To keep cool in the heat wave, why not a mushroom house? In Bourré, a small town in Montrichard in the Loir-et-Cher, tourists flock to The Cave of the Rocks. This mushroom house is installed in former freestone quarries and maintains a temperature of twelve degrees.
120 kilometers of galleries
“Above all, don’t forget your sweater!” At the start of the guided tour, tourists are warned: in the galleries the temperature is twelve degrees. “That’s also the purpose of the visit!” Annick laughs. On hot days, guide Doriane Tardif fills up with visitors. “Here, we work with the weather. When it rains people come to take shelter and when it’s very hot they come to cool off!”
– Solene Gardre
The opportunity above all to learn the history behind these 120 kilometers of freestone galleries, a stone that was used to build the castles of the Loire like that of Chambord or Chenonceau. “But here, in Bourré, we no longer extract stone. Only the pillars remain and we don’t want it to collapse, so it’s forbidden”says Doriane Tardif during her visit.
From now on, the galleries serve “either for the preservation of wine, or for the cultivation of mushrooms”. The mushroom farm thus began its activity 130 years ago. At the Cave des Roches, more than 100 tons of mushrooms are grown every year.