Geology, geography, history, heritage, urban planning, architecture, ecology, anthropology, agriculture... Many notions are brought into play to gain a clearer understanding of the Loire landscape. Here, we have presented a series of thematic features for exploring it depending on your interests.
Learn about the river’s recent history, in light of growing awareness of its role and the close links that unite all the living things that the Loire welcomes. From the doctrine to control the river in the 18th century and the campaign for a Living Loire in the late 1980s to the emergence of the concept of a common heritage of humanity and the advent of a Loire people, a history and landscape in common are outlined, which Étienne Davodeau agreed to illustrate.
From the sources to the estuary, via the islands, this is a “Patchwork Loire” that the Loire sentinelle association invites you to explore, to broaden our perception of a river which, in its own way, is alerting us to present and future upheavals. For the Loire is our “sentinel”: the memory of what was, witness to what is and standing vigil over what could come to pass.
Navigating on the Loire — whether downriver or upriver — draws on traditional knowledge that is kept alive by river-faring communities to this day. Archaeological excavations continually give us new insights into the past. Today, river-faring folk are committed to reviving a nautical and ecological continuity for the longest river in France.
Cave dwellings, stately homes and holiday residences, gardens overlooking the Loire, vineyards on the plateau and mushroom farms in the excavated hillside are all architectural and landscape features of the Loire riverbanks in Anjou. Set off to explore the heritage of the Saumur hillside and the ‘Anjou Blanc’ landscapes, so-called because of the pale-coloured, soft rock of the Parisian Basin geological formation.
