Nightmare in La Foret Dominiale de Chinon

From Tours, we broke away from our 2010 route to explore Azay-le-Rideau and Chinon. Tom is going to blog about our day to Azay as we did something a bit special; this blog covers from there to Chinon. With only 20km to ride along shady forested roads to Chinon – or so we thought –

Downstream to Tours and the end of the Tyre Saga

Chambord surely boasts the most excessively exuberant, obscenely outrageous, utterly unnecessary roofscape in the world. Although we visited in 2010 we had to – just had to – see it again. Another evening of swimming and we retired to bed, braced for a trundle down the Loire to Blois the next day. Blois was a favourite

Week 3 with our Dutch Friends

The fifth of August saw some enjoyable riding to La Ferté St Aubin in order to check out Chateau de Ferté St Aubin, set up to display medieval games (whose holiday is this?) We left Orleans before the others, with the plan being to meet mid-afternoon at the campsite. The others stopped for a sumptuous

Week 2 with our Dutch friends

The day we left Gien turned hot again but fortunately the next campsite at Sully-sur-Loire had a pool also. We met an English family that evening, cycle touring for a couple of weeks with their energetic six and eight year old boys, Harry and Sam, who the kids played with endlessly – ball games in

Week 1 with our Dutch friends

We’d splashed out on drinks and nibbles to greet our friends Arthur and Josephine, and their kids Sten and Liam. By the time they arrived early evening we’d drunk the first bottle of wine… and eaten one of the cheeses…. but there was still ample to welcome them. We rendezvoused at La Charité-sur-Loire, with the

Ups and downs and pleasure in St Plaisir

With Le Tour behind us, we took a day’s rest to recover from all the excitement. Being smack bang in the middle of France with no particular commitments, we considered which way we should turn. Plan A had always been to turn north and back onto Eurovelo Route 6 along the Loire. But the Dordogne,

Off to Le Tour

It’s been a while between blogs: too lazy over five more days in Cormatin, followed by four days of head-down cycling to reach St Pourcain-sur-Sioule for Stage 13 of the 100th Tour de France. (This goal has been pivotal to many decisions made on this trip – seeing the Tour was imperative for us.) A

Utopia?

I don’t know how much good stuff you can pack into two days, but by jove I think we might have found the limit! Mathieu and Cecile were our kind of people: friendly, enthusiastic, welcoming, and just all-round seriously nice folk. They had purchased a run-down one-room house and barn just a few years ago

Into the Maconnais

With two Warmshower hosts living at the far end of the rail trail, one in the regional centre and one in a small village in the heart of the famous Pouilly Fuisse wine region, we set off from Cormatin unburdened by camping equipment for a few days of exploration, good company and good wine. We

Into South Burgundy

I’m writing this because I’ve been banished from the fishing bridge. Don’t get me wrong – I quite like catching fish and I like eating fish – but the bit beforehand (all that waiting around) and the bit in between (hooks in mouths, death, stress) is difficult to handle. We’ve settled into a campsite in