Day 29: Vendome to Tours

September 24, 2023

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Our hotel tonight has no wifi, so we are relying on a thready cell phne connection. That means that the 120 photos we took today have little chance of uploading, and anything I type might not save. That makes for a slightly briefer entry with some topics dropped. That could be a relief for some, not to have to follow too completely what turned out to be an almost 100 km day.

The day opened on a really positive note, as the owners of our BnB apartment, Gerard and Muriel, came along to say goodbye. They are both really kindly and super sweet, and they gave us a great send off, with lots of photos all around.

Grampies on the main street of Vendome, outside the BnB "Proche de la Cathedrale". Notice that they don't know if they are coming or going.

As threatened, we showed up at La Mie Colline, to supplement the meagre offering that was at the BnB.

That Pain aux Raisins went into the handlebar bag for anti-bonk.

We left Vendome by an old gate to the city.

The first half of the day got its start on the nice path shown below, as we continued to follow the Loir a Velo and Chemin St Jacques signs, that guided us throughout the day.

The day started cold, at 8 degrees, but the sun was bright, and this really lifted our spirits. The light was really nice, for example on the trunks of trees shown below. We were in general following the Loir Valley, and the people of the valley made the story for us today. It seems they had decided to come out for a wide variety of activities, and they were really going at it. The first was a 30 km horse riding outing, that as we found out from talking to ride marshalls, involved 150 horses and riders. We encountered a large number of them n the narrow road, and it was fun passing them so closely.

We became aware of the second activity as fairly goofy little sports cars with numbers on the side started to buzz around us, this way and that. We did surmise that it was a rally of some kind, and we could see copilots in the cars squinting at maps. There must have been a geocaching or maybe time trial checkin component, because what is the guy doing, below?

We came to sort of a headquarters or control spot, where lots of the cars were gathered. I went and talked to a lady at a desk, and found out a little about the rally. But Dodie noted that the main aspect of the gathering point was that it was a wine tasting establishment.

The next big activity was hunting. Hunters were wearing orange, distinguishing them from the Grampies. They had dogs and shot guns, must have been after some kind of birds. Could be like my beautiful pheasant from yesterday. However from our observation, like the fishermen we always see, they were getting nothing.

We saw a lot of egrets flying around for an activity, for they were without their usual cattle companions. When two alighted, we shot this.

One thing missing was really a lot of cyclists, though some were accompanying the horse riders. However people did come out to run their dogs and children up and down.

We really enjoyed watching everyone enjoying themselves on this Sunday, and we continued to roll along through bright and beautiful countryside. The only thing, it was beginning to dawn on us that we had made a slight error on just how far it would be to Tours. The error was around 100%, instead of 50 km, it would be 100 km.

Matters got a little worse when we came to one of our trusty route signs that been crossed out, and a detour indicated into another direction. Just like the Route Barree, we mistrust unsubstantiated stuff like this, and it was decided to ignore it. We sailed on then, into an interesting town with lots of troglodyte excavations into the cliff behind.

This house continues right into the cliff.

We then found out why the bike route had been detoured (so many kms back). Eboulement means rockslide!

We still did not believe we could not get through, until we saw how effectively the road had been barricaded. The grass growing on the road shows this has been left for some time, and in fact the documents pasted to the fence are dated in 2022.

Oh well, we backtracked, but not all the way. The GPS showed a slightly shorter strategy, and we went with that.

Now we just enjoyed a variety of sights, like nicely clustered buildings, a combine working on that weird crop that we think might be millet, and a large flock of Guinea fowl (pintade to the French, often seen in the covered markets - they have very dark flesh.)

This went well until again, the threat of a road closure. The sign says the bridge is closed, but that truck is going over. So did we!

We began to near Tours, and looked over a sort of valley at Rochecorbon.

For the first time on the tour we encountered grape vines. For some reason they had not been harvested and were over ripe. We tried a few, and they were ok, but frankly we had better, seedless grapes from Spain in our bag.

And now finally, about 85 km out of Vendome the Grampies returned to the Loire. The Loire and specifically the bike way La Loire a Velo and EV 6 have been the scene of many of our earliest and very fun bike rides. And this is where we met our friend Michel Fleurance, from Ste Luce near Nantes. We sent him an electronic wave, with a promise to show up in Ste Luce early next year.

Our way lead along the north bank of the river, which is the side not with the Tours old town, for about 10 km. It was amazing how, quite late in the afternoon, the people had come out to, from our point of view, clog up the path. We were headed west, and the lowering sun was in our eyes, making it hard to see and dodge everyone. Sometimes people would walk toward us three or four abreast, and then a tiring Dodie would come close to clipping them.

Along the way there was a large outdoor drinking establishment, that in Germany would be a biergarten. The difference here was ... no bratwurst!

We crossed a passerelle to the south side of the river, where we encountered the Saint Gatien cathedral. This was, as usual, a beautiful place, but it confused me as I remembered Tours as a focal point for St. Martin. No matter, Saint Gatien was started in 1160 and finished in 1547! Around the time of the Revolution (1792) a lot was destroyed, but restoration has been ongoing, especially in the last 30 years.

There was a mass ongoing inside. It was amazing how many adherents had come.

It turns out that as we had remembered, St. Martin does have a major presence in town, and this is in the form of the St. Martin Basilica. This is adjacent to something called the Charlemagne tower, and there is also a third tower just nearby. All three are visible from our window at the hotel.

Our hotel is old and the room is small. But it has some of the things we appreciate most, like an electrical outlet at each side of the bed. I also allows us to make another entry into the "Spiral staircase of death" category. This one is unique, because it is also psychedelic!

We are a bit torn for tomorrow, as to whether to tour Tours, or to head along the river to one of the nearby Chateaus. Knowing us, we will likely do both. It's very late now, though, because of the long ride and the very balky internet. That bed sure looks good!

Today's ride: 97 km (60 miles)
Total: 1,601 km (994 miles)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	6

Tricia GrahamThat reminds me of one time we were riding out of Gatwick and we thought OK that is not for only 50 but we had forgotten that in England they mesure distances in miles not kilometres ! Not good for the first day of a cycle tour
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7 months ago

Gregory GarceauIt was a fine day, a Porsche day, a route barree day, a psychedelic day, a long day, and a well-documented day despite having to post it using your cell phone. (I've never been able to do that.) And now, what are you going to do with the other 81 of your 120 photos?
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7 months ago

Keith ClassenThat’s a long day in the saddle - 2 days in one! Blame the navigator! Great sights along the way.
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7 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Gregory GarceauIt turns out most topics got covered. There must be a lot of duplicates (multiple shots of sort of the same thing), background info found on signs, bookmarks of town names, and other junque in my total!
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7 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenGood on navigating, weak on arithmetic?
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7 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamYeah, things on road signs in the US are similarly hard to reach!
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7 months ago