Tours to Blois

First thing, Le Mans is pronounced Do Mon. Tours is pronounced Tw-errr. Blois is pronounced Bwl-errr. I've discovered that most French sentences will contain quite a few errs. It sounds like they aren't sure what they're saying so I nod patiently, which makes them think I understand what they're saying. Then I ask if they speak English. If they say no I start miming, but I've noticed I unconsciously stop speaking English too in my narration of the mime. I just make French sounding noises. I could be that I actually do speak French but nobody has told me yet.

Anyway, I got to Tours last night. It occurred to me that it was 4 weeks since I last slept in a bed, or even on something soft. So I decided to go to a hotel. It was £28 on Expedia. Not too damaging but I felt immensely guilty.

I didn't explore Tours but on my ride through it seemed very nice. Not like horrible Rennes.

The hotel was near the airport and it had 12 stars on the sign. I'll tell you what it felt like 12 stars too.

I stayed at the hotel until checkout at 11:30 this morning. Then I went to KFC. Shame shame shame. It was 12:30pm by the time I actually set off.

I rode down to the river and along the cycle path until it ended. The Loire valley has a big long cycle route (800km) that is signposted and I figured that it was probably on the other side of the river, so I rode along a busy road to the bridge google said I could cross. And I could have if I was a boat. That meant I had to either go back into the town or go along the busy road to the next town. I don't like back tracking so I stayed on the busy road for 13km until the next town with a real bridge.

That town was called Amboise (I don't know how to pronounce it but guessing Amw-errr) and it was very nice. It sits on a wide part of the river with a big bridge going  across. There is a huge chateau up on the hill. I didn't know chateau means castle. At the bottom there are cobbled pedestrian streets full of restaurants. It would have been a nice place to stay.

I stumbled upon the Loire valley route at the bottom of the chateau so followed it from there. I have to say, that bicycle route is fantastic. It is excellently signposted. The route goes on a mixture of quiet country lanes (but open to traffic, not that there was much) and dedicated cycle paths. It would be easier to take the main road the entire way as it's straighter and flatter, but the cycle route was really fantastic.

Unfortunately I must have missed a sign about 15km before Blois. I got to a road and there was no signs saying what way to go so I guessed I was supposed to turn off earlier and missed it. I decided to just make tracks to a campground. Google took me down a rough dirt track about 5 km long and up a bloody big hill and the campground didn't exist. 2nd time that's happened. So now I'll only go to ones that have reviews.

So I made my way down the hill to another one and google took me through a wheat field, past some bee hives and up an embankment to the road. It's ridiculous!

I'll probably go have a look at Blois tonight then make my way to Orleans tomorrow. I reckon I probably cycled 70 or 80km today which isn't bad seeing as I'm lazy.

First photo is the "bridge", second is the chateau, rest are the river.