Krause Travels

Here is our new apartment in Paris. Not as glamorous as you were thinking, huh? Our new French real estate is just two lockers in the cage where we keep our bikes in a parking garage close to the Gare de l’Est, but we couldn’t be prouder. It took a year of wrangling with the infamous French bureaucracy to rent them (which is a whole other story), but now we can leave tools, clothes, shoes, helmets and other bike riding paraphernalia here and treat it as our launching pad to new bike adventures.

Five Days on the Loire

We’re taking the train to Nantes to begin our first multi-day bike ride in almost two years.

Nantes to St. Florent Le Vieil: Riding on the Loire à Velo, we are on a well signposted, mostly flat cycling route along the Loire, France’s longest river, which meanders through a lush valley known for picturesque towns, castles, and wine. 

We know it’s been a minute since we’ve done this sort of thing, but you’d think we’d never traveled by bike before with all of our first-day bumbling. We don’t take enough water, we skip buying groceries for a picnic lunch because we don’t think we’ll be hungry and then wolf down an enormous batch of fried food at a roadside food truck because we’re starving by noon. We pay for it the rest of the day with overwhelming sleepiness and indigestion.

We leave the key ring containing ALL OUR KEYS (!!!)  dangling from a bike lock all day because we forget to take them out of the lock and put them away. Our phones overheat because the handlebar map cases trap in heat from the battery packs and phones, and when we unzip the cases a bit to vent the heat, the battery packs fall out and clatter to the ground. We forget about how fast muscles cramp, saddle sores form, and thirst happens. And it’s only the first day.

Still, the magic of seeing the world from a bicycle kicks in despite the mostly self-inflicted discomfort, and we love exploring Nantes and ending our first day in St. Florent Le Vieil.

St. Florent Le Vieil to Angers: The Loire Valley is experiencing its third or fourth heat wave this summer. It’s hot, and we see sights like these during our five days on the road:

We go from St. Florent Le Vieil to Angers with its narrow medieval streets and its castle, famous for the enormous Apocalypse Tapestry on display in a dim, climate controlled hall. That alone is worth the visit, but the views of the whole valley from the ramparts and our stroll through the castle’s landscaped gardens and terraces are memorable too.

Angers to Saumur: Our ride from Angers to Saumur has one of the highlights of our trip—a self-propelled ferry ride across a small tributary of the Loire using a little boat attached to a chain we use to pull ourselves across to the opposite bank.

The terroir of the Loire Valley is tuffeau, a soft, yellow limestone seen everywhere once you start looking. It’s what the castles are made of. It’s the rock walls. It’s the sheer narrow cliffs that loom over the bike trail. It’s also in the wine. The vines’ roots go deep into the tuffeau layer, and troglodyte caves, ancient and historical, are where many Loire Valley wines are made and stored.

En route to Saumur is one of those troglodyte caves where a local artist has carved detailed miniature sculptures into the cave’s walls of the most significant castles and churches in towns along the Loire. Called Pierre et Lumiere, this work of subterranean art gives you an underground tour of the entire valley’s most important buildings and history as well as letting you experience its most significant geological feature firsthand.  It is one of the best introductions to this part of the world and will have you thinking about it long after the visit is over.

Saumur to Chinon: Saumur is a short visit with a hilltop castle and more beautiful views of the Loire. We leave the Loire à Velo and head to Chinon, a small town along the Vienne River.

The Vienne region is known for its Cabernet Franc vineyards, and Chinon has many wine tasting bars, called either caves or domaines, where you can sample wine, wine, and more seriously good wine.

Chinon to Tours: Our last ride is to Tours where we spend two days before returning to Paris and our, ahem, apartment. We wander into the Tours cathedral where the intense valley sun lights up the stained glass windows.

We also wander the medieval streets, eat yummy food, and take a wine tour to some nearby vineyards.

A Ferris wheel view of the Loire at night completes a successful, 164-mile trip.