After two short days I thought I’d better get some miles in, and with half-decent weather forecast, planned a substantial day of sixty-odd miles. It was fairly easy, thanks to the Loire path being well-signed, flat, smooth, and with cars outnumbered by artisan boulangeries. It would have been even better if some of them had been open. It was Sunday.
I slipped out of a grey, cloudy Nantes, past the grand castle and alongside the river on good functional, if prosaic, bike paths: this was mainly wide, flat farmland. A bit nondescript, really. None of the French websites mentioned this. Perhaps because there’s no French word for ‘nondescript’.
At least there was the odd interesting bridge. The standard model for Loire crossings is a long boxy affair of steel latticework with decent bike provision. You don’t get much chance to admire the detail in close-up, because there’s a steady stream of cyclists going past.
In the village of Oudon, where I picked up a snack from the supermarket, I was taken aback to see a sign in the village centre saying ‘Batheaston 577km’ – a locality outside Bath where I lived in the 1990s. The two places are twins, but presumably not identical. I remember Batheaston as being bigger on hills but smaller on artisan boulangeries and local-produce markets (there was a Costcutter though). Maybe they’re twins like those cases you read where the fathers are different.
I snack-lunched by a damp waterfront in Ancenis, where I was further dislocated by the sight of a red British phone box, and headed resolutely in spitty rain along a succession of good smooth paths to St Florent.
I had to sit out a brief heavy shower with a coffee in a little cafe by the bridge, and was amused by sign to the adjacent riverside track that said No Entry except for ‘Desserte’. I had a slice of flan in my foodbag, so I suppose that allowed me access.
It was levée roads from here, a regular feature of Loire riding: smooth, wide, level tarmac ways running the length of the floodbanks that parallel the river’s curves. Virtually untrafficked except for the odd local, they’re effectively cycle lanes.
They’re part of what makes the Loire such a popular option with couples, who can chat side-by-side stress-free as they trundle along on their e-bikes. Clearly Don McLean wasn’t thinking of these levées when he wrote American Pie. There were no Chevvies here, and they certainly weren’t dry: it was drizzling a bit.
I passed through Chalonnes, where I camped in my 2015 France End to End, but this time carried on along the riverside tracks. Easy, gentle stuff, and my fuel efficiencly was good: around 500 miles per gallon of coffee.
At one point, as the sun burst out, there appeared a strange rocky column like an Easter Island statue. I was put in mind of a similar feature in Taiwan from my End to End there, which was supposed to look like Richard Nixon.
Soon after I crossed a dry branch of the Loire, dramatically green and grassy under a waterless bridge, and arrived gratefully at Ponts-de-Cé and my intended campsite. It was cheap and well-provisioned (cyclist kitchen, tables, charging points, wifi).
It was also rather muddy. The longer I trudged round the site, the more mud piled up on my shoes. By the time I went to bed I was about six foot ten.
Miles today: 64
Miles since Saint-Nazaire: 108