Loire à Vélo - day 1

Here I am on my next bike trip. Although I still have to complete the middle section of the Camino de Santiago, this time I only have a week, so I'm going to be riding a section of the Loire à Vélo route along the Heritage listed Loire river valley in France  instead of riding the Camino. I'm going to head downstream to Nantes, before turning around and backtracking, hopefully not along exactly the same paths. I've allowed eight days for what should be around 500 km.

Day one will take me 60 km or so to a little town called Bréhemont. So off we go!

In the middle of nowhere I pass a sign pointing to a little village with the most accurate, but spectacularly unimaginative name: "Le Village". Clearly not a lot of thought went into coming up with that name. It's heavily overcast with a constant slight drizzle for the first hour or so of my first day's ride; not enough to warrant stopping to cover up but enough to keep me cool and damp.

Lunch with cow at Pernay

I stop for lunch in Pernay at 'Le Crêpolo' (the name is not inspiring), sitting at a table on the footpath under a manicured tree and next to a life-sized pink plastic cow. There must be a reason for that cow, although it's not obvious to me what it is. I am eating a sandwich jambon blanc-fromage; boringly reliable. While I am sitting outside eating my baguette, the local workers start arriving for their midday meal. Small groups of painters (recognisable by their white pants covered in paint), carpenters, stonemasons (covered in a light dusting of the local limestone) plumbers and electricians arrive, look at the menu of the day  - entrée, plat, dessert + 1/4 de vin, a pretty standard French workers' lunch - and then head inside to sit at the prepared tables. The daily ritual; no lunch boxes or take away food for these guys; this is France after all! Then three older women turn up and start taking their photograph with the cow; perhaps it's a local landmark; at least I'm not the only one to find it unusual. I offer to take their picture for them so all three are in the photo. The cow's purpose remains a mystery.

At La Houbellerie, the road passes some sort of military installation. There's a double barbed wire fence, floodlights on the perimeter and signs warning of all the things that are prohibited, including taking photos, which although tempted, I decide not to do. There are lots of strange looking antennae and an enormous grey metal sphere on an impressively large pole. Some sort of military surveillance installation I conclude. And then, as if to make the point, while I'm writing these notes, a military 4WD with two soldiers drives past, seemingly checking me out. In my fluorescent vest I am hardly trying to hide and they do not stop. A little further along the road there are several old concrete bunkers and then another set of buildings, clearly military. The old jet fighter plane on a stand in front of the main building is a bit of a sign that this is indeed a military, probably air force, installation. Then again, James Dyson, of vacuum cleaner fame, has a 1960's Hawker Harrier parked in the car park in front of his factory, so having a jet fighter on display isn't always an indication of a military presence.

The road heads down now, towards the Loire river. That's a nice feeling; both because from here on the ride will be more or less flat and because the Loire is really the whole point of this ride. I meet the river at the rather strangely named town of Cinq Mars La Pile. Supposedly, the name is a bastardisation of "Saint Martin" and has nothing to do with the fifth of March as you would logically expect. The 'Pile' refers to a local landmark; a Roman brick tower.

I pass through Langeais, an attractive little town with a marvelous medieval castle. I don't stay long since I've been here a few times already and will be spending the night here on my return  journey. So I'll leave exploring the town until later. I pass a (closed) newsagent with a sign on the footpath advertising La Nouvelle République, a daily newspaper. Written by hand on the sign are the words "News Paper". I wonder whether this is to attract English speaking tourists, or perhaps to explain to the anglophones what La Nouvelle République is. Maybe both. This little bit of English is certainly unusual and somehow out of place here.

After Langeais my path finally meets the Loire river and I cross to the south bank over the impressive suspension bridge. I'm now riding the Loire à Vélo route proper and begin meeting the first bike riders I've seen today. Only a few more kilometres to Bréhemont, my destination for today.

Bréhemont is a tiny sleepy little village whose main claim to fame seems to be that it is on the Loire à Vélo route and that it had a small bicycle rental and repair shop, which also seems to be the only place that's actually open. Actually, I think it might just be the only place. I've arrived early in the afternoon so I sit for a while on the banks of the river watching it go by.

Boats waiting patiently for their owners to return

As it's still a bit to early to go to my B&B I decide to go for a ride in the surrounding countryside. After all, what else do you do after just having ridden 60 km? I end up taking little gravel paths between the fields to get back to the B&B, which is in an interesting if somewhat ramshackle collection of buildings. It is very quiet.

I ask my host about dining possibilities in the village and she offers to call the bicycle rental shop, which turns out to also be the only place that sells food in the village; she's not sure they are open (it is Monday, half of France seems to close on Mondays). She ends up getting an earful from the guy who runs it, along the lines that it's getting late (although it's not even 17:30 and their brochure claims they open until 19:00) and that they have better things to do than stay open just to serve their customers. A not uncommon attitude amongst shopkeepers in France unfortunately and my host makes the same observation. She offers to provide some food so I can cook my dinner in the B&B because she feels put out by the guy's attitude and so doesn't want to send him any customers. It saves me the ride back into the village I suppose, although it means I get to cook my own dinner. I am compensated by their offer of a half bottle of local (good) red wine and some local lait cru goat's cheese to go with it.

I am sold; the wine is excellent and the cheese delicious. I will sleep well tonight.

Distance today: 67km, 4 hours riding.