In which Sid and Doris enjoy the Hotel de France, a storied hotel, home to Aston Martin, Triumph, Jaguar and Porsche Le Mans teams down the years.
The ride to La Chartre marks the change from La Loire to Le Loir.
We pause for lunch in Montoire-sur-le-Loir where there is a Musée de la Veille Gare with an HO model as at 1940. But why? The station lives in infamy as the place where on 24th October Philippe Petain met Hitler. It all joins up on a Sid and Doris journey. The museum was not open but this picture records the meeting.
Having missed the museum with its 1/87 scale model of the trains and vehicles at the station on that day, the high spot of the journey, about two kilometres from the hotel were these troglodyte dwellings.
But the whole point is to come where so many Le Mans teams and drivers stayed. The rooms are named after drivers. We are in Mike Salmon, regular team driver at Le Mans, with Stirling Moss and Jules Bianchi nearby.
Here we have the bikes in the Place de la République and next time there will be an appropriate car. Such as the yellow Alpine here, or older.
A Belgian gent has brought this Matra Bonnet for the Le Mans Classic weekend. Where better to stay?
The bar area is decorated with pictures of the cars and teams at the hotel over the years, from the time when the teams put a workshop in the yard and could drive the cars to the circuit. Here is Doris, the famous navigator, with some of the cars and drivers.
They have a picture from 2015 when the Aston team drove to the circuit for a shakedown. And this is one of the earlier Aston pictures.
Even better, it is a very good hotel with a great dining room.
We’ll be back. In a car.
👌