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French Country Travel Life Loire Bicycle Adventure
We’d been trying to cycle the 17 miles from Chenonceaux to Chaumont, but kept getting lost. We even asked directions from a passing motorist who was certain she knew which way the bike route went, then sent us to the wrong town.
Now we were at a Y-intersection on the outskirts of Chaumont; facing two green-and-white bike path signs mounted on the same post, but pointing in opposite directions.
Perplexed, we took a guess and went right, eventually reaching our bed-and-breakfast from the back of town. Perhaps the other fork would have led to the front. Perhaps not.
Despite the misadventures, cycling in the Loire Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is thoroughly enjoyable. With 500 miles of bike routes, there are countless options depending on interest and ability.
Our five-day trip took us through farmers’ fields where we helped ourselves to fresh peas, and through shaded forests that surprised us with deer. We cycled along mostly flat pathways, paved roads, cobblestones and occasional gravel.
While the biking wasn’t nearly as challenging as the navigation, that isn’t why one cycles the Loire. It’s about the food, the wine, the scenery and the history. Indeed, the easy riding and fairy tale castles make this an ideal trip to take with older children and teens.
Each town we visited — Amboise, Chenonceaux, Chaumont, Chambord and Blois — was built around an ancient chateau. Although few were ever fully inhabited and all were emptied during the French Revolution, they are architecturally interesting and historically intriguing.
Our favorite was the Chateau de Chenonceau and its beautiful gardens. It has not only been refurnished, but the wing built spanning the river Cher has been turned into a gallery that recounts the 16th century love affair between King Henri II and his much older mistress — along with the revenge his wife, Queen Catherine de Medici, eventually enjoyed.
It was also the site of our best meal, on the terrace of our hotel, La Roseraie, a simple 18th century inn that claims it has hosted Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Winston Churchill among others.
We planned our self-guided trip with the help of Maggie LaCoste, who runs ExperienceFranceByBike.com. In Amboise, we passed two group cycling trips, one run by Backroads and the other by Butterfield & Robinson. They both offer six-day guided trips, but visit different towns.
Any feeling of superiority I had as we passed the riders in matching jerseys on those organized trips quickly vanished after a few wrong turns. Still, I liked the spontaneity of not keeping to a fixed schedule, and at one point, we hopped the train to Blois with our bikes and checked out a bustling Saturday market.
Spring and fall are the most popular cycling times as summers can be hot. Our trip in June coincided with several festivals, including a popular music event held outside the massive Chateau de Chambord, one of the biggest and most striking chateaus in France, and a garden festival on the castle grounds in Chaumont that continues until Nov. 2.
We rented our well-maintained Trek hybrids from a chain called Detours de Loire because it offered a network of drop-off options, allowing us to pick up our bikes in Amboise and leave them in Blois. There is an additional fee for this seasonal service, which varies with distance between locations.
We also hired Detours de Loire to drive our luggage from one hotel to the next for about $50 per transfer. We sometimes arrived before our bags, and on our last day, the driver forgot completely. It took several frantic phone calls to get them delivered in time to catch our train.
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French Country Travel Life Chateaux History Lesson
The French Country Travel Life Chateaux History Lesson went down yesterday. And the day before. And you missed it! That is, unless you WERE lucky enough to be here. Because the French Country Travel Life Chateaux History Lesson only shows it’s Historical face once a year.
And, DA BG’s marvy title notwithstanding it’s not ONLY about the Chateaux’s of your dreams. But all the incredible, fantastic, unbelieveable (and sometimes quirky) aspects of French Culture.
It’s official name be “Le Journees Du Patrimone” – literally “The Days of our History.” What’s ab/fab and groovy about this National event, is that the “grand public” (French for: “the common people” – ie – everyone without a black Amex card) get to enter, gawk and take pictures of, all the Chateaux’s, Churches, Government buildings that they normally can only stand outside of to gawk at and/or take ” here is us in front of the Chateaux” snaps.
One of the biggest attractions(where da common folk actually maxed out the reservations both days) was a prison for the criminally insane! Undeniable proof that whoever said : “It takes all kinds to make a world” wasn’t just Whistlin’ Dixie! (or more appropiately here, “Le Marseillaise.”)
