Le Grand-Pressigny was one of the more unusual stops of this part of our journey through France, because this time we had come here specifically to visit the Musée de la Préhistoire du Grand-Pressigny. We arrived with our motorhome and stayed at the free motorhome area beside the municipal campsite and swimming pool, close enough to the centre to make visiting the village straightforward. Even in summer there was plenty of room and we easily found a space for our 23-foot-long motorhome. We felt completely safe, nobody disturbed us and everything was free of charge, including the service facilities, which were exceptionally clean and worked perfectly. The only real disadvantage was a constant noise coming from a nearby generator, which meant that the otherwise peaceful location was never completely quiet. Nevertheless, the area was extremely practical, spacious and central, and gave us an easy base from which to explore Le Grand-Pressigny.
The main reason for coming here was the Musée de la Préhistoire, housed within the Château du Grand-Pressigny above the village. This is not simply a small local collection: Le Grand-Pressigny is one of the most important prehistoric sites in France because during the third millennium BC this part of southern Touraine became one of the largest centres of flint production in Western Europe. The distinctive local flint was worked by highly skilled Neolithic craftsmen into exceptionally long blades, and these objects were traded over very considerable distances, reaching regions far beyond what is now France. The museum explains this remarkable prehistoric industry while also covering a much broader period, from the time of the Neanderthals around 100,000 years ago through the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods and eventually to the beginning of the Bronze Age. Its collections include prehistoric tools, archaeological finds and reconstructions, while the museum itself combines modern exhibition spaces with the surviving buildings of the château.
We went inside to visit the museum, and it made Le Grand-Pressigny far more interesting than we had expected from such a small village. Rather than presenting prehistory as a succession of dates and objects in display cases, much of the museum concentrates on how people actually lived and worked, particularly on the extraordinary skill required to produce the famous long flint blades. The archaeological importance of the surrounding countryside also makes the collection feel particularly relevant, because many of the objects and techniques being explained are directly connected with the landscape around the village rather than having simply been gathered from distant sites. Outside, the château setting adds another dimension to the visit, with its courtyards and views over the surrounding countryside, creating the unusual combination of a prehistoric museum inside a historic fortified site.
After several days spent visiting places associated mainly with medieval castles, villages and the Loire Valley, the Musée de la Préhistoire du Grand-Pressigny offered something completely different. It gave us a much longer perspective on the history of this part of France and showed that Touraine was an important centre of human activity thousands of years before the famous châteaux were built. Le Grand-Pressigny itself is small and quiet, but between the museum, the château and the remarkably convenient free motorhome area, it turned out to be a very worthwhile stop and one that we would probably never have made without travelling through the region slowly by motorhome.