Loire à Vélo - day 7

Not all of Saumur is closed this Sunday morning - luckily

It's Sunday morning and Saumur is closed. There's a light drizzle to start the day as I ride back to the Place Saint Pierre to find it completely deserted; quite a contrast from last night. I explore the little alleys around the square and find, happily, that the one place that's open this morning is a boulangerie, so all is not lost. A bit later I notice another lone cyclist, a guy of a certain age. "British" I think to myself, although exactly on what I'm basing that I'm not sure. For the first part of today's ride I've decided to cross the river and see what the road on the other side is like. Just after crossing the bridge I spot the cyclist again. Later as I'm riding along the river I can see him following me some distance behind.

After a while I stop for a drink and he pulls up next to me. "Are you Deutsch?" are his first words; it seems he's been making assumptions like me, only he's wrong and I'm right. I wonder why he throws in the German word for German; maybe to show he speaks the language? We chat.

Morning on the Loire at Saumur

He's come over from the UK in his camper van and is making short rides on his bike using his van parked at a campsite as his base. I ask if he's traveling alone. He clearly wants to talk and my question triggers it. He explains that his wife died last year and that afterwards he couldn't sleep without pills; he couldn't stay in the house alone. So he's decided to head off and travel and start again. Now he sleeps.

I cross back to the south bank using the bridge at Turquant. It's an old narrow iron bridge only just wide enough for two lanes of traffic.  All along the bridge I spot fragments of mirror on the sides of the roadway, which at first puzzles me. Then I realise it's the result of vehicles that are too wide or poorly driven either hitting the metal bridge supports with their mirrors or hitting each other's mirrors when passing. Obviously it's a common occurrence; there's a lot of pieces of broken mirror.

Montsoreau is a very different place to what it was when I passed through here a few days earlier. Now it's a Sunday morning and the place is jam packed with cars and people, a real tourist mecca. It turns out that it's also the marché aux puces, held every second Sunday. The street is full of stalls selling everything from bric-a-brac and antiques to fruit and veg, meats and cheeses, and revolutionary new home insulation systems.

This is where the cheese comes from

I've stopped at the market to take a picture of a guy selling goat's cheese; he has a baby goat standing amongst the cheeses which is a pretty cute and innovative way of attracting customers. "Where are you heading?" asks a voice with a strong New Zealand accent suddenly. There's a woman standing next to me looking at my map. We chat; she's cycling some of the EV6, which the Loire à Vélo is part of. The whole EV6 route starts at the Black Sea and covers over 3,650 km; she's going to Basel, about halfway.

Further on, I see an older couple at a picnic table and I decide to stop to have my own morning snack  - I'm not bothering with the coffee today. I sit at the table next to theirs. The couple is French and their picnic lunch consists of a bottle of wine, bottles of both still and sparkling water, a baguette, and various pâtés, meats and cheeses. Very civilised; they are well prepared. When they've finished he takes out a crossword puzzle book and she takes out a large novel and they settle in for perhaps the afternoon.

A family that rides together

I ride on, past the place where days earlier the Dutch couple had been cycling in circles. After a little while I notice many of the bike riders coming the other way have rain jackets on and their waterproof covers over their luggage. 'A bit of an overkill', I think to myself. After all, we've just had a tiny bit of drizzle. Then I notice that the bike path is rather wet and a little later the real rain starts. Nothing dramatic luckily, but enough to soak me after ten minutes or so. I ride on and the showers pass, although it alternates between showers and sun for most of the rest of the day. Just as you've dried out, it rains again and the cycle (no pun intended) repeats.

I can't arrive at my B&B until 17:00 so I decide to make a detour to visit Chinon, home of one of the major Loire Valley châteaux. It's a pleasant ride there, although I know it will mean a little bit of hill work afterwards to get back to the Loire. I ride around the town, which is dominated by the castle high above. Just as I'm thinking about starting the climb I spot an elevator. It's been set up to make it easier for those on the low level to get up to the castle and it's big enough to take bikes! I don't hesitate nor do I let my pride stop me from taking advantage of this shortcut; there'll be more hills to climb after this.

Yes, I took the elevator up to the château at Chinon

The route back to the Loire cuts straight through the Chinon royal forests; it's a lovely ride except for the fact that the obvious downside of such a straight road is that it has to go over the hills and down through the valleys, so it's a little hard going at times. There's a reward at the end when I have a long high speed descent back down to the Loire, briefly exceeding the 50km/h speed limit as I enter Rivarennes.

At Langeais, my stop for today, my B&B is right next to the castle where Ann de Bretagne secretly married King Charles VIII in 1491 to secure the merger of Brittany and France. If she were still there she could be looking out of her room down at me. Such intimacy with history is something I love about Europe.

The restaurant for tonight is the best (and on a Sunday night, essentially the only) restaurant on town. It's also right next door, which is pretty convenient. Everyone is outside in the garden terrace; it's a lovely evening. I can hear more English than French being spoken it seems. All the tables are occupied by either French or British (plus a lone Australian).

There's a lot of material here for an entire blog entry: I could write about the woman with the dog, which she regularly puts on her lap and then occasionally kisses (all during dinner). I could write about the Irish couple (she with stereotypical red hair). I could note the guy who's so big I'm afraid the cane chair is not going to survive. I might wonder about the young English woman having dinner with a guy more than old enough to be her father (which he may well be, let's give them the benefit of the doubt). And more. But it's my last meal on this trip so maybe tonight I'll just enjoy my meal and take it all in without writing it all down.

As I leave the restaurant I notice that there are several British registered cars parked outside, which of course is hardly a surprise. Among them is an old Jaguar XJ140, which interestingly I met coming the other way this afternoon on my ride from Chinon. Small world.

View of Langeais Castle from my B&B

Distance today: 68 km. 4.2 hours ridden