Since the The French Country Travel Life Chateaux History Lesson is a heavy duty VISUAL event….let’s cut right to the Historical chase and get down with some rad Patrimoneal Image action:
This here is a general picture show of the top spots.
And this be the Chateaux’s of the Loire. (Warning: opening graphics and music from 1960…..but after that….Da good stuff.)
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French Country Travel Life Irish
French Country Travel Life Irish – yes ineedy! I did say “Irish” because as DA BG has done informed you many a time….it’s always the “‘non-natives” that most appreciate what the locals take for granted.
Case in point – my fellow (Irish) scribbler Elgy Gillespie who has some down on the ground observations about French Country Travel Life:
The Périgord-Dordogne region in southwest France is what the French term la France profonde, literally “deep France” – in other words, bucolic and strikingly empty France.
Except for the school vacation, from Bastille Day to late August, you’d imagine a neutron bomb or the Black Death had hovered over these fertile hills and exquisite, honeyed stone villages, each with its solemn memorial to Resistance martyrs from the last war, each apparently deserted.
Yet it is bountifully farmed, as orchards and pastures show, and also lovely, as a recent visit to tiny St Mesmin proved: fairytale gorgeous, with castles, caves of palaeolithic art and farmers’ markets.
Staying nearby and canoeing down the Vezère river recently, I felt a bit like palaeolithic man myself – outnumbered by flourishing flora and fauna, hawks and other raptors, neon-blue dragonflies and butterflies, fighting stag beetles and millipedes as frilly as false eyelashes. We drifted silently past ravishing chateaux and echoing woods.
On the Auvezère river, a magnificent ruined 13th century forge testifies to once denser population from at time when France was the richest and most populous country in Europe. Limousin cows nuzzle calves. A few tractors of hay rumble past the local Bar-Restaurant Des Forges at dusk before heading home, trailed by whirling swifts. Medieval churches of turrets and steeples remain open, but empty. Where are the people?
“Every French village needs a few score kids to support a school and the holy trinity of butcher, baker and bar-bistro. Once the tissue of local life is frayed, the whole thing just goes,” says Brent Gregston, an American expatriate journalist who holidays here. While Provence and Haute-Savoie are recession-proof thanks to beaches and skiing, the Auvergne and Cévennes are empty as Périgord off-season.
The French have fretted about désertification or the “rural exodus” for decades. A largely secular country, France enjoyed lowest-birthrate-in-Europe status since the revolution, until it introduced cash breaks for big families.
Familles nombreuses get free holiday travel, tax rebates, education incentives, healthcare, cinema discounts, direct cash benefits, you name it. Yet a 1980 billboard campaign featuring cute babies in close-up over the message “There’s more to life than just sex” flopped miserably, as we could have predicted, and it still has the lowest rural population density in Europe.
Frankly, farming is at a stage of evolution that no longer appeals. Only one farm in four is taken on by the next generation. Between 1967 and 1997, 60 percent of farms of less than 20 hectares disappeared, while larger ones doubled in size. A Limousin village was recently up for sale at around €300,000: an entire village, waiting for a Korean cult.
So thank God, said the Périgourdins, for retired Brits who traditionally favoured Périgord-Dordogne for their golden years. Butchanges in currency rates ate into British pensions, causing another exodus, with a knock-on effect on local businesses.
Yet hopeful signs of a reversal may be glimpsed. Each corner of la France profonde has its “néo-ruraux” – Generation ‘68-ers and “baba cools” – neo-hippies selling hand-made soaps and candles at markets, affluent Dutch and Swiss, also weekending Parisians.
Yes, things are improving. Guy Bouchard, incoming mayor of tiny St Mesmin, is a retired general who plants a tree for every baby born in the commune, and reports every newly arrived couple in his magazine. Mayor Bouchard speaks good English and Russian, and as a militant of the back-to-the-country movement is universally admired. He oversaw peacemaking in Cold War Berlin and Darfur, but now presides over village council meetings on the new urinoir.
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