Tours to Blois
Lunch with a master
I am no Imelda Marcos. Shoes, while important to me so I can walk around without destroying my tender feet, are not a focus of my life. But today I need new shoes.
For most of the trip so far I’ve been having issues clicking into my “clipless” pedals. (The reason why pedals that you click into are called clipless is another story.) Rather than it being an issue with the pedals, it turns out to be an issue with my 10-year-old shoes (a gift from Neil). The soles of the shoes have deteriorated and rather than giving me a nice firm base they feel as if I am cycling in thin rubber thongs.
Happily, there is a bike shop just a few doors up from our hotel and it is open today. I have to conduct almost the entire conversation in not-English, and sadly, under stress every bit of French I know flies out of my head. I point at my feet and say, “velo”.
Fortunately he gets what I want and I get new bright blue shoes!
The old shoes go into the bin. It feels bad, but what do you do? I think the cleaning staff will be shocked to find a pair of perfect-looking shoes in the bin and will think we are fickle tourists, throwing shoes out on a whim.
With my shopping this morning we are a little late getting out of the hotel. At 11:15 somebody comes knocking on the door to hurry us out, so we scramble to pack up and get our bikes loaded. Having arrived late last night and not seen much of the town we take a leisurely turn around before leaving.
In my new shoes, I ride like the wind today. For a while at least. We follow the EV6 route along La Loire and then up and out out into farming land before coming back down near the river and into Amboise.
Amboise is a lively town with a pretty awesome chateau. The area around the chateau is busy with tourists and you can’t see a lot of the chateau, so we buy cold drinks and cycle across to Isle d’Or where we eat lunch in the shade alongside a huge (and hugely immodest) statue of Leonardo Da Vinci, and with a fabulous view of the chateau.
I did not know, but Leonardo Da Vinci lived here in Amboise. He came to France on the invitation of King Francis I. When he came from Rome he brought his notebook and three of his major works (the Mona Lisa, St Anne and St John the Baptist). He worked on various projects for the king and saw out his last days right here in Amboise. He is buried in a chapel inside the chateau.
From Amboise, things don’t go so well route-wise. We take the road out of town and do not reconnect with the route. We go hunting for it down by the river, then realise it is … up there in the hills. Bugger that! We decide to fang it along the road for a while then pick up the route again for entry to Blois, where we’re staying tonight. Our apartment is on the other side of the river to the main part of the town, and takes a bit of hunting around because Google maps doesn’t know the address.
Bonus! Our apartment has wonderful views of the town and a washing machine!
When touring by bike you need frequent opportunities to do laundry, or be shunned by society for being foul-smelling. I have only three changes of cycling gear, so that makes three or four days before laundry is needed. Even though it’s pretty late, we dump our clothes into the washing machine before heading into Blois proper and having dinner.
Compared to many places we’ve been so far, Blois is low on eateries and I end up eating chips and pizza – of course with a couple of glasses of fine French vino!
It’s lucky we have a large apartment tonight; we have clothes strung everywhere in the hopes that they’ll dry on this warm night.
Stats for today:
- Distance: 70.45
- Climb: 191m
- Average speed: 16.1km/h
- Average temperature: 32C
- Moving time: 4:23:00
- See our ride on Strava
The beer picture
At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at a cafe near our apartment in Blois, on the other side of the river from the main part of town.
Along the way today:
