The way points of this bicycle route:
Somewhere along the way I realize the map doesn't match the road. Later I would figure out that the way I had the map folded in the holder kept me from seeing the third bridge to the east. We turn here because we know we need to go east.
By now I'm already lost & am telling myself that on every bike trip we've taken in France I always get lost trying to get out of town on the first day, this trip no exception.
We decide to go along the river until I can get things figured out.
Still not sure that I've figured it out but we know we need to veer right to get to the area we want to be in.
This road is abandon. It has dumps along side it. I can't believe we are starting our trip like this...
Here the road dead ends but we can see where others have ridden up to the exit ramp & continued to the other side. I'm finally figuring out where we are on the map & know we need to cross here to get into some good riding - quick.
We get across the road & throu the roundabout - things are looking much better. We're still not on the Velo Loire route we were trying to follow but we'll keep heading east.
We see a sign that appears to say no bikes, but we decide to go on thru because we don't know where a detour would take us & we have had enough trouble up to know just trying to get out to some decent biking.
Looking at our map I'm still not quite certain where we are - I pull over toask a woman at a trash recycliong dumpster but she jumps in her car & leaves before I can get close to her...
Finally - we see a Velo route marker and to our left we see some other bikers. We ask them about the route & they seem as lost as we are.
Here we almost miss a marker that says to turn on to a gravel road. The wall to our right is covered with flowers and lots of bees...
We're finally on the good route. We take a break to refold the map & get a drink & take some pictures. It is overcast but so far everything is OK.
I think I took a few videos in this area. We go through trees & out to the open, vineyards on our left & trees & stone wall on our right.
This is the bridge that we crossed in the video.
In this small town we stop at a charcuterie, which was really just a small grocery/deli. We bought some drinks, maison terrine, bananas, _, and some sweets.
...now were under a bus stop near the store. It started drizzling rain as we were leaving the store so we decide to wait until it stops.
We are glad to turn off of the busy highway road back on to farm roads we had been riding on. Here we leave the town and get back into the farmland.
We're passing a few houses, some under construction.
This area is very nice - farmland & woods in the distance.
Maybe a nature break ?
We turned off of the road to a small paved trail thru the woods & trees. It was overcast & drizzling rain. The sign looked as tough we were entering a National Park.
This was our first stopping point due to the rain. We waited about 20 minutes while the rain came & went. All around us the woods had been churned up by the wild boars, the black earth was fresh.
Instead of entering the parking area we decided to ride around a bit. Little did we know that we were about to get caught in the rain.
There was a small chapel here that looked interesting. However, the rain was beginning to fall though we kept riding.
The rain started falling harder & we ducked under some large evergreen trees. We thought we had a good spot except that the rain did not stop, it only got greater.We were dry for about the first 15 minutes, then the rain begain to drip through. After 40 minutes under the trees we were able to ask someone where a better place might be. It turned out there was a complete tourist area & hotel just around the corner out of our sight. We biked on over to it in a downpour.
We locked our bikes up in this area & went to the hotel.
At this hotel the restaurant was about to close but they offered us their bar, which was like an English style lounge. We told them we would buy drinks if they would let us stay for awhile and bring us towels. They had internet & I found a locl radar to see if there was any more rain in the area once this moved out.
Took a few photos, but by now we were ready to get back to the hotel ASAP.
This was like a farm road with very little traffic.
I think this is where the old train trestle was, with gypsie-looking campers below it.
We didn't want to get on a main road. We saw this paved path next to the roadway & went in on it.
This path goes through park & parking areas & has a good view of Blois across the river.
Somewhere around here we could smell the smoke of a wood fired oven. We traced it to a restaurant called La Creuselle, which specialized in pizzas & seafood. I knew this would be our choice for tonight's dinner.
Here is where the climb begins. It was really steep and there was some traffic.
From this side there isn't a good way to the hotel due to one way streets, traffic, and traffic islands. We have to go thru an intersection & make a u-turn.
Welcome to Bikely, take a step by step tour of this path:
Press Start Tour - then use the navigation buttons below to move along the path.
This is not your typical route map. This is a trip that we did in September 2008 & have made notes of incidental things along the route so that years from now we can scroll through the aerial view & recall the towns, fields, & details of our trip to the Loire area. Enjoy !
