Beaugency-Blois-France-9-10-14

Beaugency-Blois-France

Chateau Chambord

 

28 miles (45 km)

Total so far: 1,535 miles (2,471 km)

Ascent: +723 ft  (220 m); Descent: -895 ft (273 m)

• World > Europe > France > Centre > Beaugency  – map
• World > Europe > France > Centre > Saint-Dye-sur-Loire  – map
• World > Europe > France > Centre > Chambord  – map
• World > Europe > France > Centre > Blois  – map

 

This is some of the best bicycle path that we have had on the entire trip. We cruised at 15 mph along the smoothest paving along the levy of the Loire River. We rode through medieval towns that look so old it’s amazing anyone could be living in any of the buildings. They were not heavily touristic towns and very small in size. Muides-sur-Loire and St Dye-sur-Loire were particularly fascinating.

We took the route towards Chambord. It is one of the classic château’s in the region. They have created a new bicycle path to take you to the château and although some parts of that path were gravel it was really quite an easy ride. The château itself is huge. There are cafés and restaurants in the park nearby with use of the château. You can buy tickets to enter into the château, but we figured it would take at least three hours just to go through the building itself it was so huge.

From Chambord we followed the Highway D33 to Blois. The bicycle path showed numerous sections of gravel and the Highway was right nearby and not very crowded. Arriving on the edge of Blois, we needed to find a market which is a daily task. In Vineuil,, we saw signs for Intermarche, a big market chain we have seen throughout France. It was a bit of a circuitous route to find it, but since we did not know where to look in Blois, and where the campground was in Blois, we did our shopping in Vineuil.

On the outskirts of Blois, we saw the sign for camping to the northeast of our location. Strange we thought that’s not the direction we want to travel. But since we had no campgrounds marked on our map, we decided that we would follow the signs for this campground. Either you road on a very busy highway to get to the campground which was 4 km the wrong way out of town, or you road on this absolutely atrocious gravel bicycle path which was signed as a bicycle path. We could see no excuse for such a terrible path, but the highway seemed way too dangerous to ride.

The campground is principally for motor homes. It is however, very large and expensive and at this time of year there was tons of room to spread out. It does not have a view of the Loire River; it does have the sound of the traffic Highway behind it. It certainly is not one of our favorite campsites. However, the campground has Wi-Fi and a nice room with tables and chairs where one can sit and use your computer. It’s nice to have a place in case of bad weather.

We did notice when we went through the town of Vineuil, there was a sign for camping there. Perhaps one should check that out as that is where there is a market as well. A concern of course in late September is that a small campground like that may be closed.