Our first day’s ride on the Loire valley bike route. We were lucky to have nice cool overcast weather.

We were impressed with the quality of the bike route – most of it is tarred and totally off road. The whole bike route is almost 700km long (from Nevers to the Atlantic). We have bought a (French) booklet detailing the whole route. It was relaxing to be able to ride side by side for much of the time without worrying about traffic and on flat terrain.

Long stretches of the route are along river stop banks. About 8km were through the Réserve natrelle du Val de Loire, also along a stop bank – lots of trees with glimpses of the river. We stopped for a coffee at la Charité-sur-Loire at a crossroads hotel bar – without crossing the bridge into town.

We spent a while riding in circles around St-Satur, as the track signs through the town were so misleading. The Canal latéral à la Loire joins the river here, and the next part of the bike route is along the canal. There are a number of house boats docked at St-Satur, and some tourist house boats here and there on the canal.  The route leaves the canal at Bannay to ride alongside the river, through farmland again. We stopped to sample a few grains of wheat and found they were absolutely ripe – nutty and quite edible.

We passed a large power station with huge cooling towers just before Belleville, where we very briefly joined the canal again. Kris enjoyed racing a tourist house boat to the bridge.

Our next coffee stop was at Bonny-sur-Loire – quiet at this time of day – we had coffee at a bar in the town square. We decided to stop for the day at Briare, about 12km away. However, once we got there Kris suggested pressing on to Gien (another 11km), to make the next day’s ride to Orleans more manageable.

There is a pont-canal (a bridge taking the canal across the river) at Briare, which we crossed. It is not as large as the pont-canal at Agen, but still impressive.

Some of the track to Gien was a bit rough (untarred) with some up and down stretches – to wake us up at the end of the day.

Gien is beautiful to approach, it is on the other side of the river, with an arched bridge and a large church and chateau on a hill in the middle of the town. Jenny didn’t enjoy crossing the river as there is a lot of traffic bottlenecked on it.

We found a hotel on the side of the river overlooking the town and paid extra for a room with a river and chateau view – it was worth it as we enjoyed the view while eating our picnic and later on as the sun started to set.

We did a record distance today of 137km – possible due to the flat easy terrain and cool weather (I was exhausted but Kris still perky!)