We paid for the beautiful weather on Friday with three solid days of rain. As a result, we didn’t get out much, only going the making the short trek into Montsoreau on Saturday to see the Chateau, and otherwise hiding at our B&B. We actually hired a taxi on Sunday to take us to dinner and back, since we had no desire to brave the rain. We discovered that bad weather is considered a reason to close for the night, even if a restaurant would otherwise be open. Everything on the main square was shuttered, but in the area around the chateau, there were a couple of restaurants open.

It was still raining Monday morning, but we wanted to move on anyway, so we put on our rain gear and headed out. We decided early in our ride, when the route signs pointed us off onto a muddy track, to just ignore them and follow the roads. This was a great decision, as we encountered very little traffic on flat roads with good pavement, and were able to make great time, covering off about 30km by lunch. Coming back to the Velo route at Rigny-Ussy, we debated stopping at that point, particularly since the rain seemed to be picking up, but after a hot lunch, the sky lightened a bit, and we decided to push on.
As it turned out, this was a great decision, as the rain finally stopped and we had a dry ride for the last 13km to Langeais, making a distance we really hadn’t been counting on.
Langeais, it turns out, is a beautiful town. There was less greenery than in some, but our B&B had a nice garden, and a great view overlooking the chateau and the town. It’s only downfall was proximity to a church that rang its bells every hour, plus an extended performance at 7:30am and 7:30pm, which tended to interrupt our sleep. But you can’t have it all, I suppose.
After two nights there we pushed on to Tours, which is where we are today. We saw our first blue sky in several days, though it was still mostly cloudy and a bit cool. Today’s ride was probably the best we’ve had, again lovely flat road right along the river. The countryside was green and despite a long stop to explore the chateau and gardens at Villandry, it didn’t take us long to get to our destination.
Coming into Tours almost ruined our day, though. Despite being a small city of about 130k people, it was crazy busy, and the route signs disappeared for a while, leaving us to guess our route a bit until we were close to the center to be on the city centre tourist map. To top it off, there’s extensive construction of a tram line, so there’s a new bridge over the Cher that wasn’t on my map, and the bike lane was regularly getting blocked by construction vehicles, plus randomly disappearing when space was too tight (much like Edmonton, I guess, but everythings harder when you’re not familiar with the city.)
This very negative first impression led us to decide to stay only one night, but once we were settled into our hotel and started walking around the town, it quickly redeemed itself. There are a number of pedestrian streets in the older parts of town that are busy with people and more diversity of food than we’ve seen elsewhere in France. French food is great, but it was a treat to be able to be able to stop in and have a quick kebab instead of having to wait through the hour long process of more traditional French cuisine.
So Tours has now received the seal of approval, despite a rocky introduction. We’re hoping leaving town will go a bit smoother, as it looks like there should just be a separated bike path along the Loire, starting 4 blocks from our hotel end going all the way out of town. Hopefully the reality is as good as the map.
We’ll be moving onto Aboise tomorrow, though we may do a bit more exploring of Tours before heading out.

We woke up Wednesday morning to the first sun we’d seen since arriving in France. There was still a cold wind to contend with, and it did drizzle slightly during breakfast, but at least the sky was optimistic. Indeed our first day by bike went very well, and we comfortably went the 40 km to Gennes before deciding to call it a day. We’re certainly not long distance riders, doubly so since we’ve done hardly any riding this spring since the weather has been so crummy in Edmonton.
The tourist office easily secured us a place to stay, though there was a nasty hill climb required to get there. Unfortunately, at the top of the hill, we got a bit turned around since the street signs here work a bit different. When they’re placed on the sides of buildings, they work much as they do at home, and indicate the name of the street that is parallel to the sign. However, when standing alone, they indicate the name of the street behind the sign. Not realising this detail, we thought we’d taken a wrong turn and went back down the hill. So we ended up climbing the hill twice, as we actually had been in the right place.
Our evening continued to be challenging, as the restaurant in Gennes was closed Wednesday night. Having left our bikes at our B&B, we kept walking until we got to the next town, and found that 3 of their 4 restaurants were also closed Wednesday night. The walk had been further than expected, so after eating, we asked to have a taxi called…there is a taxi in town, but not that evening. The restaurant ended up calling our B&B to give us a ride. It was much appreciated, but we certainly felt bad when our host came to pick us up.
We had discovered in our walking adventure that the bike route that ran along the North shore of the Loire was flooded, so we stuck to the south shore route, which took us away from the river and into the hills. Our legs were not up this, and we only (barely) managed to make the 15 km to Saumur, though we’d been hoping to go another 10 further, to Turquant or Montsoreau. Our wimpiness was driven home to us, as we ran into a group of British cyclists (who inquired what part of Wales we were from) on the way into Saumur who were headed all the way to Nantes on the same day. Still, we were glad for the chance to rest and visit the Saumur chateau during the afternoon.
Which brings us to Today, Friday. We’ve finally had our first day of positively good weather, so our ride this morning was lovely. We stopped at the chateau de Parnay, which is mostly build underground. It’s now used as wine cellars, so while we had the chance to check out a couple of the caves, we also did some wine tasting, and ended up with a bottle of red.
Since there’s lots to see in this area, we’d decided not to bike far, and spend three nights in the Turquant/Montsoreau/Candes-St-Martin area. Unfortunately, it turns out it’s a long weekend (we both thought we’d checked before we came, but apparently we missed one of the movable holidays). It’s the closest I’ve ever come to paying for my no-reservations style of traveling, as everywhere we called was fully booked. After 7 or 8 failed calls, we were bailed out by a cancellation at a hotel that’s only a little above our target price range, and are now settled into a lovely spot above in the country, just outside Montsoreau. And we’ve been assured there’s no more holidays this month.
After checking in we rode another 4km to the Abbaye de Fontevreau, a medieval abbey that’s supposedly the largest in Europe. While famous as the burial place of two English kings (Henry II and Richard III), it was sadly hard to get a feel for it as a living place. All furniture was sold when church property was confiscated during the first Revolution, and the building was converted for use as a prison, so it’s mostly large empty rooms, though the scale is still impressive.
So that’s it. Hard to believe it’s most of a week already, but I guess it has been. The next couple of days should be fairly light as we rest and enjoy the area. We’re hoping to check out some of the mushroom-growing caves in the area, and see what else there is to see, but have dedicated Sunday to sitting around and reading.

