After Athée-sur-Cher we continued only a short distance through the countryside of the Cher Valley before reaching Dierre, another small village that we would probably never have discovered without travelling through France by motorhome. We stopped beside the River Cher, in a quiet natural setting close to the lock and away from the centre of the village, with the water immediately beside us and fields and trees surrounding the area. It was a very simple place, without the facilities of a proper motorhome area, but that was also part of what made it pleasant: there was very little traffic, hardly any activity around us and no charge for staying there, while the position beside the river made it feel considerably more attractive than an ordinary car park.
The nearby lock is part of the old system used to make the Cher navigable, and the river remains one of the defining features of Dierre. The village itself is small and rural, surrounded by vineyards, farmland and woodland, and its most important historic building is the Église Saint-Médard, whose oldest parts date from the Middle Ages. Dierre is also unusually close to a small airfield, and this part of the Cher Valley is regularly used by light aircraft and hot-air balloons, which gives an otherwise extremely quiet landscape a rather distinctive character. Along the river there are towpaths and small tracks that make it easy to walk through the countryside, particularly around the lock and the old river structures.
For us, however, the main attraction of Dierre was simply the setting. After several much busier stops during the journey, being able to park the motorhome beside the Cher in such a peaceful place was exactly what we wanted. There was no particular attraction that we had come specifically to visit and nothing elaborate about the stop itself, but the combination of the river, the countryside and the almost complete absence of noise made it a very pleasant place to spend some time. It was another of those small discoveries that are easy to overlook when travelling quickly between the famous châteaux and larger towns of the Loire Valley, yet which often become some of the most enjoyable parts of a journey by motorhome.