Ride Day 18: To Tours

There are many large chateaus along the Loire that were built in the period from the 11th to the 17th century. Today, as we ride to the large city of Tours, we will pass by a few of them. We will definitely visit some of them but those we pass today are not on our list of must-sees. But we will try to get some photos.

Leaving Chinon.

 First things first, though, and that was a diversion to a large electronics store just outside of Chinon. Somehow, two of our electrical connectors for our little bike computers went kaput and we couldn't connect the things to power to charge them up. We still had our new machine, which charges via solar as we ride, but the other two were out of power. It was easy to get the cords, but along the way we had to ride up a super steep hill getting out of Chinon. As we rounded a corner there were two bike tourists ahead of us pushing their bikes. That gave us the motivation to finally make it up one of these crazy steep hills. Maybe that's what we needed on the hills we couldn't climb.

Much of the ride was downhill since we had to ride over the ridge that separates the Vienne river from the Loire. It was fun to ride a long downhill run on tiny farm roads. We went past a field of the flowers that had the most beautiful, deep purple color, we'd ever seen. Sadly, we were too far away to get a good photo but here's a long shot of the field.

Let me know if you know what this crop is

 It didn't take us long to ride through a small village called Heismes. It had an open cafe, so we stopped to have our usual mid-morning cafe au lait.

Cafe in Heismes

This was an especially fun stop, though, because all of the animals we saw,

A friendly, and hungry, pup

Horse and rider on the street

Crazy pretty bird (let me know what kind he is)

He likes cacahuetes

Fueled with coffee, we soon started riding by the chateau. Here's the first one we saw, which we didn't visit.

Chateau d'Usse

 

Sleeping Beauty's castle inspiration?

The path soon joined up with the Loire and it was perfect riding in mild sunshine, not a kitten's breath of wind, and smooth tarmac on the bank of the river. 

Back on the Loire

The path here compares favorably with the Danube

The next chateau we decided to at least ride by -- Chateau Villandry.

Moats were handy back in the 13th century

Chateau Villandry

It was really crowded with hundreds of tour buses, so we decided to not go in. But we had lunch in a nice place to stop.

Back on the path. Note that Lorie can now take photos while we are riding.

The old city, Tours

It didn't take us long to get to Tours. We are again surprised at how big the cities are. At first, riding through the outer city, Tours didn't present itself very well. Busy, clogged streets, crazy traffic. But shortly we arrived at the ancient part of town where we are staying and it all changed. Narrow streets lined with outdoor cafes and plazas full of people out enjoying the summer. Half-timbered structures are everywhere and we found Tours to be a nice place after all.

Plenty of cafes to choose from

This area is famous for its wines (of course) and all the cafes sell the local Pétillant-Naturel (natural sparkling). It is absolutely wonderful.

Pet Nat. Nice

 We had a really fun time wandering around the old city and kept our explorations to about a 500 m radius from where we are staying. We got lost lots! Here are some sights.

A bit of the new, mixed with a lot of the old

Back to the road. We are off to Amboise, via Vouvray and we will be stopping at the most famous chateau, Chenonceau. More to follow.