m high cone. Not an old building - this was completed in 2006. 

This was the church - you'd never guess it was a church.

Looking up into the dome.

A small exhibition inside - again not sure what that was all about. We did see an interesting video about the use of wood and the bark beetle. Wood is a very major 'crop' in France and a lot of buildings still use wooden framing (we saw a huge factory under construction early in our trip that was timber framed).

Let's move on to the medieval village of Saint-Victor-sur-Loire. This village is on the top of a ridge of hills, perched high above the Loire river. A Chateau - closed for lunch, an 11th century church and lovely medieval streets and cottages.  

The only view we got of the Chateau.

This chateau could be seen on the other side of the river.
The Loire river is another big river in France.

Yet another Chateau.

Inside the medieval church - 11th century.

Unfortunately no place to eat lunch, so we headed to the port area of the village. It was very pleasant to sit under the umbrellas by the side of the river/lake and eat. Lots of school kids at the 'beach' - several different groups. Rob had his moules and frites - he's only had them twice this trip.

Not sure what this toy is - next step from a jetski?

Our drive today was all on country roads - no motorways.  Was very pleasant and you get to see a lot more. Again, home in time for the cycling coverage.