A good full day of easy riverside riding today, involving all the Loire tropes: cathedrals and chateaux, latticework bridges, bike-friendly campsites, wineries, giant wine bottles, tripe sausages, crushed Renaults, and nuclear power stations.
My campsite last night was only five miles from Angers, a fine cathedral and castle city, so I nipped up for a quick look round after breakfast. As seems usual in France, getting there was a pretty relaxed business thanks to good cycle paths, often segregated from the traffic and with priority over cars, plus the bike-respectful nature of much French driving.
Also as seems usual wherever I go in Europe, the cathedral was covered in scaffolding and closed for works, all those Gothic masonry marvels hidden behind polyester sheeting, rubble chutes and dusty platforms. I haven’t got much good at analysing pinnacles, boss stones or buttresses, but I can spot a Layher modular from a tube-and-fitting.
It was still early, and activity in the centre was restricted to lorries delivering to as yet unopened shops, but I had a brief ride along the riverside and up to the few cobbled streets of the Old Town, still empty, then up to the castle to admire the view back over the river. But with plenty more to see today, I wanted to get going.
Back in Ponts-de-Cé I saw a long queue in a very tempting boulangerie, and decided I didn’t need to get going quite that much yet, so joined the line for a pain au chocolat.
The cheery bloke behind me chatted about cycle touring, giving me local tips on the Loire, so I forgave him for blocking my bike by parking his SUV on the pavement outside. He was glowing, possibly thanks to his cycle touring, or perhaps because he worked at one of the many local nuclear power plants.
Then I was heading east again along levées, all delightfully quiet and enjoyable, with a tailwind. I crossed the river on another of those grand bridges at St Mathurin, and headed into Saumur.
I passed the mushroom museum I visited in 2015 on my France End to End, so didn’t need to visit again, as I’d already made all the fungus-related jokes I know.
Neither did I drop in to the Langlois winery, one of many lining the road into Saumur, as I did back then to sample some free crémant, effectively champagne in all but name. The sparkly rush to the head in 2015 didn’t enhance the rest of the day’s actual riding, in particular making the steep ascent to the castle quite a challenge. This time – having explored the pleasant centre of Saumur – was much easier.
I was surprised to see several cyclists riding across the moat bridge to the castle itself, which was evidently free this Monday, so emulated them.
There were excellent views up and down over river from the castle and surrounding lanes: this was easily the highest I’d been since I started the Loire path, and it felt like a proper summit, instead of neither nowt nor summit.
Today’s main attraction came next: the Troglodyte Trail at Souzay-Champigny, picked out in a recent video by the excellent quirky-travel YouTuber the Tim Traveller as the ‘world’s spookiest bike ride’.
That’s an exaggeration – I’ve had scarier rides back home from York station many a time past midnight – but it was right on my route (in fact, part of the Loire path itself).
The Troglo Trail takes you through caves and tunnels. The crumbly tufa limestone cliffs all along the south bank of this part of the Loire are riddled with them, and many houses and storerooms have been built over the centuries into the rock faces. No wonder the French word ‘cave’ means ‘wine cellar’.
The Trail itself is a bit short and a bit tame, but I did have a good encounter with a very nice local bloke who’s doing up one of the many derelict cliff properties.
He showed me some of the less-obvious nooks and crannies in the cave systems, such as a large cavern that used to be a storehouse but had collapsed some years ago, crushing the then owner’s Renault R4.
The squashed carcass of the vehicle was still there, like grisly, ossified roadkill. He also kindly showed me round his house/ project/ building site. Which, well, will be fantastic when it’s finished, if a bit dusty: those walls are rather friable.
There’s obviously a lot of waiting involved in these troglo refurbishments, because I did rather get the sense he didn’t have much to do and was keen to buttonhole any passing cyclist.
I carried on east along the main road (sometimes) and Loire path (other times) and saw a lot more cave dwellings, shops and storehouses, particularly in places like Parnay.
On its entry roundabout, Turquant boasts a jaunty giant bottle of wine to greet visitors – at a rough guess, about ten times the height of a conventional bottle, hence holding a notional thousand or so. For my dad that would have been almost a year’s supply.
The sun came out for my trundle through the narrow main street of Montsoreau, a delightful Loire town, and carried on to Candes-Saint-Martin to another inexpensive (€8) yet splendidly-equipped campsite.
It had a good cyclist kitchen with charging points, tables, pots pans and cutlery, wifi and more. The reception had a little restaurant which offered andouillettes, a sort of tripe sausage which tastes much how you’d expect, though I had an excuse because I’d brought my own pasta.
The campsite was also right on banks of the river. Great news for mosquitoes, less so for cycle-campers who forget to douse themselves in Wilko insect repellent.
Miles today: 50
Miles since Saint-Nazaire: 158