EBT Chapter 2 - The Loire

Departing Paris was inconvenient, since we had to buy food and forgot it was a Sunday. We rode across the city to Gare de Lyon and caught a trail to Fontanbleau. We cycled through the forest there then a bunch of farmscape toward Orleans. And this is where we first encountered The Rain. It rained/drizzled on-and-off for about 2.5 hours (not that anyone was counting) In the afternoon, but during the first 45 minutes the sky just dumped water on us. The wind and rain were strong enough to hurt your face, and it left us totally soaked. That was 15:45 - we continued to cycle for another 3 hours. However, we had an awesome CS host in Orleans. The woman was physics professor from French Guiana and the man worked health and safety for mining operations. They had prepared a taste of France for us, so we had 4 cheeses and 3 hard salamis before a grilled meat dinner in a beautiful house. In the morning, they brought some classic pastries from the local bakery. Marvelous. :). We also broke 500 km on the way to Orleans!

Not so marvelous is that my kindle broke. Disappointing.

Leaving Paris

We're so wet in this photo... You can't tell at all.

From Orleans we headed down through the Val de Loire. We stopped at Chambord, a former hunting lodge chateau, thick with pre-revolutionary French affluence and power. The architecture was very nice - lots of symmetric regions. The grounds were beautiful and forested (it was a hunting lodge, after all). After that we cycled to Blois, where we got a last-minute CS host offer (woo-hoo!). Our host was vey nice and showed us around the city, the river, and the chateau there. Also, we finally had pizza, which had been proposed our first night (late in Antwerpen), since greasy pizza is delicious when you're tired after much work. However, the Blois solution to pizza was actually a pretty nice restaurant. Silly.

Marcio vs Chambord

Loire at sunset from Blois

The following morning we caught the train to Amboise, where we saw the castle (not too special, thought the river views were beautiful) and the Clos Luce, which is where Da Vinci spent his last years. That was pretty cool - there was a huge garden that was great to wander and filled with models built from Da Vinci's sketches. We cycled to Chenonceau, a castle built for the queens on the Cher River (just south of the Loire). The castle and its gardens are on one bank, but it has a long gallery bridging the river. It's really a site to see, so of course it was PACKED with tourists. After that we cycled on the Tours (we booked it, too!), where we found a nice campground just outside of town for the night. We got some food, had dinner, then slept hard, since the Dijon train left Tours at 7am.

Amboise castle and the Loire

Da Vinci Museum

Me at Chenonceau

Marcio at Chenonceau

Speaking of trains, that's where I am now! We're about an hour from Dijon (it's almost 5 hrs from Tours to Dijon on the bike-friendly train). That means our time in the Loire is over, and our journey to the coast beginning!

Next stop: NEVERS