Reading the articles in the travel sections of the newspapers, you would think that France only consisted of coasts and mountains….so, do your own thing…. visit the Loire Valley, the forgotten heart of France.

Although the river has its birth high up in the hills in the centre of France, for me the Loire Valley proper begins where it makes its’ turn west to the sea, running down through Gien, Orleans, Blois, towards Tours, Angers, Nantes and the ocean…..where the Renaisance Kings of France ruled from the chateaux which now remain, monuments to past grandeur.

Any guide book can take you to the tourist trail chateaux, but the Loire Valley holds many more surprises. The wines, for a start. You may know of Sancerre. but what of Vouvray and Montlouis, facing each other across the river, with superb demi-secs?

Do you know Cheverny wine, using the romorantin grape, cousin of the chardonnay? If not, what better excuse to go down there and visit the chateau as well – perhaps picking grapes (?) , mecca of the French hunting tradition – not the guys dressed in camouflage who infest the woods of France every autumn, the terror of mushroom pickers and joggers, but the ‘chasse a cour’,  the mounted hunt, accompanied by the elaborate music of the French hunting horn.  Check out the goat cheese while you’re there, too.

You’re visiting Chinon, where Joan of Arc first met the Dauphin, the ruinsof the castle soaring over the old town on the Vienne. Don’t just try the wine available in the town…nip down to Panzault, for better, less hyped wine, grown on the slopes and not on the gravel…or cross the Loire to Bourgueil for lighter, more delicate wines. While you’re in Chinon, visit Rabelais’ house just outside, or take the steam train to Richelieu,  the town the great cardinal built to house his own court in the seventeenth century with a wonderful market hall. Go upstream to the church at Tavant to see the frescos in the crypt…cross the Vienne and head towards Saumur along the river, stopping in Turquant for some of the best wines in the Saumur appellation and to visit the houses and wine cellars cut from the cliffs overlooking the river.

Saumur, best known, of course, for its’ chateau, has a lot more to offer the visitor. Take a walk in the evening through the quiet streets of the old town, some half timbered buildings, most in the creamy stone of the area, and relive its’ great days as a centre of Protestantism in the days of Henry of Navarre. Turn your back on the Hotel de Ville, crested in stone lace, to take a river trip on the gabare moored in front of it…a recontruction of the traditional square sailed Loire river craft, which used to run down to the sea on the current, but depend on the west wind, ‘le vent de galerne’ to get them upstream again. It was common to build them of green wood, then, rather than undertake the return journey, break them up for housebuilding timbers.

Canal buffs can see the round lock where the Thouet joins the Loire, toward St. Hilaire-St.Florent, which is one of the earliest on record….military buffs can visit the Tank museum, where standing next to  white painted Russian monster from the Second World War can make you feel very puny indeed, while for the horsey fraternity there is the Cadre Noir, France’s answer to the Spanish riding school.

Wine is not forgotten…they’re not allowed to call it champagne - wrong soil, wrong grape – but you’re not going to complain about the  quality when you taste it in the cellars of the vignerons. Try the Cremant de Loire…less fizzy and more complex than the Methode traditionelle.  The limestone caves are not only used for storing wine…their steady temperatures also make them ideal for growing mushrooms, a big industry in the area, and along the road to Chenehutte, you will find mushroom museums, populated by stuff straight from Hieronymos Bosch, but perfectly edible.

On your way to Angers, detour to the south, to St.Lambert de Lattay to the wine museum and visit the vineyards of Quart de Chaume and Bonneseaux for the best dessert wines you will ever taste. In the days of Edward VII, these wines fetched the same price as Sauternes, so now is the time to profit before the word gets round and the prices go up. Just outside, the whole appellation of Coteaux du Layon makes super dessert wine, while the lesser known Coteaux de l’Aubance offers something slighter lighter in style.

Angers has, of course, its’ chateau and the wonderful tapestries…the old and those created by Lurcat who was inspired by them…but it also has one of the best town centre markets in the area on a Saturday morning – where else can you buy lampreys? – and an ethnic market on Sundays in the suburb of Monplaisir where France meets Turkey via North Africa. North of the city there is a chateau off the tourist trail, Mongeoffroy, an eighteenth century seat which has, almost uniquely for France, managed to keep its’ original furnishings. This, if anywhere, is where you can see how it felt to be a French aristocrat!

Make your way to Nantes via the Corniche Angevine with its’ wonderful views over the river and enter a really big, bustling city. Great for shopping, but to me the interest lies in the trips up the River Erdre, meandering northwards from the centre, where you can take a trip on the bateau-mouches just as inParis, passing the country houses of the Nantes merchants, made rich on the trade in brandy, tobacco and slaves while you dine. It is, of course, the Muscadet area, but try the Gros Plant…on site, it goes so well with seafood…bought elsewhere, it can seem thin and sharp.

Heading for the sea, you pas through St. Nazaire, where ocean going ships are still built, and pay an obligatory visit to La Baule, where the shops and the prices make it clear to you that is is Paris-on-Sea!

Whether you take a weekend break in a Loire Valley town, or stay for longer, you cannot fail to be tempted to return….perhaps for good.

The low cost airlines are ideal for the weekend away from home, but for a serious holiday in France you need a car, both for the independence and for its’ load carrying capability. I defy you to get twelve bottles of Coteaux du Layon in your coat pockets when returning on Ryanair, and by the time you’ve paid for checked baggage  you might just as well have booked a return ticket on the ferry. Motoring organisations can tell you all the dull stuff about sticking black plastic over your headlights and what the road signs mean, but there are a few other things it would be wise to bear in mind when crossing the channel and driving in France.

