I didn't bother to blog yesterday because, well, it was basically a travel day. We left the Airbnb in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, headed to the train station, and began a longish day of train travel that, all things considered, went pretty well. We took a regional (TER) train from Saint-Jean-de-Luz to Bordeaux and then transferred to an Intercité train to Nantes. The difference between the two types of trains is that you can take a bike on a TER for free without a reservation (though this varies by département) —the not insignificant caveat being that there are limited spaces and if there's no room for your bike, the conductor may not let you board. Fortunately, Saint-Jean-de-Luz is the second stop on that particular line, so when we got on, there were still some spaces. But from what we understood, there was some serious drama at one stop. Fortunately, we only heard tell of it in our car at the front of the train.
The Intercité trains have limited spaces for bikes, and you have to reserve them in advance when you book your ticket, which means at least you know you have a spot. So, after a 70 minute layover at Bordeaux, we boarded our train to Nantes, where we and the one other cyclist who booked a spot basically had a compartment all to ourselves. The train arrived at 6 pm, and after booking another train for the next day (more on that later), we headed to our hotel, settled in, went out to dinner, had a short walk, and crashed. A long day that took us a long way.
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| Château des ducs de Bretagne in Nantes |
This morning, we once again left our lodging and headed to the train station to catch the 9:13 train to Angers. And this is where we officially started the third leg of our bike trip.
After some hemming and hawing about what to do and where to go in this third week of the trip, we decided to head north and do at least some of the Loire Valley. I had heard great things about it, and this was essentially confirmed by every French cycle tourist we met. So though it involved a fair bit of train travel, here we are. Now we have five days to get to Orléans on Saturday afternoon, where we take another Intercité, already reserved, back to Toulouse. Nantes to Orleans is just a little too far for us to do in five days, hence the train ride to Angers this morning.
It took us 6 or 7 kilometres just to get out of town, but once we hit the Loire, I was in my happy place again, riding along quiet country roads through farmland, past lovely, tidy little farmhouses, through minuscule hamlets. We had second breakfast and tea beside the Loire in the little town of La Daguenière and then continued along the river, following the EV6. We had lunch in a tiny triangle of shade—attracting cyclists like flies—behind the church in the town of Le Thoureil.
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| Second breakfast |
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| Lunch |
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| Donkeys, for my friend Nat |
By now, the temperature was about 30 degrees, and we were riding into a hot, dry headwind. We crossed the Loire again to take the "Rive Droite" route, but that may not have been the best decision. Various guides suggested this was a nicer, more natural route, but most of it was along either a rough gravel road right up against the river, often with a levee wall reflecting heat onto us, or down a single-track gravel path that bikepackers with narrow loads and 42 mm tires might have found fun, but which we found to be fairly challenging and tiring.
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| Presenting the EuroVelo 6 |
We finally rolled into Saumur at about 4:15, quite hot and tired. We stopped at a grocery store for supper provisions, got into our Airbnb which, though a 3rd-floor walk-up, is quite comfortable and, importantly, has AMAZING internet. We showered, had supper, and, with a second wind, went out to explore the lovely little town of Saumur, with its beautiful chateau. I really enjoy towns of this size—just big enough to have all the basic services and some character to them, but not so large that it takes you more than an hour to explore the whole place.
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