The Loire from Dry

Start at the car park located 50 metres from Dry Church, on the road to Meung-sur-Loire (Rue de Meung).

(S/E) From the car park, with your back to the church, take the road towards Meung-sur-Loire with care. Cross the bridge over the Ardoux, then turn immediately left onto the Chemin des Maures, which you will follow until you reach Rue du Port David.

(1) Turn left onto this street, which leads to the embankment designed to contain the Loire’s floodwaters, keeping to the left. Ignore the various turn-offs and do not leave the embankment until you approach a small wood, about ten metres before the 70D stone marker.

(2) Head down the embankment via the path on the right leading to a wasteland and then the banks of the Loire.

(3) Follow the river, turning right onto the path that once led to a sandpit, still dotted with a few patches of tarmac. It runs alongside a former sand quarry before coming to an end.

(4) Leave the path and take a lane on the left, then turn right before reaching the riverbank. Ignore the various turn-offs to the right. The route ends with a right-hand bend, joining the road to Meung-sur-Loire, which you should take to the left with care.

(5) At the traffic lights by the Meung-sur-Loire bridge, cross the D18 and head opposite along the hard-surfaced path that runs alongside the Loire (^GR®® 655 East, signposted “La Loire à Vélo”). Follow it, ignoring the various turnings on the right, until you reach the first path branching off to the left. Leave this path and continue for another fifty metres or so.

(6) Leave the^GR®® as it moves away from the riverbank and take the grassy path on the right until you reach a three-way junction near a small building. Then turn right onto the track that runs alongside the Bois des Gravelins.

(7) At the end of the path, where it meets the Bois des Grèves, take the path on the right at the edge of the woods. Continue straight on at the first junction, ignoring the path running alongside the woods on the left. 150m further on, ignore the turn-off to the right and turn left onto a cross-path. Cross the D18 with care and continue straight ahead.

(8) Turn left at the first junction, cross the old river, then, about fifty metres further on, take the embankment on the right. Follow it until you reach the tarmac. Let the road go off to the right, then turn left after 200m to leave the embankment. Rue de Villecante leads to a fork in the road (the left-hand track is blocked off).

(9) At the fork in the road, take the right-hand track, leaving Rue des Bordes completely to your right, and stay on Rue de Villecante. This crosses the Ardoux 700m further on.

(10) About fifty metres after the Ardoux bridge, leave Rue de Villecante and take a lane running alongside the Ardoux on the right. Turn left onto the first path. It crosses the “Prairie de l’Ardoux”, which is actually farmland, then runs alongside a poplar grove on the right.

(11) Once past this copse, the path is poorly marked across a meadow and you should keep close to the tall hedge on your left until you eventually reach a lane at the edge of a small copse, still heading south-west.

(12) Ignore the path leading into the woods and turn left, staying at the edge of the woods, then right. The route then runs between a copse on the right and a poplar plantation. This forest path leads onto Rue de Meung, which you took on the way out. Turn left here to return to the car park at our starting point (S/E).

Some parts of the route may be muddy in wet weather.

The Saint-Liphard Collegiate Church and the Château de Meung-sur-Loire, both of which are remarkable, can be seen during the walk.
To do this, cross the bridge at Meung-sur-Loire at (5) and then follow the avenue to the left (allow one kilometre for the return trip).