The only real problem about driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road is that the driver will be relying on the front seat passenger for advice on overtaking, so some thought should be given to the driver/passenger relationship before starting out and if in any serious doubt  it might be as well to seek legal advice on the likely split of assets in case of a breakdown of said relationship. A sucking of teeth on the part of the lawyer would indicate that the driver should exercise extreme caution in commenting on the passenger’s advice. See also Sarkozy’s Scooter

The passenger used to have a useful part to play in spotting gendarmerie road checks ahead – usually by asking the driver why oncoming cars were flashing their headlights – but these days the gendarmerie are playing sneaky. Not only are there static speed cameras – signalled by a sign telling you that for your own safety you are being watched – but there are also speed traps carried in the back of unmarked cars and you can bet your life that there are no signs warning you of this! France is not, in this respect, what it was. In the past, because the gendarmes had to venture out of their cozy offices, you could gurantee that there would be no road checks on rainy days, nor during the lunch hour, but technology has strengthened their hand, so keep to the limits even when there is not a kepi in sight.

According to my neighbour, there’s drunken driving and there’s driving with a few under the waistband. The gendarmerie disagree. Strongly. As a tourist you will not be drinking and driving, which limits the possibilities of stopping for a good lunch and makes the choice of the evening restaurant one of walking distance from hotel rather than menu and price. Locals have their ways….if invited to a friends’ house, the maps are out to plot the way on the most obscure backroads with links on the paths through the vines….but as a visitor you don’t have time to discover these techniques, so, again, stick to the limits. The penalties are high and they can enforce them in the U.K.

When I was first in France, there were any number of ‘sans permis’ cars on the roads – little cars with very limited speeds, which could be driven by anyone without the need for a licence, but usually driven by gentlemen whose licences had been taken away for spectacular over indulgence in the bars whose stickers adorned the bodywork. These cars are much reduced in number these days, but you can bet you will be behind one whenever it is impossible to overtake safely.

Still as a sober driver observing the speed limits you will not have problems with the system of ‘priorite a droite’…the system by which traffic coming from the right takes priority. At least, you won’t have problems if you realise that the system exists, otherwise  the sight of Monsieur Chose’s Renault van emerging from the farm track just ahead of you at Mach 1 can be unnerving as you tootle along what you thought was the major road. In theory, junctions where the minor road takes priority are signed by a white bollard with a red band, but as modern agricultural machinery is well larger than the roads along which it travels the tendency is for these bollards to be crushed as the combine harvesters make a turn into a farm lane and not are always replaced with alacrity, so it behoves you to treat all such junctions with suspicion, as car insurance companies make no allowances for ignorance of the system. Nor for crushed bollards.

Navigation has become easier with the availability of GPS, although my experience of it is that it either sends you to the nearest motorway or takes you as the crow flies, which introduces you to all sorts of roads with grass growing up the middle and nowhere to pass oncoming traffic. I am not sure how effective it is when faced with that popular sporting event – the deviation for roadworks.  French highway repair workers like to keep a safe distance between themselves and traffic…like about twenty kilometres’ distance. The first yellow deviation sign you see is the signal to pull off the road and consult the map as otherwise you will follow the yellow signs into the depths of darkest France,where, at a crossroads, they will disappear. Take a look at the map and see if there are any turnings off your road further along. If so, carry on until you come to the serious deviation sign…the red and white blocks across the carriageway. Now you have a choice. You can follow the deviation signs, but with less chance of getting lost fifty kilometres out in the wilds, or, if you can’t actually see any roadworks but the map shows a village close ahead you can carry on as it is as sure as shooting that the locals aren’t going out of their way and a route through the village will be found. Usually by doing a right turn followed by two lefts to get you round the hole in the road which is to connect Monsieur Untel’s house to the public utilities and which has disrupted traffic over half the department. When the bypass was being built around my local town, traffic was sent on a sixty kilometres’ deviation. Bad enough, but the signs stayed in place for four years while the works stopped due to ‘budgetary constraints’, which is when I discovered how to play the deviation game.

At least the disembodied voice of the GPS should remove the terrors of  following road signs. On arriving at a junction on major roads in France, arrows point in all directions and few of them seem to carry the name of the town you want, being devoted to getting you to the next town, nomatter how obscure it might be, rather than to the major town which is your destination. Further, when they wish to indicate that the town is straight ahead, the arrow points lightly to the left, so unless you have mastered this little trick you will be doing a lot of unexpected tourism.

Despite knowing all  this, I have never mastered Rouen….I think it must be the spirit of Joan of Arc taking revenge after all these years….. but no sooner do I congratulate myself on having managed to cross the river than I fall into the traps of the Grande and Petite Couronnes and emerge on the other side more by good luck than good management, sweating like a nervous horse. Nomatter how many times I make the trip, I never improve, so, for me, Rouen is my Waterloo. Like all major towns, it specialises in removing you as fast as possible from the town centre by signs announcing ‘toutes directions’. This is garanteed not to be the best way for you to take as it normally sends you on kilometres of bypass going nowhere, but it keeps the town centre traders happy.

Out in the country there is the phenomenon known as ‘coming from the wrong side’. It is hard to explain, but in practice you will find that the road sign you want to follow will be invisible from the direction in which you are travelling, so you need to detail a back seat passenger to get a crick in the neck  by checking behind them as you pass a junction, in case the sign to St.Ragondin and your holiday cottage is visible among the cow parsley.

Still, sober, observing the speed limit and safely arrived at your holiday cottage, a car will give you the freedom to see the sights, discover the out of the way charms of rural France, and stock  up on wine from a local grower……who will direct you back to your cottage by the most obscure backroads linked by the paths through the vines. You will have discovered the realities of driving in France.

Just avoid Rouen.