Stage Tours - Sorigny

After Tours, the Way leaves the Loire valley and heads south through inland Touraine. The stage to Sorigny has an urban first part and a rural second, with a gently rolling profile as it crosses the valleys of the Cher and the Indre.

The way out of the city crosses the Cher and passes through the southern suburbs, among them Chambray-lès-Tours. It is a stretch of streets and laid-out paths that thins out as the first fields and woods appear.

The landscape changes on the descent to the Indre, a slow river lined with meadows, mills and poplars. The way passes through Veigné and reaches Montbazon, the main landmark of the day. Above the village rises its keep, attributed to Fulk Nerra, Count of Anjou, and dated to around the year 1000, considered one of the oldest in France; a large statue of the Virgin has crowned it since the nineteenth century. Montbazon has shops and is the best place for a stop.

Beyond the valley, the route gains the Sainte-Maure plateau and continues among plots of cereals and sunflowers and oak copses. Farms and houses of white tufa with slate roofs give the countryside the characteristic look of Touraine.

Sorigny is a small place, arranged around its church and the old road from Paris to Bordeaux. It offers basic services and a peaceful rural atmosphere, very different from that of the previous day, which heralds the character of the stages to come.