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Thursday, May 30 - Auxerre to Muides-sur-Loire, 4329 km
We leave at 7:30 this morning, when Christian leaves for work. There are hurried hugs all around. He says he'll keep in touch but I can't imagine that he is the type of man who writes letters. Today is the day we head for the Loire Valley with all its amazing chateaus. It is a part of France neither Mike or I could miss. It is still going to be over a hundred km to first big ones, like Chambord, so it is good that we have an early start.
There is a strong tailwind from the north-east that makes our cycling west a breeze, as they say. We pick up where we left off two days ago, following the Yonne River downstream for the first nine kilometres. Then we head south-west over gently rolling landscapes through Sepeaux, Chatillon-Coligny and Les Choux averaging 20 km/hr. The type of cycling is a lot of fun. We reach the Loire Valley by noon, 90 km from Migennes. This is by far the greatest distance we have ever cycled by this point of the day.
We stop for lunch in Sully-sur-Loire, where we visit our first chateau. We want to
limit the time we spend touring the insides of chateaus to the largest ones, so we opt to just take pictures of the exterior of this one and move on to the next. Before we leave, Mike calls his boyfriend John in Washington DC. John chastises him for calling too early (it’s 7 am Washington time) and asks him if he has been too hard on me. I’d say yes, but I’m afraid I have been just as hard on Mike at times. After our lunch break, we follow the Loire Valley west from Sully. We are on the smallest roads on a few kilometres south of the Loire to avoid Orleans and most of the traffic. The guide book says the Joan of Arc gave her life to preserve the French claim to the city, but it is doubtful whether or not she would do the same today. Orleans, it says, has nothing much to offer other than perhaps a place to do your laundry.
The valley is very broad and flat, rendering the scenery boring. In some places the road is perfectly straight for long distances. "Perfectly straight" is never exciting. I would prefer a route with rolling hills for the variety and the views. It amazes me that there is so much international hype for this region, which is uninteresting except for a few extraordinary buildings, especially since every region in France has exceptional buildings. Our next chateau is the largest in the Loire Valley - Chambord. It lies beside the Cosson River, seven kilometres south of the Loire about 50 km south-east of Orleans. We pass through a nature preserve just before we reach it, which is a nice change. The great chateau is magnificent but we first need to find a place to sleep tonight. We need to cycle to Muide-sur-Loire 8 km away to find a cheap room, but I have managed to convince Mike that returning to tour the chateau tomorrow will be worth the price.
We have cycled 189 km today, the longest day of loaded cycling in my life, and only 20 km short of my longest unloaded day of cycling I have done before. I have impressed myself.
I eat dinner in a very inhospitable restaurant, my first experience like this in France. It seems strange to them that I want to eat there if I am not staying there, even though several people who are not staying there are drinking at the bar in the same room. After such a long day I am in no mood to make any trouble over this petty issue. The waiter asks permission of the cook to take my order, as if the restaurant might not want my money.
PHOTO 1: shot taken of Mike while cycling
PHOTO 2: art shot at lunch stop
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