The way points of this bicycle route:
When we were in traffic behind a car waiting for the light to turn green we could see our reflections in the rear windshield along with all of the buildings of this street. I wish I could have taken a picture but the light changed !
I knew we had to turn somewhere along here. This looked like a main street.
At this point I thought, OK, we've gone far enough in this direction - now let's look for a good spot to turn.
I thought this was the other street Rue Metarines, as I was going on street shapes.
...but after going thru this dogleg & expecting to take a right, it took us a minute to figure out we needed to turn left & backtrack to the road we were looking for.
This was very shady with a creek, I thought we were finally on a bike route where we could take it easy.
However, right along this area the road kicked up & we had about a quarter mile of a steep climb up the side of this hill, or bluff.
I started getting worried as we were climbing this wall, then to have it curve around and continue out of sight...
We took a break at the top of the hill & met a local cyclist to ask about the entry to the forest. As usual the map view was confusing to him, but when I started talking about the forest & allez he motioned that it was ahead to the right.
As was described here was an entrance to the woods which appeared to be a long straight road that disappeared into the distance.
We stopped at the road crossings to take a break & look at the marker in the center of the etoile. I think it was dedicated to a WWII soldier. We stretched at the large tree to our right & also looked at the house that was just off of the intersection.
At the end of the road we took another break so I could take a picture of the Allee Montils sign, and make sure I knew where we were on the map. It appeared we were back on to one of the marked velo routes, but today I was not too concerned with staying with the marked route.
Looks like the marked route is going in the same direction we are, so I guess that's a good sign.
This is a nice rural road - some houses with farmland around them. Some houses look to have large lots.
We stop at this intersection to check our map. We decide to continue on to the left, though in hindsight I wish we had crossed over the creek & continued left on the other side. There was some thru traffic on this road. It wasn't too bad, we just had to ride in line at a fast pace & were not able to ride leasurly side by side.
We stop again at the split in the road - I think the other route was one-way. There were some flowers planted here and a welcome sign to the town of Cellettes.
Pass new houses under construction...
Here we went past a house with a very nice back yard planted with lots of flowers. Since we were on bikes we could peek over their hedge as we rode by.
Along here a car pulled in to a driveway & we heard the baaa-ing of sheep. We looked over to see to large sheep, looking like giant blond poodles, running over to the fence to greet their owner as though they were dogs.
We could hear a noise like geese flying over but did not see anything...
...until we got here & saw that it was a guinea fowl farm. They were loud! It was bare dirt over the whole fenced area & there were thousands scratching around.
I took a picture here - trees on the left & some pallets on the right
Here we went a bit in all directions before going to the left. Here i took a photo of a cat in the orchard.
It was obvious the town center was to the right. We turned right along a busy roadwaty with shops on both sides.
The outdoor restaurant that we ended up eating at was here in the town center. We had originally planned on having a picnic & getting a few things in the local shops but we had arrived just after 1:00 & that's when many shops close. We then decided to find a restaurant quick becuase we remembered they usually close around 2:00, and we knew we had to have something to eat.
We had gotten our waiter to recommend a winery to visit. He recommended Benoit Daridan. When we rode up the place was empty, though we eventually found Benoit inside of a huge vat washing it out frfom the inside. Harvest was a few weeks away & he was getting everything ready. We sampled his wines & bought about 5 bottles, one of he reds we drank that night. For our New Years dinner we opened the other red & photographed it with our steak & emailed it to him; he emailed us a holiday greeting photo with a Bonne Annee greeting.
Sunflowers on one side, grapes on the other.
We rode past this intersection & then doubled back & turned here. Bennoit told us to turn here & look for a small bridge over the river - which is also noted in one of the Velo Loire marked routes.
I think this was the long downhill that I have a video of Brittney coasting.
We also missed this turn the first time - our map that I made off of the internet gives the same size road lines whether it is a small bike path or a two lane road - and I was not expecting this to be a small bike path across the river.
We have a video as we are crossing this river.
This seemed like a nice area of houses really tucked away from all busy roads...I think we got off of the Velo route in this area - I knew we needed to go north since we were planning on returning to Blois down one of the forrest allez, I just wasn't sure how to get over there.
Everywhere in this area were apple trees - some were cultivated and others were wild with their apples on the ground. We picked some apples off the ground at one tree to try back at the room. They were pretty tough, and I was cautious about getting a stomach ache.
By now we knew we missed out turn to get to the allee so at this intersection we turn left looking for a way to loop back.
Here we just passed some sort of large building with artisan written on the side. It looked like some sort of artist community workshop, but unfortunately by now we were late in the day and not sure how much longer it would take us to get back to Blois.
Here we met a mother & her three children. I was asking directions to the allee & if it went thru. She sort of understood what I was asking when I showed her the map. Brittney was able to get the girls to understand her name & they told us their name. When I said my only French phrase "I do not speak French" one of the girls looked at me as though that was not at all possible.
Finally find the entrance to the forest. It is not marked, just a gravel road into the woods.
This etoile was marked with a large wood post & cross peices on top. We took the wrong branch out from here - I meant to take the one to the right - but fortunately it all worked out.
We were disoriented thinking we were really north of here. It took a few minutes to figure we took the wrong branch. Fortunately there was this connector that took us north...
'crossed a main road & were cycling through some cut-over forest to the left. In the distance we can see the town.
This area was a bit commercial/light industrial, though it was good to be back in a town & having an idea how much time before we would be back at the hotel. It was late afternoon & the sun was getting low.
My map did not show the road in front of us as one way so we followed the road to the right. We soon began to think we should have gone against traffic because we were going far out of the way.
...and by not going against traffic we had an extra 1/4 mile on this really busy road.
Couldn't wait to get off this road - once we crossed the bridge we would be on the road we took yesterday - but the opposite way returning on it in
This road was very tight - houses & walls right up to the road.
At this point I knew we would be cgoing against traffic, but this was the only way I knew of to quickly get over to the other side. We looked for an opening then sprinted across the overpass & got off of the road on a dirt path to the abandon road we were on yesterday.
We could see some sort of path on the other side & knew anything would be better than riding in on this busy road.
This bike path went in and out of some park areas. It was a nice area with good views across the river to Blois.
Here is where the long steep hill begins. I guess if we had more riding time in Blois we would have figured oout a better way to get back to the hotel - but for today it was this hill, then going through traffic past the train station.
Always traffic in front of the train station.
...and because of one way traffic & traffic islands we did this odd zig-zag to get through traffic, back around to the hotel, & jump a curb to get over to the hotel drive.
Good to be back! Not a long distance but a long day on the bike.
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 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 !
