Day 43 Lassault sur-Loire to Blois

Day 43. Lassault sur-Loire to Blois. 75.82 kms cycled. 4.42 hours cycling. 50.04 km/h max speed. 16.42 km/h average speed. Weather – overcast and cool but perfect for cycling.

One thing I have quickly discovered about the Loire Valley and that is you can’t possibly think about seeing all the major chateaus when travelling on a bike.

  Basically there are too many and despite what the tours guides will let you believe, they all aren’t overlooking the Loire River.

  This fact was once again emphasised today when I pondered visiting Chateau de Chenonceaux. I had seen photos of the chateau and was fascinated by its position built over what looked like the river.

  But no, it’s not the river, but a lake and it is a 12 km road trip from the track I have been cycling along next to the river. This might not sound like much, but it is a 24 km round trip and add that to the huge distances I am already cycling and the decision was pretty clear cut – give it a miss.

  The road to de Chenonceaux heads out from Amboise, a fairly large town on the Loire River and the site of a huge former Royal Chateau.

  But they wanted 15 euro to enter as was the case further down the road at Chaumont sur-Loire to see another well visited former royal chateau. Rightly or wrongly I gave both a miss, as I reasoned that you can only spend so much on admission fees and I have already spent quite a chunk of my budget on other chateaus.

  And by the time I made it to Chaumont sur-Loire I had just clocked up about 12 unnecessary kilometres after going completely the wrong direction.

  I thought it was taking an unusually long time to reach the town, so stopped to have a bite to eat. It was there that I noticed the river was running the wrong way!! Each day I am travelling east against the flow of the river, but here I was watching the water flowing the same way I was cycling.

  A quick reassessment of my map confirmed the facts: when I had exited onto the main road I had turned right instead of left and was going in completely the wrong direction.

  No wonder it was taking so long to get there!! Anyway, by this time the energy reserves were low so I made a beeline for Blois where I am camped about 3km out of town on the other side of the river.

  Another famous French city on the Loire, Blois is steeped in history, so I will do my best to have a good look around tomorrow before heading off to Orleans which is about another 70km further down the river.

With about 2 weeks of cycling and countless horror French roads still to navigate, I am considering catching a train to Strassbourg which is close to the French/German border to speed up the trip.

  As it stands at the moment I have about 25 days left to complete the trip which is not enough for the distance I still have to travel.

  So it seems to make sense to skip a part of France – and it’s maniac drivers - and give myself more time to see Germany along the Rhine Valley.

  No firm decisions yet, but that is the thinking at the moment. I will see what the story is with trains etc when I get to Orleans.  

caption: The entrance to Blois