Loire à Vélo - day 8: the return

Breakfast at Langeais

I come down to breakfast to find an enormous table, which seats ten comfortably, laden with food of all sorts: breads, croissants, fruits, yoghurts, juices, cakes, jams and on it goes. The host appears and explains that everything, except the croissants, is fait maison. Even the yoghurts in their little glass jars are homemade. "How do you find the time to do all that and also run a shop?" I ask him. "Well, when I'm alone it's pretty hectic," he admits, "but when my partner is here it's a little easier. He's a steward with Air France so he's gone for days at a time". I do my best to refrain from thinking too hard about the typecasting that's happening here; he's pretty camp in his mannerisms, his partner is an airline steward. From my experience to date, the places run by gay couples seem to invariably be beautifully done with care and attention to detail.This place is no exception.

I do my best to do justice to the breakfast spread, including the freshly-cooked paper thin crêpes which appear unasked for. The fresh bread - aux rasins today - is wonderful, the almond butter cake is delightful, the homemade yoghurt is perfect. But I can't fit in a piece of the lemon and poppy seed cake though and he notices. "Would you like me to wrap a couple of slices for you for a snack on your ride today? Then you won't have to miss out." Wonderful!

The ride today is more like 'Le Cher à Vélo' since it's actually following the river Cher for much of the route into Tours (the Cher joins the Loire west of Tours). The route passes by Villandry, with its château with its amazing gardens, which are colour coordinated and are changed with the seasons. Like many of the famous châteaux open to the public, it is actually privately owned. You may not agree with people having so much money that they can afford this sort of thing, but on the other hand, if it weren't for them, many of these places would be closed and in a state of disrepair.

The route following the river is very pleasant and it seems clear that the closer it gets to the city of Tours, the better maintained it is and the more facilities there are. There are even rest areas just for the bike path, complete with bicycle parking areas. It's not long before I come across another type of cyclist to add to my collection: an older couple, both riding electric bikes, both with pannier bags. But she has a basket on the back of her bike with their little dog in it, who is happily taking in the slowly passing scenery. Taking the dog on a bike trip? It reminds me of a garden sculpture I saw yesterday of a family on bikes, also with a dog in a basket.

Wallaby in Tours ignoring me

Near Tours I divert from the signposted route and navigate my way into the city. I'm going to make a little detour to catch up with some compatriots in the jardin botanique: right in the middle of Tours there's a botanical garden that also has some animals (and you thought that botanical gardens were for plants, right?) The collection even includes a couple of emus and a family of wallabies which I have come to see. They do not pay me the slightest attention, even though I've travelled all this way to see them.

From Tours I head up into the upmarket suburbs on the north bank of the Loire - which involves more climbing that I'd like - and finally I set the direction back to my starting point. There's one more little excursion to make though. I've seen a dolmen on the map, which I had no idea was there, so I plan my route to go and have a look. It is in the middle of what are now wheat fields, but there's a path to it. It is just unbelievable how 4,000 years ago people were able to manoeuvre such truly massive pieces of rock into position, placing some vertically and then others horizontally over the top. And how did they get those enormous pieces of rock there in the first place?

Dolmen de la Grotte aux Fées (with bike for scale)

A final hour's cycling and suddenly I'm pushing my bike back into the house again, almost like I never left. Tomorrow I'll be giving the bike a thorough service, ready for the next adventure.

Distance today: 68.4 km, riding time: 3:56