France -Loire Valley 23-30 May 300km

After a night in Paris we catch a train to Blois, and collect our rental bikes. Then it's back on the train the next day to Angers where we begin - we will ride back to Blois to return bikes and collect our suitcases. 

First treat is a ride around Angers with a volunteer guide, and even better she escorts us 10 km to the start of the Loire à velo bike route. It's well marked with little blue signs on every corner. 

Bike infrastructure is great, and we only have a couple of navigational malfunctions, where one misses the sign and the other is hot, tired and grumpy 😉

Hmm, it's flat riding along a river, isn't it? Mais non, the route is the scenic one, so up and down, through amazingly beautiful old villages, past vineyards, woods, farms and flowers, with occasional river stretches 😉

We visit chateaux at Montsoreau 

Villandry

Chenonceau 

and pass several others

Caves that the tufa (white building stone) has been extracted from are now used for growing mushrooms, storing wine and  living in

It's hot, so there are plenty of picnic and swimming opportunities 

Our accomodation is Airbnb, a hotel and warm showers (cyclist volunteer website), all wonderful

It's very quiet to start, but then there's a long weekend so there are bikes everywhere - large and small groups, kids in trailers. We receive lots of bonjour/bon voyage as we ride along. 

And for our last treat - a visit to an international garden festival at Chateau Chaumont-sur-Loire. Ooh la la, c'est très bon