We’ve arrived successfully in France, and spent the past few days a few km outside of Angers.

Getting here was an exhausting experience. It’s the second time I’ve flown bikes, so there was nothing new about packing or getting them to the airport. But there were some added complications to flying internationally with them. First, because we were flying Westjet to Toronto and Air France the rest of the way, there was some confusion about baggage policy. The longest leg policy applies, so Westjet is supposed to charge the Air France surcharge. Unfortunately, their agent was not well trained, and tried to charge the oversized & extra bag fees, as he would on a Westjet flight, but at Air France’s rates (total charge $375/bike). Despite showing him a copy of the AF policy, he couldn’t deal with the idea that Air France treats bikes differently from other baggage. He offered to waive the $75 extra bag fee, but the total price was still double what he should have charged. After I argued a bit more, he eventually said he’d just check them to Toronto for free, and we could deal with it there. I accepted this offer, and that just left getting the bikes through the oversize bag check. Unfortunately, the Edmonton airport doesn’t have a large enough bag scanner in the Westjet terminal, so we had to open the boxes and have them hand searched.

While our arrangement had gotten the trip going, it wasn’t ideal, and our leisurely 3 hour layover in TO ended up being a hectic rush to pick up everything and get to the departure counter to recheck them (side note: it’s not easy to fit a boxed bike on a baggage cart onto an elevator.) We did manage to accomplish it, and at only $100/bike it was even cheaper than I’d expected, so the result was satisfying. The flight to Paris was uneventful. I did not appreciate Peter Jackson’s over-wrought extension of The Hobbit, but there’s only so much an airline can do. We were left with just a couple of final elevators to negotiate with the bikes before loading them onto the train. Though the TGV website indicates that disassembled bikes are allowable baggage, it turns out there’s really nowhere to put them, so they were kind of in the way. But at least we got here. Now in France, we’ve been doing lots of riding. API Call ErrorOur B&B is some distance from town, so it requires API Call Errora ride of 3 or so km to get to the nearest restaurant. The weather has been less than ideal, not raining but overcast, windy and generally chilly. We’re getting by, though. Yesterday we checkout out the nearby village of Ste. Gemmes sur Loire, which was doing some significant construction to its main square, so we probably weren’t seeing it at its best. The river is very high, and has API Call Errorflooded a few of the lower sections of the bike route, so he couldn’t use it as much as we’d hoped. The water seems to be receding, though, so I think it will improve from now on.

Today’s excursion was into central Angers. It was further I expected – my newly installed odometer says 20km round trip, when I’d been expection only 13 or so – and we got lost coming into the city. Kathy and I are hoping to avoid big cities for the rest of the trip, I think. We were a bit disappointed by the tourist attractions, as one of the main attractions listed, the “Maison d’Adam (artisans house)” turned out to be an art store and a few apartments in a reasonably attractive building with lots of woodcarvings on the outside. And admittedly attractive and unique building, but nothing to really recommend it. The other attraction, API Call Errorthe castle, is quite impressive and has a beautiful looking API Call Errorgarden in the base of its moat, but we opted not to pay the €8.50 admission fee. Angers did, however, impress with how busy the old city is. It’s clearly still the center of the city, and hasn’t been abandoned to become nothing more than a tourist district like you’ll find in some of the other cities in the country. The architecture, while not unique, its style and uniformity makes the city both attractive and impressive. That should be it for now. Tomorrow we load up the bikes for the first time, and will head up the Loire, hopefully reaching somewhere near Saumur.