The Loire, Valley of...
... oh em gee the prettyness. All that you may have heard about the Loire valley in France being some of the most picturesque and idyllic countryside in the world is absolutely bang-on accurate.
We started in Blois (pronounced "BLAH"), which is a quiet sleepy town 150 or so kilometers out from Paris; a 2 hour train ride out on the TGV.
We just spent the last two days in the Loire valley. We rented bicycles and we've cycled about 87 kilometers, well over 50 miles, in the space of two days. We cycled through scenic countryside, past vineyards and fields, through small towns and lovely forests covered in carpets of wildflowers, and at the end of our trip, the Chateau Cheverny. Where we watched a pack of hound devour a whole lot of meat in a very small amount of time. I also made good friends with a donkey on the way there; although he then proceeded to snub me on our return trip.
Amie with Hippocrates, the traveling hippo. That bridge was how we crossed over the river Loire, to an exciting day of way too much biking.
The trail started out quite nicely, going through a national forest park of some kind. The weather was beautiful, and not too warm or too cold. Cool enough so that we didn't sweat terribly while biking.
We cycled through some very scenic towns as well. Little sleepy hamlets that you never quite expect to exist in real life, but think rather that they are only in movies about bygone days.
I made friends with this donkey on the way. He seemed to rather want to be petted, but there was an electrified fence between the two of us. As we rode away, however, he made a horrifically lonely-sounding bray. I thought that meant that he missed us. On the way back, however, he was joined by a pony in his paddock, and proceeded to completely ignore me. I was snubbed.
This was my favorite spot in the entire trip. It was just a random field that we passed, but the picture does not capture even a fraction of how lovely it was. The old barn among the trees, the green green grass, the sleepy brook meandering through the middle of it... absolutely gorgeous.
Cheverny itself is a quite nice chateau, lived in up until quite recently. It is the basis of the mansion in the Tintin detective series, which is apparently quite famous. I haven't seen it, but it was apparently an integral part of Brendan's childhood.
This brook was my second favorite spot of that trip. The weeping willows trailing their branches and the quiet rushing of the water under the bridge was quite poetic, as was the random ruins a bit further on. We think it might have been a bridge at some point, but it was in the middle of a pond, which made very little sense.
The really amazing thing was that we got right back up again the next morning (after a suitable soak in the hot tub the previous night) and made the 47 km round trip to Chambord, one of the most picturesque castles I have ever seen in my life. There are pictures up on Amie's blog, the link to which is in one of these last entries. I'm quite proud of us for making it all that way; the countryside was definitely worth every minute of painful hills and fatigued rest stops, even though my rear still hasn't healed properly.
We stopped to eat lunch before we entered the chateau. Chambord was build for Francois I, who spent a total of 42 days in it after spending so much time and money on its construction.
I wanted to post this picture up right after we got there, with the caption. "So what did you do today? We did this."
Amie was quite the trooper for this bike ride. She bore up during this exhausting ride without a word of real complaint, and without any of the copious delays and long rest stops that she was planning into our itinerary. It was a very nice ride--we would all take turns at being in front and navigating, and we'd just sort of change spots every now and then to talk to each other about random stuff, all along the trip. And, of course, she spared me the need to have to keep up with Brendan, who probably would have just ridden me into the ground quite cheerfully and modestly, all the while telling me he's not that fit and that he's tired too.
The Loire Valley also produces some very tasty wines of which I picked up a few bottles to take home. The people in the small town are incredibly friendly, and the same goes to the people we passed on the biking route. It took us through country fields and past old houses and through great suburbs, and everyone we passed would wave and say "bonjour" with a smile. I like them better than I like the Parisians.
We started in Blois (pronounced "BLAH"), which is a quiet sleepy town 150 or so kilometers out from Paris; a 2 hour train ride out on the TGV.
We just spent the last two days in the Loire valley. We rented bicycles and we've cycled about 87 kilometers, well over 50 miles, in the space of two days. We cycled through scenic countryside, past vineyards and fields, through small towns and lovely forests covered in carpets of wildflowers, and at the end of our trip, the Chateau Cheverny. Where we watched a pack of hound devour a whole lot of meat in a very small amount of time. I also made good friends with a donkey on the way there; although he then proceeded to snub me on our return trip.
Amie with Hippocrates, the traveling hippo. That bridge was how we crossed over the river Loire, to an exciting day of way too much biking.
The trail started out quite nicely, going through a national forest park of some kind. The weather was beautiful, and not too warm or too cold. Cool enough so that we didn't sweat terribly while biking.
We cycled through some very scenic towns as well. Little sleepy hamlets that you never quite expect to exist in real life, but think rather that they are only in movies about bygone days.
I made friends with this donkey on the way. He seemed to rather want to be petted, but there was an electrified fence between the two of us. As we rode away, however, he made a horrifically lonely-sounding bray. I thought that meant that he missed us. On the way back, however, he was joined by a pony in his paddock, and proceeded to completely ignore me. I was snubbed.
This was my favorite spot in the entire trip. It was just a random field that we passed, but the picture does not capture even a fraction of how lovely it was. The old barn among the trees, the green green grass, the sleepy brook meandering through the middle of it... absolutely gorgeous.
Cheverny itself is a quite nice chateau, lived in up until quite recently. It is the basis of the mansion in the Tintin detective series, which is apparently quite famous. I haven't seen it, but it was apparently an integral part of Brendan's childhood.
This brook was my second favorite spot of that trip. The weeping willows trailing their branches and the quiet rushing of the water under the bridge was quite poetic, as was the random ruins a bit further on. We think it might have been a bridge at some point, but it was in the middle of a pond, which made very little sense.
The really amazing thing was that we got right back up again the next morning (after a suitable soak in the hot tub the previous night) and made the 47 km round trip to Chambord, one of the most picturesque castles I have ever seen in my life. There are pictures up on Amie's blog, the link to which is in one of these last entries. I'm quite proud of us for making it all that way; the countryside was definitely worth every minute of painful hills and fatigued rest stops, even though my rear still hasn't healed properly.
We stopped to eat lunch before we entered the chateau. Chambord was build for Francois I, who spent a total of 42 days in it after spending so much time and money on its construction.
I wanted to post this picture up right after we got there, with the caption. "So what did you do today? We did this."
Amie was quite the trooper for this bike ride. She bore up during this exhausting ride without a word of real complaint, and without any of the copious delays and long rest stops that she was planning into our itinerary. It was a very nice ride--we would all take turns at being in front and navigating, and we'd just sort of change spots every now and then to talk to each other about random stuff, all along the trip. And, of course, she spared me the need to have to keep up with Brendan, who probably would have just ridden me into the ground quite cheerfully and modestly, all the while telling me he's not that fit and that he's tired too.
The Loire Valley also produces some very tasty wines of which I picked up a few bottles to take home. The people in the small town are incredibly friendly, and the same goes to the people we passed on the biking route. It took us through country fields and past old houses and through great suburbs, and everyone we passed would wave and say "bonjour" with a smile. I like them better than I like the Parisians.