Of Kings and Castles in the Valley of the Loire





Saumur on the Loire River

From Provence I took a train to Saumur in the Loire Valley south of Paris for the start of my next adventure. I was joining Rose and Hugh Griffin from Nelson (Rose is my boss at The Gentle Cycling Company in Nelson) and a group of their friends on a bike trip from Saumur to Orléans, a distance of around 350km completed over a leisurely 12 days including two rest days and allowing for plenty of sightseeing as well as shortish daily distances since, unlike the rest of the group who had a driver with a backup vehicle and were staying in hotels, we three were camping and carrying all our gear on our bikes.

Through the Saumur vineyards

Our route was based loosely on the Loire à Vélo cycle trail that forms part of the great Eurovélo 6 that runs from the mouth of the Loire River on the Atlantic coast all the way to the Black Sea, a 4,000km cycle journey usually completed over a period of 3 months. For our trip, rather than strictly follow the trail alongside the river which can get a little tedious after a while and anyway all cyclists want an occasional hill climb don’t they?, we chose the same route Tony and I had done with Alan and Viv three years ago which leaves the Loire from time to time to visit other areas. It wasn’t too much of a hardship for me to repeat it.


Tufa cliff dwellings

Keeping cool...

The whole of this route is on the UNESCO World Heritage list as an area of outstanding significance for its historic towns and villages, great architectural monuments and cultivated lands, and it’s a real treat for cyclists. There is so much variety. Some days you pass through vineyards on tiny lanes with wide views across the valley, or you fly with the breeze behind you along purpose-built and smooth-surfaced cycle paths along the top of stop-banks by the slow-moving river, or you meander through tiny villages, through cool and shady forests where kings used to hunt, follow a leafy and peaceful tributary of the Loire with ancient water mills and communal lavoirs (public clothes washing houses) that still look as they did hundreds of years ago, then climb onto the plateaux of grain-fields passing crops of barley, rye, wheat and oats which we finally learnt to identify. We stopped at grassy picnic areas and ate quantities of crusty bread, numerous cheeses, pâté, peaches, apricots and strawberries, and some even drank beer and wine (brought there by their back-up vehicle and driver) but I don’t know how they managed to bike afterwards!

Chateau d'Usse (Sleeping Beauty's Castle)

Chambord

There are so many glorious sights in this area that it is hard to know how to prioritise. We limited ourselves to one a day but there are many, many more. The Loire River is France’s longest. For centuries, the country’s rulers built forts and castles (now known as châteaux) along the river’s banks and clifftops due to its strategic position dividing the country into north and south. Even once the centre of power shifted back to the ancient capital of Paris in the middle of the 16^th century, the Loire Valley continued to be the place where French royalty and the wealthy bourgeoisie preferred to spend most of their time, and they renovated existing châteaux or built lavish new ones as their summer residences or hunting lodges. Numbering more than 300, these châteaux cover many different kinds of architectural styles and eras, ranging from the brooding medieval fortress of Chinon spread along the length of a clifftop overlooking the small town of the same name with its many tall narrow half-timbered houses, to the beautiful jewel of Chenonceau all white and glistening, its elegant arches spanning the River Cher and known as the ‘Ladies’ Castle’ for having nearly always belonged to women, to the ridiculously immense and elaborate Chambord with its 440 rooms, 84 staircases and 365 fireplaces. Looking at this one, you know why there was a revolution yet now it’s a major tourist site attracting hundreds and thousands of visitors each year.



Beaugency

But it wasn’t only the châteaux that we enjoyed. Some of our favourite experiences were the unexpected, such as a bustling market in a town square where we bought cheese and crabs and juicy watermelon, or the much less grand, such as the cliff-dwellings built into cavities left from mining the local tufa stone used for the buildings, or the tiny village of Chedigny with its pretty flower-draped cottages and wonderful tea-room on the broad stone terrace of the former parsonage under a shady walnut tree and overlooking a prolific potager (kitchen garden) full of all kinds of vegetables and herbs with espaliered apples forming archways through the middle. We drank coffee and ate delicious moist apple cake (yes, unusual in France where cakes aren’t really a thing) and felt very lucky to be doing this ride.

Then there are the extraordinarily beautiful gardens of Villandry attached to the Château de Villandry, and the Clos Lucé house and garden at Amboise where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last few years under the patronage of King François I who invited him to live in this house as a peaceful space to plan his designs and inventions and, by all accounts, to organise grand parties for the king! There is a secret tunnel between the house and the castle so the two of them could meet in private. The landscaped garden is a special attraction with scale models of various of his inventions and interesting representations of some of his most famous paintings. Da Vinci died here and is buried in the chapel in the gardens of the nearby Château d’Amboise.

One of the things I love about cycle-touring is the simplicity. Not only do you have everything you need on your bike (tent, sleeping bag, toothbrush…) but it is so easy to stop and take photos whenever you want or just gaze at a good patisserie or a field of sunflowers. And even when you arrive at one of the most popular tourist attractions in France, parking is never a problem. There are vast bike parks often much closer and more conveniently located than the car and bus parks and with the cycle path running right up to them. Metal bars are provided to lock your bikes to and no one ever seems to worry about leaving all their gear while they’re away for a few hours. Not only is it of course a very low-cost way to travel, it is also very low-stress, especially with the navigational aids we have these days. You are away from people and busy roads out in the fresh air amongst the scents of the countryside, and you’re getting exercise all day long, which I love. Yes, we were tired every night, but after a shower, a good meal and a night’s sleep, even on a Thermarest mattress, it’s amazing what you’re up for again the next morning.     

Loches from our campsite

Campgrounds in France still seem to be given priority. They are often on prime bits of real estate by the water with fabulous views of the town. The facilities are usually excellent though they lack the kitchens of many NZ campgrounds. Some have fabulous, pristine swimming-pools (with no one around in June) and all kinds of accommodation options as well as camper van and tent sites: cabins, cottages, permanent tents, tents on stilts, bunk beds in a kind of tramping hut arrangement, and more. The ones on the Loire à Vélo route are often especially well set up for cyclists with sites for small tents clustered around a central building that often has sinks, fridges and power points, so essential for recharging your navigation devices!


Steak Tartare - not mine!!

Our airbnb in Blois - a creative solution to lack of bike space!

Our only real problem was the heat. We hit the very unusual June heatwave (everyone was complaining) and it was up to 38 on some days. There were illuminated signs on the roadsides telling people to not exercise and to look after each other because of the canicule. At least when you’re biking there’s a bit of a breeze but when we stopped it was stifling. It was still stifling at 10pm. We would have a cold shower (where we could – in some campgrounds the temperature was set to hot – urgh!), a swim in the pool as late as possible (and there were some fabulous pristine swimming-pools with hardly anyone around), but still go to bed soaked in sweat. At least I could sleep with a tent flap open and Rose and Hugh never used their fly, while others in the group spent nights lying awake in too small too stuffy hotel rooms. And they had no pool!

The signing of this route is improving all the time but there are many bike trails in the area and it is easy to follow the wrong one without realising it until you find yourself alone on a road with trucks bearing down on you. Luckily this only happened to some of our group who seemed insistent on finding the wrong path. A combination of a good map and a good app to supplement the signs worked well for most of us and, unlike last time, I didn’t lead anyone astray, well not too far anyway.