THIZAY DOLMEN

We got a late start today. Karen invited us over to
La Blanchière for lunch. We were on our way when Rich remembered that the dessert we were supposed to bring was still sitting on the kitchen table. They left me off in Thiezay and drove back to Montsoreau.
Thizay is a very small community tucked into the hills above the Vienne River. There is a church, started in the 12th century, rebuilt in the 15th, renovated in the 19th, in the main plaza, but it was closed. There was a statue of St. Michael above the door so I think it must be the Eglise St-Michel. I followed the road behind the church. I wanted to find the dolmen. I wasn’t sure where I was going until I saw a sign – “Rue du Dolmen”, which made me think I was on the right track. I followed the winding road up the hill stopping only to fill my pockets with the bright yellow and orange plums I found in an open field (I made sure to taste the ripeness of a good many of them first!).
About a kilometer up the road I found the dolmen sitting on a ridge to the left of the road. There were several oak trees behind it (no rowan tree). The dolmen itself consisted of three kerbstones, two in front and one behind, with a massive capstone on top. A smaller capstone was beside it but it wasn’t clear to me if there had originally been two dolmen or if the whole structure was part of a court tomb or passage grave. I climbed up on top of the capstone to get a better view of what the dead had to look out at for 3 or 4 millennium: mixed forest, the river, the nuclear power plant at Avoine.
I took a quick look around the neighborhood. There were mostly fields of grapes, probably cabernet franc or pinot noir, and thick hedgerows of blackberries that were not quite ripe yet.
MORE PICTURES OF THIZAY

WHAT IS A DOLMEN?